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Hello there. I propose deleting the statement at the top of the article saying that Korea has one of the world's oldest civilizations. The justification is this: the statement is wrong - it is merely a national myth that Koreans like to believe, but which isn't true. Rather than mention all the civilisations in the middle east, north Africa and Asia that are older than Korea's, I'll just mention one: The Thais entered the Bronze Age between 5000 and 6000 years ago. Also, note the source given for the statement is a museum brochure which merely repeats the same national myth, without actually giving any facts, figures or comparisons.
Second, I propose deleting the statement in the intro that Korea has visa-free status with the US. This information is not important enough to be in the article, let alone the intro, because many countries have visa-free status with many other countries, and these are not mentioned in the other countries' articles. I suspect a Korean editor has placed it in the article because it is topical (only happened a couple of months ago, to great fanfare in SK), and to give the impression that the US somehow "approves of" or "accepts" South Korea.
Third, I propose altering the statement that Korean teenagers have the lowest pregnancy rate in the world. The statement is wrong (the link itself says the BIRTH rate is the lowest in the OECD, which is quite different). I propose altering it to a statement about Korea's overall birth rate, which is among the lowest in the world. I suspect a Korean editor has deliberately chosen a statistic which gives a favourable impression of Korea (Korean girls are virtuous) instead of the more interesting general statistic (which would acknowledge that Korea has a problem with declining birth rates).
At a later stage I will suggest some alterations that deal with the problems with North Korea, the innumerable rankings, and the environmental section. But these three will do for now.
Please feel free to add your suggestions to mine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.157.234.16 ( talk) 05:04, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Due to the huge amount of text and the length of time since the last archiving (about 2 years it seems from the date stamps), I have archived much of this page to Talk:South Korea/Archive 3. To see what controversies & NPOV issues were being raised before the South Korea page was protected, please look over this archive. KieferFL ( talk) 22:31, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
This article is in serious need of attention. The continuous and ridiculous economic miracle facts are laughable. When you look at South Korea's GNP(nominal),it is far below other major industrial nations - that is the important information. Keep rambling on about how its industries are bigger than Coca Cola and Burger King etc. put together do nothing to help the reader actually gain the information they are looking for. Colliver55 ( talk) 16:13, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
Economic development is subjective and not defined by GDP per capita alone - in other words that is not "the important information" as you say. You seem to have a lack of understanding regarding welfare economics. Life expectancy and literacy rates are just as important, if not more important than how much money you earn. Also, can I ask how you know what "the reader" actually wants to gain? is it perhaps a reader in your point of view that S Korea is "far below" "major industrial nations"? Your view is quite controversial in this respect. Next time, think about it carefully before putting a POV tag. Lakshmix ( talk) 16:57, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
Do not remove my NPOV tag without discussing it first. You will get nowhere by unilateral action. Additionally even by PPP, Korea is very low in ranking in GNP. Colliver55 ( talk) 18:05, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
You have not properly sourced the statements. Please don't keep removing my tags. You are vandalising the page. Colliver55 ( talk) 18:15, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
To this guy who is continuously putting "neutrality" and "misleading" tags, I just don't get it. What can be possibly "neutral" about statistics from the OECD and World Bank??? You seem to be just jealous about S Korea's success since it has economically much stronger industries than your country (which is UK as i read before). The article is very well-written and I seriously want to give credit to the guy who has given up his time and effort to make it a really good article for us. And what on earth is so "misleading" about this article??? If a country had an incredible economic miracle, there is clearly going to be evidence to support that. And you seem to be willing to be denying that. 92.233.108.66 ( talk) 18:37, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
Maybe sockpuppetry needs to be investigated. Colliver55 ( talk) 19:30, 30 November 2008 (UTC) You can remove my tags as many times as you like. Until you address my concerns I shall add them again. Colliver55 ( talk) 19:45, 30 November 2008 (UTC) I am more than happy to civily discuss my concerns with you, but there are too many to list all at once. Colliver55 ( talk) 19:49, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
I will go through the article one statement at a time as you request and then we can consider changes. You will get nowhere by unilateral edits. Colliver55 ( talk) 20:59, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
Trust me, this is nothing to do with UK better than South Korea. If I was looking to compare the UK with a country I would look for a more worthy opponent such as France or Germany or Japan. South Korea is certainly not our equal. Colliver55 ( talk) 21:42, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
In my opinion, the worst section is the Environment one. It says "In the past, SK had some minor problems with air pollution. But the mayor of Seoul has been working hard to fix that." What a joke! I live in Seoul, and it has appalling pollution. Tap water is tainted, and every spring the toxic Yellow Sands blow in from the Gobi Desert. The sky turns orange and people everywhere walk around with facemasks on to filter out the toxins. I'm not saying the article needs to be critical of SK. Just balanced, for god's sake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.5.253.175 ( talk) 09:31, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I agree too. I lived in SK for a while. The living standard is below western countries because it is very crowded and they have to live in small apartments. Also, it is very gray and not beautiful at all. But it is also true that their economy has advanced quite a lot. This article is embarrassing, though, because it only says lots of good things about Korea. It looks like some Korean editors are trying to control the page. This article should be tagged NPOV and with need for attention by a NPOV editor. Maybe that way the numerous weasel-words and random statistics and rankings can be fixed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.147.53.5 ( talk) 04:00, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
The page is locked for a short time so I can be clear about this. In 15 minutes the page will be unprotected. From this time onwards, anyone continuing to edit war will be blocked to prevent disruption. Confine your edits regarding the contested area to the talk page until a resolution has been achieved. If the issue seems intractable, seek dispute resolution. CIreland ( talk) 22:43, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
You obviously haven't read the references properly. Maybe you have an issue with this? Colliver55 ( talk) 23:18, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
I've never edited this article before, as far as I know, but I just came and looked at it after seeing it mentioned at WP:AN. Much of the article is written NPOV, but much of it isn't, especially the Economics and Science and Technology sections. Those sections, along with the intro, look like they were written by employees of the S. Korean government. Nevertheless, adding a bunch of fact tags and NPOV templates to the article won't help it much. Instead, go through and NPOV the wording. If you're too protective of the article, then step back and let someone else handle it. Cla68 ( talk) 07:28, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
All that really matters is if everything is factually correct. Aerain ( talk) 14:58, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
I just fixed an error earlier. Aerain ( talk) 15:01, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Lakshmix, please stop saying that South Korea has more patents than the US. If you can't read a scientific paper then don't bother editing this article. You are clearly not qualified to do so. -embarrassed laugh Aerain ( talk) 15:33, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
To the guy claiming S Korea has more patents than the US, I did some research into WIPO's latest database (2007) to stop both of you from making non-sense claims and reveal the truth. So here we go, straight from the horse's mouth:
-South Korea had the world's largest filings per GDP, ahead of all countries.
-South Korea had the world's largest filings per R&D, ahead of all countries.
-South Korea had the world's 2nd largest filings per million population, ahead of USA and Germany, UK and France.
-South Korea had the world's 3rd largest resident filings , ahead of EU and Germany, UK, France and Canada.
-South Korea had the world's 4th largest total patent filings, ahead of EU, Germany, Canada, UK and France.
Source: http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/freepublications/en/patents/931/wipo_pub_931.pdf
I am sure South Korea is growing very fast and will overtake US in a couple of years but I guess Lakshmix claim isn't completely justified and Aerain is right in that the US has more total patents than S Korea, at least for now. I think the sentence simply needs rephrasing, as you can see above.
I just fixed a previous error, here is the correction made:
It is a global technology and innovation leader, it ranks third in the number of inventions filled first in the country, typically meaning where it was also invented. [3]
I really doubt South Korea holds more patents than the US--it has a lot more fund and a way larger workforce than South Korea. -embarrassed laugh
It was probably the work of a nationalist knucklehead. -embarrassed laugh
You have to remember that South Korea is no Japan, at least not yet-- and this comes from a Korean. Aerain ( talk) 14:58, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
It says "per million people". -embarrassed laugh
Now, revert back to what it was before. Aerain ( talk) 15:03, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
A lot of nationalism... -embarrassed laugh Aerain ( talk) 23:50, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
In an effort to try to remove some of the non-neutral tone to this section, I have removed the mentions of how sections of the South Korean economy are superior to other industrialized countries. I looked at the links and it was clear that the countries chosen were chosen in a rather POV manner. If Japan ranked higher, it wasn't mentioned. If Japan was ranked lower, it was, etc., etc. Someone above mentioned how as long as the info is correct, then it shouldn't be removed, but that isn't actually true. Picking and choosing the comparisons is manipulating the statistics. If someone edited that section to replace all of the "ranks better than"-like sections with "ranks below" sections, it would be non-neutral as well. I tried to keep all the basic info there as best I could. (I did remove one section, because it repeated previous portions about the automobile & shipbuilding industries.)
I also removed some of the excessive linkage. The page is an AWFUL lot of blue. Good where appropriate, but how many times in a section does Seoul need to be linked to, really?
I'd love to hear ideas about further edits to this section. KieferFL ( talk) 05:22, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
As a further note to the non-neutrality of such picking-and-choosing countries to compare South Korean statistics to, I submit the following from W:NPOV: Even where a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be introduced through the way in which facts are selected, presented, or organized. Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased, accurate, and proportionate representation of all positions included in the article. KieferFL ( talk) 06:23, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your tremdous contribution - it makes your points very clear and I definitely agree with most of what you say. However, I do think some of your removals are inappropriate and needs rewording. Generally, I agree with most of the excessive linking and they should be removed as you wish. Some of the show original research, such as the 2002 world cup, for which there are plenty of citations pointing to a historical events. I will definitely incorporate all of your suggestions, let's see what comes out in the end.
Wondergirls (
talk) 21:59, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for your hard work KieferFL! -- Apoc2400 ( talk) 16:38, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Thank you for the tremendous editing and discussion. I hope to come back to this page later and help the cause, but at the moment I'm overwhelmed by the amount of work needed... RlndGunslinger ( talk) 11:02, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
This article is loaded with POV, boosterisms, poor references and copyright violations. One of the weakest country articles I came across.
I understand that Koreans are proud of their nations progress in the last few decades, but come on...this article while perhaps factual, stinks of undue weight. for example..
The postwar economic miracle in the late 20th century transformed South Korea into an industrial powerhouse and one of the wealthiest countries in Asia.
The K2 Black Panther is one of the most advanced main battle tanks in the world.
Seoul is a major global city and a leading financial center in Asia.
South Korea is one of the world's top five automakers, led by Hyundai and Kia.
South Koreans enjoy one of the highest living standards in Asia, with a high income per capita and a high degree of economic freedom.
South Korea is the world's largest shipbuilding nation and one of the top ten exporters in the world.
Samsung Group is the world's largest conglomerate,[83] leading several key industries in the world.
South Korea is the world's leading producer of computer memory chips
South Korea is a world leader in high-tech electronics such as cell phones and LCD TVs, led by Samsung and LG.
This is just a fraction of the OTT language used in this article, this is wikipedia, not a promotional website for South Korea.
It would be nice if someone who is familiar with this article changed it, otherwise I am going to make some bold edits and major changes.
Sennen goroshi ( talk) 06:51, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
There has been edit wars going on especially for economic section for over one week. I believe that the economic section is overly written, and not neutral. KieferFL ( talk · contribs) has been trying to clean up the article from good faith, but Lakshmix ( talk · contribs) and Wondergirls ( talk · contribs) disagree to his removal of cited sources as noted above. In fact, there is no consensus for the removal, so KieferFL should've patiently waited for people's response on his suggestion, not as leaving "per talk" at his edit summaries. Anyway, which one is more suitable for the article? KieferFL's preferred version or Lakshmix and others' preferred version-- Caspian blue 05:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Previously-uninvolved RFC comment: What am I looking at here? The summary of this dispute dwells on the behavior more than the content. From an initial read, I think the slightly longer version of the article (the "Lakshmix and others" version) has more precise detail, but it also has a lot of exaggeration and fluff. I don't agree with either version fully. For example, I think World Cup details should certainly not be in an article about the whole nation. South Korea's largest manufacturers, however, are notable and important, and I think they should be retained. For this reason, I somewhat prefer the longer economic section, but I think the laudatory language is way out of line and needs to be cut. Cool Hand Luke 22:52, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
The article has been protected for 3 days from today because of the ongoing edit wars between users. Please discuss the dispute on the economic section in a civil way. If the conflict is not resolved or a consensus not reached within the day and then edit wars resumes again, the protection would be longer per a request to WP:RFP.-- Caspian blue 13:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
is this a South Korean tour guide?
Everything is sugarcoated in order to promote. Please, somebody give the article a good rinse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Platinum inc ( talk • contribs) 17:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
{{ editprotected}} I am proposing the following changes:
1. Currently:"There was heavy [[anti-Japanese sentiment]] in South Korea due to a number of unsettled [[Japanese-Korean disputes]], many of which stem from the period of [[Korea under Japanese rule|Japanese occupation]]." *Change to: "There was heavy [[Anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea|anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea]] due to a number of unsettled [[Japanese-Korean disputes]], many of which stem from the period of [[Korea under Japanese rule|Japanese occupation]]."
2. Currently: "Many of these forces are concentrated near the border with North Korea, near the demilitarised zone."
3. Currently: "...and is well protected from external economic conditions through vast foreign exchange reserves, which is currently three times larger than the USA, UK and European Central Bank."
KieferFL ( talk) 19:14, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
{{
editprotected}}
1. Currently: "Education in South Korea is regarded crucial to success and competition is consequently very heated and fierce. In the most recent OECD Programme for International Student Assessment, South Korea came first in Problem solving, first in Reading, third in Mathematics and eleventh in Science.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PISA</ref>"
2. Currently: "A centralised administration in South Korea oversees the process for the education of children from kindergarten to third grade high school. South Korea has adopted a new educational program. It was planned to increase the number of their foreign students through the year 2010. According to Ministry of Education, Science and Technology estimate, by that time, the number of scholarships for foreign students in S. Korea will be doubled, and the number of foreign students will reach 100,000.<ref>[http://www.education-blog.net/2008/08/28/south-korea-now-open-for-foreign-students/ South Korea Now Open For Foreign Students]</ref>"
3. Currently: "Korean farmers have a hard time finding a wife,..."
Since there haven't been any opposing views: {{ editprotected}}
1. Currently there are 26 times that Seoul is mentioned as a city. 18 of those times, it is a link.
2. Currently Snuppy is linked to twice in the Biotechnology section.
3. Currently Samsung Group and Samsung (which redirects to Samsung Group) are linked to a total of six times, four links in picture captions.
{{ editprotect}} 1. Currently: "...it is neighbored by China to the west, Japan to the east and borders North Korea to the north."
2. Currently: "...in the 14 century and the rise and influence of [[Confucianism]]."
3. Currently: "...[[renewable energy]] to reduce its [[reliance]] on foreign oil imports..."
4. Currently: "South Korea is the world's sixth largest nuclear power producer and the second largest in Asia."
5. Currently: "...capable of expressing human [[emotion]]s."
Three days & no opposition, so:
{{
editprotected}}
1. Currently: "
Balhae, Silla's neighbor to the north, was formed as a successor state to
Goguryeo."
2. Currently: "South Korea is considered to be one of the world's most successful [[economies]],<ref> http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051116-6.html</ref> which was the second fastest growing economy..."
3. Currently: "The Hyundai Kia Automotive Group is the second largest car company in Asia..."
4. Currently: "...and making South Korea the world's seventh largest economy in 5 years.<ref>Robert Koehler (Mar. 2008). Korea's CEO President Lee Myung-bak, Seoul Selection. http://seoulselection.com/shopping_book_view.html?pid=1557</ref>"
5. Currently: "Transportation in South Korea is excellent and provided by extensive networks of..."
KieferFL ( talk) 21:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
I also have some proposals for the article.
1. Incheon Int’l Airport Caption, currently: “Incheon International Airport is rated as the best airport in the world and awarded the full 5-star rating from Skytrax.”
2. References
RlndGunslinger ( talk) 11:59, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
These proposals are focusing specifically on the Technology, Cell phones, and Online Games section. This section needs serious cleanup, especially since it has no (zero) references.
"Modern South Korean culture is heavily dominated by technology."
"In recent years games, both online games..."
Paragraph beginning: "Modern South Korean culture is dominated by..."
"This is by far the preferred pastime for students..."
One last note about the section about Samsung and LG phones at the end: This part is misleading, if not outright false--without sourcing it’s even harder to tell. First of all, as cell phone operators they are somewhere in the top twenty perhaps, but even the best Korean operators combined-- SK, KTF, and LG Telecom—would only rank eighth in the world. [1] Second, if the two companies are being touted as cell phone manufacturers, then they should be listed as such, but it still needs sourcing. In fact, the brief searches I made on various engines brought up a few articles that mentioned Samsung as #2 in the world, but LG was listed as #4, not #3. This first link is outdated a bit, [2] but even last year they were noted as being fourth according to BBC. [3] Really though, I don't mind if people bombard me with a dozen news clip telling me I'm wrong, since it would at least be a sourced comparison. Which brings me to my last point, why do these comparisons need to be made both here and in the Economy section? It's not a secret that people have been complaining about the rankings and comparisons in the article, so let's remove some of them, redundant or otherwise. RlndGunslinger ( talk) 09:25, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Right now there are 12 pictures for the economy section. Six in the general economics section, four in the high-tech industries section, and two in the Transportation and Energy section. I feel that some of these pictures are unnecessary as they do not illustrate the section well. The large number also, I feel, overwhelms the section visually. Therefore I would like to see a little weeding of the pictures take place.
I think that the picture of Seoul with the caption "In 2006, Seoul was the second most expensive city in the world.[61]" should be removed, as there is already a picture illustrating Seoul at the top of the section. (Caption: Seoul is a major global city and a leading financial center in Asia.[45])
The picture with the caption "South Koreans enjoy one of the highest living standards in Asia, with a high income per capita and a high degree of economic freedom." I feel should also be removed. It does not support the point of the caption, nor does it seem illustrative of the country's economy. Also, it's main subject appears to be the green car, and another picture with a car is being used to illustrate the Automotive industry, so there is a bit of visual repetitiveness.
The high-tech industries section has four pictures, two of which illustrate the corporations Samsung & LG. I think that a picture showing a high-tech industry giant is useful, but 2 (even though the LG picture is meant to illustrate the technology...I'll get to that part next) is a bit too much. So, I would keep the Samsung picture.
The other three pictures are meant to illustrate the various technologies. I feel that 3, again, is a bit overwhelming. I suggest that removing 2 of these would better illustrate and highlight the technology side to the section. I feel that the best of the three is the picture of the memory chips with "KOREA" on them. The computer chip is the basis for the technology industries and it illustrates the section well.
The remaining two represent their section, although the picture of the airport isn't as illustrative as the picture of the train. Perhaps the picture Image:Korean.747.arp.750pix.jpg would be better? KieferFL ( talk) 21:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
Of all the country-articles I've read at Wikipedia (easily more than 100), this one is the first one that strikes me as genuinely bad. As other editors have commented upon, it's so extremely nationalistic that it leaves the reader with a negative impression of the country. While all the things in the lead are positive by themselves, such a mouthful of praise already in the lead gives the impression of an extremely chauvinistic society. I don't propose deleting any of it, but I don't think it belongs in the lead (which is already far too long). Other countries have similar achievements in a separate section in the article. I'd also like to point out that even though the article is very well sourced, I would argue that it violates WP:POV. Focusing only on the positive features of any country and leaving out everything that could be negative is in violation of POV, even though sources are used. All in all, I'm sorry to say that South Korea is the first country-articles that leaves me with a more negative image than I had before I read it, and I think most readers will react in the same way at the lavish and uncontrolled praise and nationalism on display here. I would encourage those Korean editors who want to create a positive image of their country to rethink the way they edit this page. JdeJ ( talk) 18:46, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Sennen goroshi is right, he nailed the problem. It is the constant comparisons that make the article seem so biased and unbalanced. Why is there a need to always say that Korea is "best" instead of only mentioning the facts without these comparisons. Here are some of the claims I'd like to see rewritten. Please note that these are only from the lead, yet they alone would be enough for a lengthy propaganda-poster. Just like Sennen goroshi wrote, this is the kind of text you'd expect to find on a page written by the North Korean governement, not on Wikipedia mainly edited by South Korean editors:
That's thick. That's very thick, considering it's only the lead. Most of these claims are unsourced and many are dubious, but that is not the point. The point is that no encyclopedia would ever present a country in this way, and I don't think Wikipedia should do it either. Apart from making the article less readable and informative, it also gives the impression of South Korea being either a very nationalistics and/or a very insecure country and I don't think anyone is interested in that. JdeJ ( talk) 09:42, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
From analyzing the introduction-
"South Korea is one of the world's top ten exporters and a highly industrialized country that is classified as a High-income economy by the World Bank and an Advanced economy by the IMF and CIA."
This could just be written as ""South Korea is one of the world's top ten exporters and is an Advanced economy by the IMF and CIA." The article makes it obvious that South korea is a higly industrialized country and all advanced economies are high-income anyway.
"It has the world's highest scientific literacy and second highest mathematical literacy." This line is completely irrelevant as an introductory statement for a country.
"The Asian Tiger is leading the Next Eleven nations and is one of the world's fastest growing developed economies." This line could also be left out.
Also the image captions all say the world's most, the first, world's top etc etc.. The images should compliment the contents of the article. Not to metion that there are far too many images as well, especially in the economy section. Pds0101 ( talk) 14:11, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Could it be possible to change or remove these overly-biased views which are put into this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.212.165.61 ( talk) 00:02, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
It is quite difficult and biased, and you must give good reasons for changes. But looking through your history, It tells me that your edits to this article was certainly not for the best of it. Please restrain yourself from further vandalism. Pds0101 ( talk) 12:33, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Everyone can know racist Sennen and sockpuppets: Keifer, RlndGunsinger,Heroeswithmetaphor... the "true colors" are shown. You're many reverts without a valid reason is pointing to WP:POV. Stop your vandalism with no consensus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.98.180.232 ( talk) 03:43, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
[Its Gyeongnam region is also the richest region in East Asia with a GDP per capita of over $36,000.[52]
This part's source is under wrong. Gyeongnam's pop is 7.74million, and Total GRDP is USD 178Billion. So, Gyeongnam's GRDP per capita is around of USD 23,000. not 36,000. that is City of Ulsan(pop 1.2million)'s GRDP per capita.
And plus, meaning of East Asia is Northeast Asia + Southeast Asia, this source not containing other East Asian Flourishing Regions, Such as HK,Singapore,Taiwan.. So, richest is false expression. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Realist24 ( talk • contribs) 04:49, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Hello there: the korean wiki uses Daehan minguk to name the article, shouldn't we use the Official Title of the country to name the article, including that its commonly knows as South Korea?
BTW, yes, the article as a whole sounds biased and chauvinistic, but if reliable sources are provided (as I can see it is in several cases), well, those r the facts...
Plus, I've been adding more information to the KORUS FTA article, using the most wide number of sources available, where sometimes anonimous contrubitors would vandalize adding UNSOURCED DATA, so, thats what we must look after: UNSOURCED DATA. Gumuhua ( talk) 11:30, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
I came to the article with a sincere interest in the economic history of South Korea, but found the overall congratulatory tone of the article distracting, which undermines the content's credibility. I specifically peered into the discussion area wondering whether I was the only one who observed this. I don't want to get into the trenches already carved by the lengthy discussions, but I do want to underline a couple of points. I recognise that proponents of the current state of the article feel that their citations sufficiently justify each claim individually, and that moderators want to hear specific suggestions. The problem, however, is with the general tone, which is a product of the sheer number of rankings and achievements listed. They may all be true, but as a neutral reader, I'm interested in a few key highlights. The sheer volume of rankings, and repetition of vague qualifiers (most advanced, futuristic) give the whole article a biased tone.
There is also a conspicuously cursory treatment of negative facts in contrast to the positive ones. For example, "As with many of its Asian neighbors, South Korea suffered the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, but the country was able to re-emerge and continue its growth towards a major economic power after a swift recovery". My reaction as a reader was that the author was uncomfortable discussing the effects of the financial crisis, instead choosing to rush into the recovery phase with bright adjectives like "major" and "swift".
So to address earlier points, yes a big portion of the article is fine, but there needs to be acknolwedgement that the general tone of the article is biased. There is a palpable need to impress. It leaves me with the feeling that Koreans are insecure, which surely wasn't the authors' intention, so it's in their best interest to tone it down, rather than attack critics with demands for specifics.
Steven ( talk) 08:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Here's what this article has taught me about Korean culture: it spans from the first K-pop band in the 90s to today's most recent cellphones & online games. Are there really no noteworthy Korean poets, writers, philosophers, musicians, artists, etc.? Wallers ( talk) 21:45, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Composer: Ahn Eak-tai
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philosopher: -—Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingj123 ( talk • contribs) 2009-01-10T01:55:05 (UTC)
"Are there really no noteworthy Korean poets, writers, philosophers, musicians, artists, etc.?"
I am not surprised to see such response from the readers; there are indeed serious problems with regards to the research, flow and articulacy of the writing. So, I have made some suggestion for all editors who are willing to improve the quality of the article.
Facts are thrown in this article without a clear analysis and relevance to the overall topic. For instance, many of the claims in the economic sections are disjointed without any “segue.” Hence, as you can see, there is no argument or thesis being portrayed from the section other than "Korea is rich." For instance, we should segregate the era of Asian financial crisis separately from South Korea's growth of the economy ater the crisis, instead of merging them into a single statement: "Korea suffered during AFC but now it is the fast growing economy..."
"South Korea has the second highest savings rate in the developed world[61] and is well protected from external economic conditions through vast foreign exchange reserves.[62] South Korea is a global technology and innovation leader, filing the largest number of patents per GDP and R&D expenditure in the world.[63] It is the world's largest shipbuilder - in 2008, more than half the ships produced in the world were made in Korea.[64] It is also one of the world's top five automobile manufacturing *nations[65] and the sixth largest steel producer in the world.[66]"
:: Interesting sets of information however I do not see the point of this paragraph.
The second problem is that many of the statements are not justified or explained. For instance, "South Korea seeks for reunification with the North" is not sufficient enough. We need to actually go to the library or online databases to look up South Korea's policy to the North and the relations between the two countries. As far as I know, the inter-Korean relation is much more sophisticated and it deals a great deal of explanation.
The third problem is the wording. There are several spots where I find awkward sentence structures and these hamper the soundness of the article. Even a slight change can enhance the impression.
Lack of reliable academic research is the main factor that disrupts the overall credibility of the article. The article is starving for more in-depth content and substance; and the editors have to invest more time researching before presenting the information, and proofreading may help. South Korea is much more than this and it is certainly a great country, however, I find it disappointing to see the article portraying the false image of the country due to the inadequacy of the research content and the basic flow of the writing.
--
Kingj123 (
talk) 01:55, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
No actually, with exception of few statements I do not think the article is bias as a whole, but seem like so. Most of the facts have citations and I have confidence that these claims are indeed true. However, more work needs to be done to support these facts with more explanations and research in order to reduce the "choppiness" of the facts presented; and hopefully dismiss all of the skepticisms.
As far as solution is concerned, we should first:
We can also distribute, for instance
"South Korea has the second highest savings rate in the developed world[61] and is well protected from external economic conditions through vast foreign exchange reserves.[62] South Korea is a global technology and innovation leader, filing the largest number of patents per GDP and R&D expenditure in the world.[63] It is the world's largest shipbuilder - in 2008, more than half the ships produced in the world were made in Korea.[64] It is also one of the world's top five automobile manufacturing *nations[65] and the sixth largest steel producer in the world.[66]"
can be split apart. Then, the statements should be distributed into different topics; in that way we can avoid being repetitive and maintain the flow of the article.
Ziggymaster, thank you for your interest in the South Korea page. Until recently the page was under protection due to rampant vandalism and edit-warring. Due to these problems and others the talk page for such a controversial article is especially important. Improvements to the article are welcome, but please feel free to post any proposals you have for improving the article on the Talk Page first. Concerning the templates placed, I put them there because these section are either completely unsourced, or have only one source. In this way, it is more appropriate to tag a section than simply add citation needed to every sentence in the section, (although others have tried that.) If you check the "proposals" section you can find what I plan to improve, and my reasoning for the changes. I didn't undo your reverts because I want to talk about the changes first; let's try to work together to improve the article. RlndGunslinger ( talk) 01:23, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
I have made some major changes to the article. It goes without saying that prior to my edits it was a highly biased article that seemed to concentrate on promoting South Korea - advanced this, world leaders in that, blah blah blah.
I am wondering if someone from the South Korean tourism dept was asked to edit this article. カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! ( talk) 04:19, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
I myself disagree with many of the recent changes, but I'm being careful not to revert anything until people have had a chance to respond. Protecting the page is just a short-term solution, we need to "win the hearts and minds" if we are to stop the edit conflicts. RlndGunslinger ( talk) 07:15, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
This article doesn't imply that Korea is better than everyone else. But someone sure sprinkled a bunch of praise all over this article. Good friend100 ( talk) 00:15, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
There's been a bit of edit warring in the last few days; remember, please do not revert each other, even if your edits are consensus-backed. Instead, try to talk it over with users who are not cooperating, and if that doesn't work, report them to WP:AN3 or myself. The page will be protected from editing if it starts going back and forth, though. Thank you, Master of Puppets Call me MoP! :D 18:41, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
and if they remain quiet we might be able to make a few alterations that change the tone of the article into one that isn't so overly positive and is neutral.
before I jump in and remove huge lumps of promotional crap, I wouldn't mind if a few people gave their opinions.
And yes I do know that a lot of the things I have removed in the past had sources, that is not the issue - the tone of the article sucked.
カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! ( talk) 12:55, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
I edited 7 places on Jan 16th, they were all minor edits of just a couple words, and I gave very clear reasons for all my edits, the second day when I checked, all my 7 edits were reversed without giving any reason, or at least i can't tell the reason was referring to me or to someone else (didn't say anything about the content of what i edited). Of my 7 edits, one can be considered positive, a couple were neutral, the rest were changing the original sentence from positive to neutral, they were in general just more accurate. I think at least a few of my edits were necessary to avoid misunderstanding if the original sentence were to be kept. This is the first time I edit something related to Korea, and I just realized there's this editing competition going on here. I am wondering is there an administrator for this article who can tell me how i can avoid being reversed if i believe my edit is genuine and necessary? Chadsnook ( talk) 22:43, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Now the socks are quiet, I have made some major changes. The article really needed these changes. I am sure South Korea is a lovely place, but the article was so positive I was waiting to read that Korea dogs leave golden dog shits on the streets. If I have messed something up and removed an all important reference I am sorry, but I do think the article is a million times better now. Not that I have finished, but I will wait for the dust to settle before I do any more.
カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! ( talk) 15:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
I noticed the statistics about suicide and corruption were removed from the International Rankings. Ex plain yourself, 92.233.108.66. If you refuse to justify your removal, then I will revert your edit or remove the rankings altogether. 76.187.104.246 ( talk) 21:43, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
As yet another example of the numerous problems with this article, South Koreans were recently allowed to visit the US without obtaining visas. Of course, most countries have visa-waiver status with dozens of other countries, and such things are not terribly important. But one of the "Korea-is-great-and-now-America-loves-us" editors thought this significant enough to put in the INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPHS TO THE ARTICLE. This is a symptom of the problems with the article as a whole - whenever something happens that makes Korea look even vaguely good, or accepted by other major countries, it gets thrown into the article as a random fact, with no relation to any other part of the article.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.147.53.5 ( talk) 04:16, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
It is understandable that there are areas which need to be more neutral, however, I widely regard Sennen Goroshi's actions are edits as hostile to Korean editors (reverting any edits by anyone who writes a positive edit). It is clear that outside this article, his articles continue to remove any positive remarks about Korea-related articles - this is very worrying and raising suspiciousness about assuming good faith for this user.
On the other hand, his edits for Japan are extremely favourable - he deliberately removed several A-class Japanese war criminals in this article, with no reason given, clearly pointing to NPOV.
This user is also continuously accused of creating several meat puppets to do what I described above - in the case of his/her sock puppets, the actions were much more hostile, deliberately removing entire paragraphs, blanking out Korean articles and breaking more than a dozen of Wikipedia guidelines.
Sennen Goroshi should be rightfully blocked as he/she has broken the 3-revert rule more than twice in a row - this week alone. He/she is continuing to revert any reverts by anyone and accusing them as "meat-puppets". The problem lies on this user's personal view about Korea, which are irrelevant. He/she continues to remove sourced materials with citations, which is clerly inappropriate and superficial.
I have also noted continued disputes between this user and other editors, and this user continues to use rude language such as "fucking", clearly inappropriate in Wikipedia. Assume good faith. I had to revert some edits and remove some hostile edits for this reason.
My conclusion is that Sennen Goroshi's actions inevitably only lead to continued disputes with other editors and that he/she must work together with other users, stop removing sourced materials and not revert anyone or accuse anyone of meat-puppets. That only creates more hostility.
This is for the improvement for the article, not a direct criticism to Sennen Goroshi.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.233.108.66 ( talk • contribs) 2009-01-22T00:02:03 (UTC)
Seriously, I can sense the hidden implication in pictures. I'm gonna remove or replace current excessive, unnecessary, unfit images from the article. Encyclopedia is NOT an image repository or catalog, but the images on the article really prevent me from "read" texts or edit further.
gallery |
---|
|
-- Caspian blue 07:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Moreover do not make pictures in a forced size because according to image policy, people can make images bigger or smaller by adjusting in preference. Also the "right" function is a default setting, so inserting it is simply redundant.-- Caspian blue 08:01, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
When we first come into a wikipedia article about a country, nation or a state, we know that the lead is one of the most important sections of the page as it is opening and introduction to a user. I have seen many, so many other country articles and I have to say with absolute honesty that the lead for South Korea is probably the most strikingly bad introduction. Economic, scientific, military and educational achievements take up more than half the physical contents of the opening lead. Why is there a need to include things such as vise waiver, top scientific literacy and having a strong cultural influence? This is completely unacceptable. There are also other wealthy major economies in the world that have achieved just as much or more that Korea, but when you compare South Korea's lead to other countries, Its fair to say that it is overly positive. This article is already detailed enough and mentions all and more of what is in the introduction. It even has a ranking table in the end; Something which most country articles don't have. I am very aware of, and have for a while kept my eyes on edits made by users such as Sennen goroshi who make rather distruptive changes or cause vandalism(but not always). However, these attacks are a common occurance on country related articles, and there are also those who wish to present a more constructive and neutral point of view. I will put forward a new toned-down introduction to the article which can address as many relevant points as possible. Pds0101 ( talk) 10:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
It's obvious that this article is seriously lacking in NPOV. Don't even think about asking me for specifics; they've been clearly laid out previously, some are just too POV oriented to see it. Plus, I have a life other than editing Wikipedia, so....
What about uniformity standards? I'm sure there are some. If this article doesn't look uniform to say...USA, England, Japan, etc., then it should be revised to look that way. If the USA's article doesn't have rankings, then why should South Korea's? I think you see the point here. If it doesn't look like other countries (not facts, obviously, but format, layout, etc.) then it should be revised to be such.javascript:insertTags(' 69.23.143.175 ( talk) 15:24, 22 January 2009 (UTC)',,)Nathan
//If the USA's article doesn't have rankings, then why should South Korea's?// Is there a wikipedia rule which says if USA does not have, so should South Korea? Don't get me wrong, I don't think this article actually needs a ranking table, but not everything needs to be perfectly aligned with the US page. Though we can adopt a similar article structure as with other major country articles. The structure of the introduction and economy section at this point concerns me the most. I think these are areas which need to be toned down. Pds0101 ( talk) 00:37, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Now that Lakshmix has been indef blocked for sock-puppetry and Wondergirls has been indef blocked for racist personal attacks, perhaps we can get back to editing this article.
It is looking a touch better, but still a long way from perfect - the general tone of the article has to change - all of the terms such as "world leaders in ..." do nothing for the article apart from making it POV - also 6th best in the world at whatever, is hardly notable - perhaps it would be notable if it was a small country, but for a nation such as South Korea it isn't needed.
This article should have been perfected a long time ago, the article was easy - dealing with constant reverts and multiple accounts was what made improving the article difficult. カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! ( talk) 19:33, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I removed the controversy charge with regards to the 2006 World Baseball Classic. I could find nothing to validate this other than Wikipedia. However, these pages include the same story. That is, South Korean beat Japan in the first and second round-robin pools, but then lost to Japan in the single elimination semifinal game. I can see how this might be frustrating, but without some sources supporting the controversial nature of the tournament format I see no reason to include this statement. Further note, this story is repeated on other pages. Hence, they will need some cleaning as well. Liberum.philologus ( talk) 03:27, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Compare the introduction to this article to the Korean-language Wikipedia. The difference is amazing! The Korean introduction has three paragraphs that briefly describe Korea: 1) the country, its capitol and its form of government, 2) the fact that Korean has grown from a war-ravaged country to a strong economy (mentioning "miracle of the Han River"), 3) and a distinction between North and South Korea. These are the essential facts that describe South Korea.
On the other hand, the English-language introduction overuses superlatives, and while factual, the overstatement of fact lessens the credibility of the article. Others who have commented make the same argument, which I'll restate: overstatement and redundant superlatives confuse the reader, and make an immediate, negative impression of Korea. Consider the difference between the Korean- and English-language introductions:
Korean wiki | English wiki |
---|---|
Seoul is the capitol. | Its capital is Seoul, a major global city with the second largest metropolitan area population in the world. |
The president and the head of state, is Lee Myung-bak, the 17th president of the Republic of Korea. The prime minister is Han Seung-soo, and the chairman of the National Assembly is Kim Hyeon-goh. | Korea is one of the oldest civilizations in the world, first inhabited as early as the Lower Paleolithic. Following the unification of the Three Korean Kingdoms under Silla in 668 AD, Korea went through the Goryeo and Joseon Dynasty as one nation until the end of the Korean Empire in 1910. After liberation and division, South Korea was established in 1948 and has since become one of the two full democracies in Asia. |
...a war-ravaged county, the economy has grown to 13th-ranked GDP in the world. | Following the Korean War, the South Korean economy grew significantly, transforming the country into a major global economy. ... South Korea is a developed country. It is the second most prosperous major economy in Asia and a High-income OECD member, classified as an Advanced economy by the CIA and IMF. South Korea's exponential economic growth is called the Miracle on the Han River and earned the distinctive reputation of Asian Tiger in the world. Today, it is leading the Next Eleven nations and its economic success is a role model for many developing countries. |
DPRK is North Korea... Republic of Korea is South Korea... | South Korea shares the most heavily-fortified border in the world with its only land neighbor, North Korea. |
— | South Korea has a high-tech and futuristic infrastructure, and is a world leader in technologically advanced goods such as electronics, automobiles, ships, machinery, petrochemicals and robotics, headed by Samsung, LG, Hyundai-Kia and Hyundai Heavy Industries. It is a global leader in the fields of education, having the world's highest scientific literacy and second highest mathematical literacy. South Korea was also estimated, in the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations, to have the second highest average national IQ. |
— | Since the 21st century, South Korea's modern culture has become popular in Asia and beyond in a phenomenon known as the Korean wave. |
— | South Korea has an international outlook with memberships in the United Nations, WTO, OECD and G-20 major economies. It is also a founding member of APEC and the East Asia Summit, being a major non-NATO ally of the United States. |
Simply put… follow the example of the Korean-language article. Reduce the introduction to the essential facts about Korea. Eliminate overstated facts and facts that belong in the body of the article:
Many of these facts have a place in the body of the article, or spread out in the related main articles. But in the introduction, the concentration of non-stop superlatives is off-putting to the reader. The problem is not a POV issue in the literal sense, but rather in the tone of the text and how it's presented. Other sections of the article need the same reduction of concentrated superlatives, but trimming the introduction is the first step. Comments welcomed! -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 12:07, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
For more discussion about the intro, please read Cherry picking. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 19:46, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
This article is truly pathetic, which is completley biased and unbalance. It is written as an advertisement, and no real encyclopedia would ever have an article as disgusting as this one. All i have learned from this is that South Korea is supposedly the "best" country at everything. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.35.143.14 ( talk) 16:37, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
I agree with these tags for this article. See " An assessment of the Introduction" for my reasons. Lets not attack the editor... Please discuss the article. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 07:36, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I looked at the Military section because it's an interest of mine. The opening paragraph says (my emphasis),
A major military power in the world, South Korea possesses the world's sixth largest number of active troops, the world's second largest number of reserve troops and one of the ten largest defence budgets in the world. The South Korean army has 2,300 tanks in operation, consisting of technologically advanced models such as the K1A1 and the new K2 Black Panther. The South Korean navy has the world's sixth largest fleet of destroyers and is one of the five navies in the world to operate an Aegis guided missile enabled destroyer, the King Sejong the Great class destroyer.
Not one of these extraordinary claims are supported by the citations. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. One document cited for these claims was published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). It's an academic analysis of military forces in Asia. A quote from the analysis puts the comparison of spending by North and South Korea in proper perspective:
Figures 5 and 6 show that South Korea greatly outspends North Korea, but that
North Korea has increased its military spending more quickly. North Korean expenditures are low, however, because state determination of prices and the ability to enforce very low manpower costs. Its expenditures would be
significantly higher if measured in comparable prices.
The claim that South Korea has the sixth largest number of active troops is not supported by the CSIS citation. The table on page 35 shows figures for Australia, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam; the rest of the world is not included. South Korea (678,700) is ranked fourth, exceeded by China (2,255,000), India (1,325,000), and North Korea (1,106,000). That does not mean South Korea has the fourth largest number of troops in the world. Instead, the citation has been incorrectly quoted.
The CSIS article does not mention Korea's K1A1 or K2 Black Panther tanks. It compares South Korea's tanks to other nations' tank forces only by number and type. The one verifiable fact from the CSIS article (Figure 7: Asian Military Forces in 2006: Part 1, p. 24) is that South Korea has 2,330 main battle tanks; versus China (7,580), India (3,978), North Korea (3,500), Pakistan (2,461), et al.
The next citation, dated May 2007, is an article summary (not a quotation) of another article that is no longer available online. This is the entire text:
The same day that North Korea again test-fired several short-range missiles, South Korea launched the first of three new Aegis destroyers equipped with advanced air and sea weaponry. President Roh Moo-Hyun, speaking at the launch of the one-billion-dollar 7,600 ton KDX-III destroyer, said “We cannot sit idle in the face of a continuing arms race in the Northeast Asian region." The destroyer, named the King Sejong, was built with stealth technology, making detection more difficult. South Korea becomes the fifth country after the United States, Spain, Norway and Japan to have the Aegis integrated weapons control system. The South Korean ship will be deployed operationally in 2009. A second Aegis destroyer will be launched in 2010, and the third in 2012.
The citation says nothing about the size of the South Korean destroyer force relative to the the rest of the world. It does not say South Korea operates an Aegis-equipped destroyer, only that one ship was launched in 2007. "It has also the world's largest fleet of frigates, the sixth largest of corvettes and the fourth largest of submarines in operation," has no citation.
The third citation is a table of South Korea's Air Force equipment. The table does not compare Korea's air forces to the rest of the world. The paragraph states that Korea operates "advanced American fighters such as the F-15K, KF-16 and advanced indigenous models such as the T-50 Golden Eagle." This is overstatement of the capability of the T-50. The T-50 is a trainer — it has no fighter capability. According to the table, the TA-50 version, a combat capable trainer, will be available in 2015.
There may be a question, "why is the entire article tagged unbalanced and weasel words?" I didn't tag the article, but I agree the tags are needed. Please read this discussion and the archives Talk:South_Korea/Archive_1, Talk:South_Korea/Archive_2, and Talk:South_Korea/Archive_3. Look for "POV" and "disrupt" in the archives. The problem of POV is a recurring one. The article is rated as Top-importance by the WP:WikiProject Korea, but remains at C on the quality scale. South Korea was twice nominated for good article, but failed both times. The same quality problems have remained for two years.
One alternative to the article tags is tagging each questionable item within the article. That's been tried before, and it doesn't work. When there are too many tags within the article text, the tags themselves become disruptive. Tag-wars are edit-wars in disguise.
My purpose in support of the tags on the entire article is to encourage discussion. If I had no experience with Korea or Korean culture, I'd have a negative impression from reading South Korea. South Korea deserves a better article! -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 23:11, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
If you identify problems in an article but don't have the time to fix those problems, at least take the time to choose the most relevant and specific tags, and consider leaving some explanation on the talk page so that others can understand what the problem is and determine if they can do anything to fix it. — quoting WP:RESPTAG
This back-and-forth tagging really needs to stop. Personally, I agree with Mtd2006 that the article has issues that need addressed...but right now I'm trying to speak as an impartial observer, because no matter whether or not the tags belong there, edit warring over them is even worse. Here's my suggestion for how we can find a happy medium until the article is cleaned up:
Identify the most problematic subsections of the article and tag those. As Mtd2006 pointed out, over-tagging can harm readability and be bad for the article... but at the same time, this article has certain subsections that are fine and factual (such as the ones about climate, administrative divisions, and other boring stuff), and having all-encompassing tags that cover the whole article seems to offend some people. So I think tagging the three or four most problematic subsections will keep people from being offended (since it avoids saying "this entire article is bad"), and it will be more constructive because it will show people more specifically what needs to be edited.
My suggestions for what needs to be tagged:
rʨanaɢ talk/ contribs 01:45, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Like Rjanag, I come to this article as an impartial observer. I haven't contributed to the article. I admit to being frustrated that the edit wars continued with very few comments in the discussion… until another editor added tags. The tag/no tag problem is a repeat of previous problem in the archives. One editor, angered that he couldn't tag the article, decided to tag the text instead. This too was ineffective and ultimately disruptive. It's called WP:Tag bombing. When an new editor comes to an article, the tags indicate that discussion is needed. An editor who sees no tags rightly assumes there are no issues that need discussion, which leads to an edit war. The tags are intended to encourage discussion. There's no other purpose or intent. Can we reach consensus if we don't discuss?
To Rjanag's list, I would add the introduction. I agree about the other four sections. Based on the edit history of this article and the numerous edit blocks that have occurred, there will be little progress until editors can agree on what's wrong and what needs to be changed.
Introduction: In my attempt at an assessment, I mentioned the Korean-language version of this article. I read Korean poorly. I can make out the basic meaning, but the tone and specifics are beyond my abilities. If someone who is fluent in Korean would look at the Korean version of the introduction, I think we would have a good example to follow. What better description could there be than one written by Koreans?
Specifics:
A general remark about the article itself… The basic problem is not the facts in the article or the references that are cited. The problem lies in the way the facts are presented and how the references are used. Call it what you like: POV, wordiness, etc. If you look at the history of this article, isn't that the main problem? Please don't mistake criticism of the article on South Korea with any intent to defame Korea or Koreans. My goal, and the hope of others who have tried before is to improve this article. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 05:30, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Another reason for article improvement tags, besides encouraging discussion and concensus, is that tagged articles appear on the WikiProject Korea's list of articles needing cleanup. Tagging this article alerts members of the Project that attention is needed. Removing tags, without fixing problems, simply hides the problem from the editors who are most interested in its quality. That is truly unfortunate. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 05:33, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
http://stats.oecd.org/OECDregionalstatistics/indexTL2.html(OECD Japan / Korea(TL2)
This source's GDP per capita calculation is falsed; Gyeongnam Region(pop. 7745535/GDP. 178059 Million USD)'s GDP per capita calculation result is must be around of 23,000 USD. not 36,000. in this source, Japanese Regions GDP per capita calculation also falsed. this source is not 'RELIABLE' source. so, i think this source and source-related article parts must be deleted.
AND Ulsan is Second Lichest City in E.Asia and Tokyo's GDP per capita is just 45,000 USD? it is just ridiculous. Tokyo also Osaka GDP per capita exceed 70,000 USD in 2004 Source and Nagoya's GDP per capita in 2005 is around 5.5million yen. please LISTENING READER's OPINIONs for make GOOD ARTICLE.
GDP of Tokyo [4] Osaka [5] Nagoya [6] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.111.130.185 ( talk) 13:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Regarding this edit: while the way the information was inserted was clearly unconstructive, The Onion's atlas ( Our Dumb World: The Onion's Atlas of the Planet Earth) actually does have a long parody article on something like "South Korea: best at being second best" or whatever. Maybe it would be worth mentioning somewhere that this popular stereotype exists (as long as we are clear that it's a parody and a stereotype, not a legitimate view of historians and social scientists and whatnot). rʨanaɢ talk/ contribs 19:07, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Update citation for url= http://www.rom.on.ca/news/releases/public.php?mediakey=sg1yebpnv8
-- Mtd2006 ( talk) 03:51, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
This news release from the Royal Ontario Museum is used to support the statement that "Korea is one of the oldest civilizations in the world". The reference has been misused. It's an example of cherry picking (see Cherry picking below). The news release was incorrectly titled "Ancient Civilizations" in an old revision [7]. The news release is not about ancient civilizations. It's an announcement that the Royal Ontario Museum will display over 250 Korean objects in its new gallery.
An editor found the quotation, "Considered one of the oldest civilizations in the world, Korea has evolved as a distinct culture making its mark through art and technological accomplishments." The news release is an incorrect citation for the claim that "Korea is one of the oldest civilizations in the world". A correct reference would be a research paper that describes ancient civilizations. A museum press release doesn't do that. The statement should be removed from the introduction. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 04:46, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
If you find unsourced facts that you can't verify, please comment here. List the section and quote the unsourced fact. Unsourced facts should be verified or removed, see WP:VERIFY. Please sign with ~~~~ , and thank you. Mtd2006 ( talk) 04:35, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Section | Statement/Comment |
---|---|
Transportation and Energy | "South Korea has currently the world's fifth largest rapid transit system." This statement has a reference to Total rapid transit systems statistics by country, but that article has no reference at all. Mtd2006 ( talk) 04:35, 17 February 2009 (UTC) |
Right now, the article has many instances of cherry picking. Cherry picking happens when an editor finds a source of information, but selects only the most favorable (or least favorable) facts.
This sentence is from the introduction: "Its capital is Seoul, a major global city with the second largest metropolitan area population in the world." The citation for this statement come from this published research paper: Which are the largest? Why published populations for major world urban areas vary so greatly. From the title alone, I think we can see that the reference is not about which cities are largest, but rather it's about why it's so hard to know which city is first, second, or third. Here's what the reference says about Seoul's population:
Source | Rank | Population in millions |
---|---|---|
A | #2 | 22.9 |
B | #4 | 21.7 |
C | #2 | 20.7 |
D | #4 | 20.2 |
E | #7 | 16.9 |
F | #4 | 19.8 |
G | #18 | 9.9 |
H | #9 | 10.2 |
In Table 2, p6, a United Nations population estimate lists Seoul, ranked #18, with population 9.5 million.
A wiki editor cited this reference but selected only the most favorable fact. These two tables really say that Seoul's population ranks between #2 and #18, depending on how population is counted. The sentence in the introduction is incorrect according to the reference. Moreover, even if a source is found that only lists Seoul's population as #2, it should not be used to justify this factoid. The reason is explained in the conclusion, p37 (my emphasis):
This paper has made an effort to clarify the statistical portrait of the world's most populous urban areas, and to explain that differences between published lists of such areas are due primarily to differences in geographical definitions. [...]
Each type of definition has both advantages and disadvantages. In any major metropolitan area, the administrative central city is an important entity and well known locally, and statistical data for it are essential to its efficient operation. However, it rarely provides a good basis for comparisons with other large urban areas except on limited issues of municipal administration. Likewise, definitions based on administrative areas larger than the central city may be useful locally but offer little comparability with other areas and other countries.
For these reasons, I propose that the sentence, "Its capital is Seoul, a major global city with the second largest metropolitan area population in the world." should be revised to read, "Its capital is Seoul."
Comments always welcome.
--
Mtd2006 (
talk) 06:43, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Editors frequently add the words "world's first" to the T-50 Golden Eagle trainer. This is untrue. I suspect there's an incorrect news release or web site that makes this claim. There are other supersonic trainers that are older than the T-50. One famous example is the SR-71B. There's a nice drawing of the SR-71B at the U.S. Air Force web site. Notice the extra instructor cockpit just above and behind the main cockpit. Please don't add "world's first" to the description of the T-50. Thank you. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 05:13, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
The introduction states that Korea has "the world's highest scientific literacy and second highest mathematical literacy." The problem with this statement is that the references at http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_sci_lit-education-scientific-literacy and http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_mat_lit-education-scientific-literacy don't support the claim. Both table are the results of testing 15-year-old students. It's easy to miss the definition at the bottom of each page that says "mean value of performance scale 15 years old 2000". These factoids are only true for 15-year-olds in the year 2000. The phrase "having the world's highest scientific literacy and second highest mathematical literacy" is not true according to the NationMaster web site and should be removed from the article.
If this factiod is important to the article, its correct place is in the Education section. However, you should explain that the tables from NationMaster are the result of testing 15-year-olds in 2000, because this fact is easy to miss if you read the references. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 05:46, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
This issue has been discussed previously and the problem recurs. In English, we use "Korean" for both the spoken and written Korean languages. We have a bias in English-speaking countries and generally all counties that use the Latin alphabet; we rarely make a distinction between our language and our alphabet. The "English alphabet" is really the Latin alphabet from the middle ages; see a clever graphical illustration at Evolution of Latin Characters from Evolution of Alphabets.
Other languages have specific separate names for the spoken and written forms of language. Korean is one of these. Written Korean is called Hangul; the spoken language is called Hanguko (formally), Hangukmal (general use), or several variants used in North Korea. Another variant of written Korean is called Hanja. Because this article is about South Korea, Hangul is the best name for the written language.
Follow the link to Korean language, and the distinction is clear,
This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Although I accept that common English usage is to use "Korean" for both the spoken and written languages, our bias is incorrect. Admittedly, Hangul is an unfamiliar term to most readers. The nice thing about unfamiliar terms in Wikipedia is that they can be easily linked to an appropriate article that explains them. The label [[Korean language|Korean]], directs readers to the spoken language. But Korean language redirects readers interested in the written language the Hangul article. The [[Hangul]] label explains the unfamiliar alphabet to readers who can't read Hangul. Isn't it most appropriate to refer readers to the directly to the separate article about the Korean written language when we introduce an unfamiliar alphabet?
-- Mtd2006 ( talk) 16:44, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Personally, my intuition is that this sentence is not intended to introduce the spelling of a word, but to introduce a new word (ie, saying "This is how you say "Korea" in Korean," rather than "This is how you spell tey han min guk in Hangul"). Since the word is a Korean word, not a Hangul word (Hangul is, as you said above, only a way of spelling Korean words), I feel that is the most appropriate way to introduce it. It's not a huge deal, though, and I am certainly open to other opinions. rʨanaɢ talk/ contribs 17:06, 19 February 2009 (UTC)often referred to as Korea (Hangul: 대한민국)
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK) ( Hangul: 대한민국, Hanja: 大韓民國, IPA: [tɛː.han.min.ɡuk̚]), ), often referred to as Korea, is a…
At various times, the infobox has cited two sources of financial statistics. One is the IMF (the International Monetary Fund) and the second is the CIA World Fact Book. Of the two sources, the IMF is an internationally recognized authority. The World Fact Book is published by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency and is not internationally recognized as a source of financial data; it's not the best source we can use.
We need four statistical items of financial data for the infobox.
The IMF resource provides all four items from a single, consistent source. The IMF statistics are clearly marked as actual figures or staff estimates. As of February 2009, the 2007 data is the most current actual data; the IMF has not published 2008 actual figures.
The World Fact Book lists only GDP (PPP), GDP (PPP) per capita, and GDP (nominal). These statistics are labeled "(2008 est.)". The CIA resource does list actual data as of February 2009, nor does it list the 2007 actual figures.
The IMF is the single best source for the GDP statistics that are needed for the infobox. The CIA does not publish the four statistics that are required for the infobox, and its figures are estimates rather than actual data. When the IMF publishes 2008 data, the infobox should be updated with that information. Is IMF the most consistent, most accurate, internationally recognized source of this information? Is there another source?
--
Mtd2006 (
talk) 06:25, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
What is the Joshua Project? The "Joshua Project is a research initiative seeking to highlight the ethnic people groups of the world with the least followers of Jesus Christ." [8] It's not a census of the population in Korea and it's POV by its advocacy. It focuses on select groups of ethnic people based on religious preference.
The web site states:
The exactness of the above numbers can be misleading. Numbers can vary by several percentage points or more. [9]
A non-POV, census-based source is needed for ethnic statistics with accurate figures. "Numbers can vary by several percentage points or more" isn't a reliable source for statistics as precise as: 96.9% Korean, 2.01% Japanese, 0.14% American, 0.13% Other Asian, 0.03% Eurasian, 0.02% European, 0.76% unclassified. The Joshua Project statistics should be removed or another source located. Comments welcome.
--
Mtd2006 (
talk) 16:47, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
rʨanaɢ talk/ contribs 12:07, 23 February 2009 (UTC)96.9% Korean, 2.01% Japanese, 0.14% American, 0.13% Other Asian, 0.03% Eurasian, 0.02% European, 0.76% unclassified [4] verification needed
I found a huge tidal wave of requests regarding revision and amerioration on this article, raised by about a full single digit of editors. In my opinion, it is relatively much easier to just pick faults (?) and raise question against them. Moreover, it is quite difficult to make fill out the article with contents (whether they are based on facts) to satisfy every users in Wikipedia. In addition, zillions of websites are scattered all over the internet, so it is nearly impossible to check all websites to assess if there's any other web source telling an antagonistic fact(s) to others.
So, my suggestion is that the editors raised questions and requested improvement on this article may participate in revising and ameriorating contents in the article immediately rather than just simple presenting the long lists of . Starting from there, I guess other editors can initiate 2nd round revisions upon the revisions the editors who raised questions will make. Judging from the volume of requests, I am sure that that will pave the much faster way for drawing consentment from the majority. Patriotmissile ( talk) 22:26, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
The section has no lead-in. This leaves the reader at a loss for context, that is, what's the importance of this section and how does South Korea present itself to the rest of the world?
I suggest a simple solution. Move the text from the
Other nations sub-section to the top Foreign relations section, and eliminate the "Other nations" sub-section. The "Other nations" text nicely summarizes South Korea's place in world politics, and presents a significant fact that Ban Ki-moon serves as United Nations Secretary-General.
Mtd2006 (
talk) 20:54, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I didn't see the discussion at User_talk:Dekimasu#South_Korean_and_South_Korean_(disambiguation) and I didn't see anything at Talk:South_Korea. I removed the redirect because of the original argument. Terms like "South Korean" are demonyms. Demonyms are not tied to ethnicity (the ethnic term "Korean" is an ethnonym); they refer to the residents of a region (country, state, city, etc.) Demonyms are used as adjectives, for example: South Korean history, South Korean culture, South Korean art, South Korean people. When a reader looks for "South Korea", certainly the South Korea article should appear. A reader who looks for "South Korean" is searching for a more general concept. Isn't the South Korean disambiguation page the most appropriate?
I can't find a Wikipedia guideline for demonyms that refer to countries. I ran a quick survey of 195 typical demonyms. 132 connect to disambiguation pages, 52 redirect to country articles, and 11 aren't used as demonyms. There doesn't seem to be a correlation to ethnicity in the 195 items I checked, nor should there be. Instead, should there be a consistent standard? I prefer disambiguation because, intuitively, a reader who searches for a demonym is looking for information about a general concept (in the sense of an adjective) rather than a specific country.
Used as an ethnonym or as the name of a language: Batswana, Emirati, I-Kiribati, Kirghiz, Kyrgyz, Luxembourger, Malagasy, Marshallese, Monacan, Ni-Vanuatu, Palauan.
Disambiguated demonyms: Afghan, Albanian, Algerian, Andorran, Angolan, Antiguan, Armenian, Austrian, Azerbaijani, Bahamian, Bahraini, Bangladeshi, Barbadian, Barbudan, Belarusian, Belizean, Beninese, Bhutanese, Bolivian, Bosnian, Brazilian, British, Bruneian, Bulgarian, Burkinabe, Burmese, Burundian, Cambodian, Cameroonian, Cape Verdean, Central African, Chadian, Chilean, Chinese, Colombian, Comoran, Congolese, Cuban, Cypriot, Czech, Dane, Dominican, Dutch, East Timorese, Egyptian, English, Eritrean, Estonian, Ethiopian, Fijian, Filipino, Finn, French, Gabonese, Gambian, Georgian, German, Greek, Grenadian, Guatemalan, Guyanese, Haitian, Herzegovinian, Honduran, Hungarian, Icelander, Indian, Indonesian, Iranian, Iraqi, Irish, Israeli, Italian, Ivorian, Jamaican, Japanese, Jordanian, Kazakhstani, Kuwaiti, Lao, Laotian, Latvian, Lebanese, Liberian, Libyan, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malaysian, Malian, Maltese, Mauritanian, Mauritian, Monegasque, Mongolian, Montenegrin, Motswana, Namibian, Nauruan, Nepalese, Norwegian, Omani, Pole, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Saint Lucian, Samoan, Scottish, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Somali, Sri Lankan, Swazi, Swede, Tadzhik, Taiwanese, Tajik, Thai, Tongan, Tunisian, Turk, Turkmen, Tuvaluan, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Venezuelan, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yemeni, Yemenite, Zimbabwean.
Redirected demonyms: Argentine, Australian, Belgian, Canadian, Costa Rican, Croat, Djibouti, Ecuadorean, Equatoguinean, Equatorial Guinean, Ghanaian, Guinean, Kenyan, Malawian, Mexican, Micronesian, Moldovan, Moroccan, Mozambican, New Zealander, Nicaraguan, Nigerian, Nigerien, North Korean, Pakistani, Panamanian, Paraguayan, Peruvian, Qatari, Rwandan, Salvadoran, Sammarinese, Saudi, Saudi Arabian, Senegalese, Seychellois, Sierra Leonean, Singaporean, South African, South Korean, Spaniard, Sudanese, Swiss, Syrian, Tobagonian, Tanzanian, Togolese, Trinidadian, Ugandan, Uruguayan, Uzbekistani, Zambian.
South Korean
might not be looking for South Korea). Removing the dablink isn't a problem if we have South Korea go to the disambiguation page (and, in that case, we could just move
South Korean (disambiguation) over
South Korean); it's just that the dablink probably shouldn't be removed until that change is made, since otherwise people might get redirected in the interim and not know how to get to the disambig page.
rʨanaɢ
talk/
contribs 17:01, 26 February 2009 (UTC)This discussion page is too long. I'll archive old discussions, but I'd like to refactor (rearrange and combine) some topics that are still relevant. It's important to preserve the blatant criticism of the article in the archives, but some entries aren't going anywhere or they're OBE (overcome by events). Give me a go-ahead and I'll refactor. We can restore if there are controversial topics that need to stay. Mtd2006 ( talk) 19:11, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
The main article implies that the T-50 is an aircraft model indiginous to South Korea. Actually this model is constructed jointly between Lockheed Martin and the KIA. The link I have given is Lockheed Martin's online brochure page for the T-50 from their corporate press kit section of their website. http://www.lockheedmartin.com/data/assets/corporate/press-kit/T-50-Brochure.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.176.214.225 ( talk) 10:30, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
I removed this prediction from the Demographics section, "The latests estimates state that Korea will have an aged society by 2018, and that the economy will collapse by 2036 unless birth rates increase or immigration is substatially boosted." The cite for this statement is: Tackling Low Birthrate Requires Shift in Thinking.
There are four problems with the "collapse by 2036" statement:
--
Mtd2006 (
talk) 18:51, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | → | Archive 10 |
This article is in serious need of attention. The continuous and ridiculous economic miracle facts are laughable. When you look at South Korea's GNP(nominal),it is far below other major industrial nations - that is the important information. Keep rambling on about how its industries are bigger than Coca Cola and Burger King etc. put together do nothing to help the reader actually gain the information they are looking for. Colliver55 ( talk) 16:13, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
I came to the article with a sincere interest in the economic history of South Korea, but found the overall congratulatory tone of the article distracting, which undermines the content's credibility. I specifically peered into the discussion area wondering whether I was the only one who observed this. I don't want to get into the trenches already carved by the lengthy discussions, but I do want to underline a couple of points. I recognise that proponents of the current state of the article feel that their citations sufficiently justify each claim individually, and that moderators want to hear specific suggestions. The problem, however, is with the general tone, which is a product of the sheer number of rankings and achievements listed. They may all be true, but as a neutral reader, I'm interested in a few key highlights. The sheer volume of rankings, and repetition of vague qualifiers (most advanced, futuristic) give the whole article a biased tone.
There is also a conspicuously cursory treatment of negative facts in contrast to the positive ones. For example, "As with many of its Asian neighbors, South Korea suffered the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, but the country was able to re-emerge and continue its growth towards a major economic power after a swift recovery". My reaction as a reader was that the author was uncomfortable discussing the effects of the financial crisis, instead choosing to rush into the recovery phase with bright adjectives like "major" and "swift".
So to address earlier points, yes a big portion of the article is fine, but there needs to be acknolwedgement that the general tone of the article is biased. There is a palpable need to impress. It leaves me with the feeling that Koreans are insecure, which surely wasn't the authors' intention, so it's in their best interest to tone it down, rather than attack critics with demands for specifics. Steven ( talk) 08:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Everything is sugarcoated in order to promote. Please, somebody give the article a good rinse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Platinum inc ( talk • contribs) 17:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | → | Archive 10 |
Hello there. I propose deleting the statement at the top of the article saying that Korea has one of the world's oldest civilizations. The justification is this: the statement is wrong - it is merely a national myth that Koreans like to believe, but which isn't true. Rather than mention all the civilisations in the middle east, north Africa and Asia that are older than Korea's, I'll just mention one: The Thais entered the Bronze Age between 5000 and 6000 years ago. Also, note the source given for the statement is a museum brochure which merely repeats the same national myth, without actually giving any facts, figures or comparisons.
Second, I propose deleting the statement in the intro that Korea has visa-free status with the US. This information is not important enough to be in the article, let alone the intro, because many countries have visa-free status with many other countries, and these are not mentioned in the other countries' articles. I suspect a Korean editor has placed it in the article because it is topical (only happened a couple of months ago, to great fanfare in SK), and to give the impression that the US somehow "approves of" or "accepts" South Korea.
Third, I propose altering the statement that Korean teenagers have the lowest pregnancy rate in the world. The statement is wrong (the link itself says the BIRTH rate is the lowest in the OECD, which is quite different). I propose altering it to a statement about Korea's overall birth rate, which is among the lowest in the world. I suspect a Korean editor has deliberately chosen a statistic which gives a favourable impression of Korea (Korean girls are virtuous) instead of the more interesting general statistic (which would acknowledge that Korea has a problem with declining birth rates).
At a later stage I will suggest some alterations that deal with the problems with North Korea, the innumerable rankings, and the environmental section. But these three will do for now.
Please feel free to add your suggestions to mine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.157.234.16 ( talk) 05:04, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Due to the huge amount of text and the length of time since the last archiving (about 2 years it seems from the date stamps), I have archived much of this page to Talk:South Korea/Archive 3. To see what controversies & NPOV issues were being raised before the South Korea page was protected, please look over this archive. KieferFL ( talk) 22:31, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
This article is in serious need of attention. The continuous and ridiculous economic miracle facts are laughable. When you look at South Korea's GNP(nominal),it is far below other major industrial nations - that is the important information. Keep rambling on about how its industries are bigger than Coca Cola and Burger King etc. put together do nothing to help the reader actually gain the information they are looking for. Colliver55 ( talk) 16:13, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
Economic development is subjective and not defined by GDP per capita alone - in other words that is not "the important information" as you say. You seem to have a lack of understanding regarding welfare economics. Life expectancy and literacy rates are just as important, if not more important than how much money you earn. Also, can I ask how you know what "the reader" actually wants to gain? is it perhaps a reader in your point of view that S Korea is "far below" "major industrial nations"? Your view is quite controversial in this respect. Next time, think about it carefully before putting a POV tag. Lakshmix ( talk) 16:57, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
Do not remove my NPOV tag without discussing it first. You will get nowhere by unilateral action. Additionally even by PPP, Korea is very low in ranking in GNP. Colliver55 ( talk) 18:05, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
You have not properly sourced the statements. Please don't keep removing my tags. You are vandalising the page. Colliver55 ( talk) 18:15, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
To this guy who is continuously putting "neutrality" and "misleading" tags, I just don't get it. What can be possibly "neutral" about statistics from the OECD and World Bank??? You seem to be just jealous about S Korea's success since it has economically much stronger industries than your country (which is UK as i read before). The article is very well-written and I seriously want to give credit to the guy who has given up his time and effort to make it a really good article for us. And what on earth is so "misleading" about this article??? If a country had an incredible economic miracle, there is clearly going to be evidence to support that. And you seem to be willing to be denying that. 92.233.108.66 ( talk) 18:37, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
Maybe sockpuppetry needs to be investigated. Colliver55 ( talk) 19:30, 30 November 2008 (UTC) You can remove my tags as many times as you like. Until you address my concerns I shall add them again. Colliver55 ( talk) 19:45, 30 November 2008 (UTC) I am more than happy to civily discuss my concerns with you, but there are too many to list all at once. Colliver55 ( talk) 19:49, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
I will go through the article one statement at a time as you request and then we can consider changes. You will get nowhere by unilateral edits. Colliver55 ( talk) 20:59, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
Trust me, this is nothing to do with UK better than South Korea. If I was looking to compare the UK with a country I would look for a more worthy opponent such as France or Germany or Japan. South Korea is certainly not our equal. Colliver55 ( talk) 21:42, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
In my opinion, the worst section is the Environment one. It says "In the past, SK had some minor problems with air pollution. But the mayor of Seoul has been working hard to fix that." What a joke! I live in Seoul, and it has appalling pollution. Tap water is tainted, and every spring the toxic Yellow Sands blow in from the Gobi Desert. The sky turns orange and people everywhere walk around with facemasks on to filter out the toxins. I'm not saying the article needs to be critical of SK. Just balanced, for god's sake. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.5.253.175 ( talk) 09:31, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I agree too. I lived in SK for a while. The living standard is below western countries because it is very crowded and they have to live in small apartments. Also, it is very gray and not beautiful at all. But it is also true that their economy has advanced quite a lot. This article is embarrassing, though, because it only says lots of good things about Korea. It looks like some Korean editors are trying to control the page. This article should be tagged NPOV and with need for attention by a NPOV editor. Maybe that way the numerous weasel-words and random statistics and rankings can be fixed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.147.53.5 ( talk) 04:00, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
The page is locked for a short time so I can be clear about this. In 15 minutes the page will be unprotected. From this time onwards, anyone continuing to edit war will be blocked to prevent disruption. Confine your edits regarding the contested area to the talk page until a resolution has been achieved. If the issue seems intractable, seek dispute resolution. CIreland ( talk) 22:43, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
You obviously haven't read the references properly. Maybe you have an issue with this? Colliver55 ( talk) 23:18, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
I've never edited this article before, as far as I know, but I just came and looked at it after seeing it mentioned at WP:AN. Much of the article is written NPOV, but much of it isn't, especially the Economics and Science and Technology sections. Those sections, along with the intro, look like they were written by employees of the S. Korean government. Nevertheless, adding a bunch of fact tags and NPOV templates to the article won't help it much. Instead, go through and NPOV the wording. If you're too protective of the article, then step back and let someone else handle it. Cla68 ( talk) 07:28, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
All that really matters is if everything is factually correct. Aerain ( talk) 14:58, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
I just fixed an error earlier. Aerain ( talk) 15:01, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Lakshmix, please stop saying that South Korea has more patents than the US. If you can't read a scientific paper then don't bother editing this article. You are clearly not qualified to do so. -embarrassed laugh Aerain ( talk) 15:33, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
To the guy claiming S Korea has more patents than the US, I did some research into WIPO's latest database (2007) to stop both of you from making non-sense claims and reveal the truth. So here we go, straight from the horse's mouth:
-South Korea had the world's largest filings per GDP, ahead of all countries.
-South Korea had the world's largest filings per R&D, ahead of all countries.
-South Korea had the world's 2nd largest filings per million population, ahead of USA and Germany, UK and France.
-South Korea had the world's 3rd largest resident filings , ahead of EU and Germany, UK, France and Canada.
-South Korea had the world's 4th largest total patent filings, ahead of EU, Germany, Canada, UK and France.
Source: http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/freepublications/en/patents/931/wipo_pub_931.pdf
I am sure South Korea is growing very fast and will overtake US in a couple of years but I guess Lakshmix claim isn't completely justified and Aerain is right in that the US has more total patents than S Korea, at least for now. I think the sentence simply needs rephrasing, as you can see above.
I just fixed a previous error, here is the correction made:
It is a global technology and innovation leader, it ranks third in the number of inventions filled first in the country, typically meaning where it was also invented. [3]
I really doubt South Korea holds more patents than the US--it has a lot more fund and a way larger workforce than South Korea. -embarrassed laugh
It was probably the work of a nationalist knucklehead. -embarrassed laugh
You have to remember that South Korea is no Japan, at least not yet-- and this comes from a Korean. Aerain ( talk) 14:58, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
It says "per million people". -embarrassed laugh
Now, revert back to what it was before. Aerain ( talk) 15:03, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
A lot of nationalism... -embarrassed laugh Aerain ( talk) 23:50, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
In an effort to try to remove some of the non-neutral tone to this section, I have removed the mentions of how sections of the South Korean economy are superior to other industrialized countries. I looked at the links and it was clear that the countries chosen were chosen in a rather POV manner. If Japan ranked higher, it wasn't mentioned. If Japan was ranked lower, it was, etc., etc. Someone above mentioned how as long as the info is correct, then it shouldn't be removed, but that isn't actually true. Picking and choosing the comparisons is manipulating the statistics. If someone edited that section to replace all of the "ranks better than"-like sections with "ranks below" sections, it would be non-neutral as well. I tried to keep all the basic info there as best I could. (I did remove one section, because it repeated previous portions about the automobile & shipbuilding industries.)
I also removed some of the excessive linkage. The page is an AWFUL lot of blue. Good where appropriate, but how many times in a section does Seoul need to be linked to, really?
I'd love to hear ideas about further edits to this section. KieferFL ( talk) 05:22, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
As a further note to the non-neutrality of such picking-and-choosing countries to compare South Korean statistics to, I submit the following from W:NPOV: Even where a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinions, inappropriate tone can be introduced through the way in which facts are selected, presented, or organized. Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased, accurate, and proportionate representation of all positions included in the article. KieferFL ( talk) 06:23, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your tremdous contribution - it makes your points very clear and I definitely agree with most of what you say. However, I do think some of your removals are inappropriate and needs rewording. Generally, I agree with most of the excessive linking and they should be removed as you wish. Some of the show original research, such as the 2002 world cup, for which there are plenty of citations pointing to a historical events. I will definitely incorporate all of your suggestions, let's see what comes out in the end.
Wondergirls (
talk) 21:59, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for your hard work KieferFL! -- Apoc2400 ( talk) 16:38, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Thank you for the tremendous editing and discussion. I hope to come back to this page later and help the cause, but at the moment I'm overwhelmed by the amount of work needed... RlndGunslinger ( talk) 11:02, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
This article is loaded with POV, boosterisms, poor references and copyright violations. One of the weakest country articles I came across.
I understand that Koreans are proud of their nations progress in the last few decades, but come on...this article while perhaps factual, stinks of undue weight. for example..
The postwar economic miracle in the late 20th century transformed South Korea into an industrial powerhouse and one of the wealthiest countries in Asia.
The K2 Black Panther is one of the most advanced main battle tanks in the world.
Seoul is a major global city and a leading financial center in Asia.
South Korea is one of the world's top five automakers, led by Hyundai and Kia.
South Koreans enjoy one of the highest living standards in Asia, with a high income per capita and a high degree of economic freedom.
South Korea is the world's largest shipbuilding nation and one of the top ten exporters in the world.
Samsung Group is the world's largest conglomerate,[83] leading several key industries in the world.
South Korea is the world's leading producer of computer memory chips
South Korea is a world leader in high-tech electronics such as cell phones and LCD TVs, led by Samsung and LG.
This is just a fraction of the OTT language used in this article, this is wikipedia, not a promotional website for South Korea.
It would be nice if someone who is familiar with this article changed it, otherwise I am going to make some bold edits and major changes.
Sennen goroshi ( talk) 06:51, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
There has been edit wars going on especially for economic section for over one week. I believe that the economic section is overly written, and not neutral. KieferFL ( talk · contribs) has been trying to clean up the article from good faith, but Lakshmix ( talk · contribs) and Wondergirls ( talk · contribs) disagree to his removal of cited sources as noted above. In fact, there is no consensus for the removal, so KieferFL should've patiently waited for people's response on his suggestion, not as leaving "per talk" at his edit summaries. Anyway, which one is more suitable for the article? KieferFL's preferred version or Lakshmix and others' preferred version-- Caspian blue 05:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
Previously-uninvolved RFC comment: What am I looking at here? The summary of this dispute dwells on the behavior more than the content. From an initial read, I think the slightly longer version of the article (the "Lakshmix and others" version) has more precise detail, but it also has a lot of exaggeration and fluff. I don't agree with either version fully. For example, I think World Cup details should certainly not be in an article about the whole nation. South Korea's largest manufacturers, however, are notable and important, and I think they should be retained. For this reason, I somewhat prefer the longer economic section, but I think the laudatory language is way out of line and needs to be cut. Cool Hand Luke 22:52, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
The article has been protected for 3 days from today because of the ongoing edit wars between users. Please discuss the dispute on the economic section in a civil way. If the conflict is not resolved or a consensus not reached within the day and then edit wars resumes again, the protection would be longer per a request to WP:RFP.-- Caspian blue 13:55, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
is this a South Korean tour guide?
Everything is sugarcoated in order to promote. Please, somebody give the article a good rinse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Platinum inc ( talk • contribs) 17:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
{{ editprotected}} I am proposing the following changes:
1. Currently:"There was heavy [[anti-Japanese sentiment]] in South Korea due to a number of unsettled [[Japanese-Korean disputes]], many of which stem from the period of [[Korea under Japanese rule|Japanese occupation]]." *Change to: "There was heavy [[Anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea|anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea]] due to a number of unsettled [[Japanese-Korean disputes]], many of which stem from the period of [[Korea under Japanese rule|Japanese occupation]]."
2. Currently: "Many of these forces are concentrated near the border with North Korea, near the demilitarised zone."
3. Currently: "...and is well protected from external economic conditions through vast foreign exchange reserves, which is currently three times larger than the USA, UK and European Central Bank."
KieferFL ( talk) 19:14, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
{{
editprotected}}
1. Currently: "Education in South Korea is regarded crucial to success and competition is consequently very heated and fierce. In the most recent OECD Programme for International Student Assessment, South Korea came first in Problem solving, first in Reading, third in Mathematics and eleventh in Science.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PISA</ref>"
2. Currently: "A centralised administration in South Korea oversees the process for the education of children from kindergarten to third grade high school. South Korea has adopted a new educational program. It was planned to increase the number of their foreign students through the year 2010. According to Ministry of Education, Science and Technology estimate, by that time, the number of scholarships for foreign students in S. Korea will be doubled, and the number of foreign students will reach 100,000.<ref>[http://www.education-blog.net/2008/08/28/south-korea-now-open-for-foreign-students/ South Korea Now Open For Foreign Students]</ref>"
3. Currently: "Korean farmers have a hard time finding a wife,..."
Since there haven't been any opposing views: {{ editprotected}}
1. Currently there are 26 times that Seoul is mentioned as a city. 18 of those times, it is a link.
2. Currently Snuppy is linked to twice in the Biotechnology section.
3. Currently Samsung Group and Samsung (which redirects to Samsung Group) are linked to a total of six times, four links in picture captions.
{{ editprotect}} 1. Currently: "...it is neighbored by China to the west, Japan to the east and borders North Korea to the north."
2. Currently: "...in the 14 century and the rise and influence of [[Confucianism]]."
3. Currently: "...[[renewable energy]] to reduce its [[reliance]] on foreign oil imports..."
4. Currently: "South Korea is the world's sixth largest nuclear power producer and the second largest in Asia."
5. Currently: "...capable of expressing human [[emotion]]s."
Three days & no opposition, so:
{{
editprotected}}
1. Currently: "
Balhae, Silla's neighbor to the north, was formed as a successor state to
Goguryeo."
2. Currently: "South Korea is considered to be one of the world's most successful [[economies]],<ref> http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051116-6.html</ref> which was the second fastest growing economy..."
3. Currently: "The Hyundai Kia Automotive Group is the second largest car company in Asia..."
4. Currently: "...and making South Korea the world's seventh largest economy in 5 years.<ref>Robert Koehler (Mar. 2008). Korea's CEO President Lee Myung-bak, Seoul Selection. http://seoulselection.com/shopping_book_view.html?pid=1557</ref>"
5. Currently: "Transportation in South Korea is excellent and provided by extensive networks of..."
KieferFL ( talk) 21:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
I also have some proposals for the article.
1. Incheon Int’l Airport Caption, currently: “Incheon International Airport is rated as the best airport in the world and awarded the full 5-star rating from Skytrax.”
2. References
RlndGunslinger ( talk) 11:59, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
These proposals are focusing specifically on the Technology, Cell phones, and Online Games section. This section needs serious cleanup, especially since it has no (zero) references.
"Modern South Korean culture is heavily dominated by technology."
"In recent years games, both online games..."
Paragraph beginning: "Modern South Korean culture is dominated by..."
"This is by far the preferred pastime for students..."
One last note about the section about Samsung and LG phones at the end: This part is misleading, if not outright false--without sourcing it’s even harder to tell. First of all, as cell phone operators they are somewhere in the top twenty perhaps, but even the best Korean operators combined-- SK, KTF, and LG Telecom—would only rank eighth in the world. [1] Second, if the two companies are being touted as cell phone manufacturers, then they should be listed as such, but it still needs sourcing. In fact, the brief searches I made on various engines brought up a few articles that mentioned Samsung as #2 in the world, but LG was listed as #4, not #3. This first link is outdated a bit, [2] but even last year they were noted as being fourth according to BBC. [3] Really though, I don't mind if people bombard me with a dozen news clip telling me I'm wrong, since it would at least be a sourced comparison. Which brings me to my last point, why do these comparisons need to be made both here and in the Economy section? It's not a secret that people have been complaining about the rankings and comparisons in the article, so let's remove some of them, redundant or otherwise. RlndGunslinger ( talk) 09:25, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Right now there are 12 pictures for the economy section. Six in the general economics section, four in the high-tech industries section, and two in the Transportation and Energy section. I feel that some of these pictures are unnecessary as they do not illustrate the section well. The large number also, I feel, overwhelms the section visually. Therefore I would like to see a little weeding of the pictures take place.
I think that the picture of Seoul with the caption "In 2006, Seoul was the second most expensive city in the world.[61]" should be removed, as there is already a picture illustrating Seoul at the top of the section. (Caption: Seoul is a major global city and a leading financial center in Asia.[45])
The picture with the caption "South Koreans enjoy one of the highest living standards in Asia, with a high income per capita and a high degree of economic freedom." I feel should also be removed. It does not support the point of the caption, nor does it seem illustrative of the country's economy. Also, it's main subject appears to be the green car, and another picture with a car is being used to illustrate the Automotive industry, so there is a bit of visual repetitiveness.
The high-tech industries section has four pictures, two of which illustrate the corporations Samsung & LG. I think that a picture showing a high-tech industry giant is useful, but 2 (even though the LG picture is meant to illustrate the technology...I'll get to that part next) is a bit too much. So, I would keep the Samsung picture.
The other three pictures are meant to illustrate the various technologies. I feel that 3, again, is a bit overwhelming. I suggest that removing 2 of these would better illustrate and highlight the technology side to the section. I feel that the best of the three is the picture of the memory chips with "KOREA" on them. The computer chip is the basis for the technology industries and it illustrates the section well.
The remaining two represent their section, although the picture of the airport isn't as illustrative as the picture of the train. Perhaps the picture Image:Korean.747.arp.750pix.jpg would be better? KieferFL ( talk) 21:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
Of all the country-articles I've read at Wikipedia (easily more than 100), this one is the first one that strikes me as genuinely bad. As other editors have commented upon, it's so extremely nationalistic that it leaves the reader with a negative impression of the country. While all the things in the lead are positive by themselves, such a mouthful of praise already in the lead gives the impression of an extremely chauvinistic society. I don't propose deleting any of it, but I don't think it belongs in the lead (which is already far too long). Other countries have similar achievements in a separate section in the article. I'd also like to point out that even though the article is very well sourced, I would argue that it violates WP:POV. Focusing only on the positive features of any country and leaving out everything that could be negative is in violation of POV, even though sources are used. All in all, I'm sorry to say that South Korea is the first country-articles that leaves me with a more negative image than I had before I read it, and I think most readers will react in the same way at the lavish and uncontrolled praise and nationalism on display here. I would encourage those Korean editors who want to create a positive image of their country to rethink the way they edit this page. JdeJ ( talk) 18:46, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Sennen goroshi is right, he nailed the problem. It is the constant comparisons that make the article seem so biased and unbalanced. Why is there a need to always say that Korea is "best" instead of only mentioning the facts without these comparisons. Here are some of the claims I'd like to see rewritten. Please note that these are only from the lead, yet they alone would be enough for a lengthy propaganda-poster. Just like Sennen goroshi wrote, this is the kind of text you'd expect to find on a page written by the North Korean governement, not on Wikipedia mainly edited by South Korean editors:
That's thick. That's very thick, considering it's only the lead. Most of these claims are unsourced and many are dubious, but that is not the point. The point is that no encyclopedia would ever present a country in this way, and I don't think Wikipedia should do it either. Apart from making the article less readable and informative, it also gives the impression of South Korea being either a very nationalistics and/or a very insecure country and I don't think anyone is interested in that. JdeJ ( talk) 09:42, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
From analyzing the introduction-
"South Korea is one of the world's top ten exporters and a highly industrialized country that is classified as a High-income economy by the World Bank and an Advanced economy by the IMF and CIA."
This could just be written as ""South Korea is one of the world's top ten exporters and is an Advanced economy by the IMF and CIA." The article makes it obvious that South korea is a higly industrialized country and all advanced economies are high-income anyway.
"It has the world's highest scientific literacy and second highest mathematical literacy." This line is completely irrelevant as an introductory statement for a country.
"The Asian Tiger is leading the Next Eleven nations and is one of the world's fastest growing developed economies." This line could also be left out.
Also the image captions all say the world's most, the first, world's top etc etc.. The images should compliment the contents of the article. Not to metion that there are far too many images as well, especially in the economy section. Pds0101 ( talk) 14:11, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
Could it be possible to change or remove these overly-biased views which are put into this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.212.165.61 ( talk) 00:02, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
It is quite difficult and biased, and you must give good reasons for changes. But looking through your history, It tells me that your edits to this article was certainly not for the best of it. Please restrain yourself from further vandalism. Pds0101 ( talk) 12:33, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Everyone can know racist Sennen and sockpuppets: Keifer, RlndGunsinger,Heroeswithmetaphor... the "true colors" are shown. You're many reverts without a valid reason is pointing to WP:POV. Stop your vandalism with no consensus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.98.180.232 ( talk) 03:43, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
[Its Gyeongnam region is also the richest region in East Asia with a GDP per capita of over $36,000.[52]
This part's source is under wrong. Gyeongnam's pop is 7.74million, and Total GRDP is USD 178Billion. So, Gyeongnam's GRDP per capita is around of USD 23,000. not 36,000. that is City of Ulsan(pop 1.2million)'s GRDP per capita.
And plus, meaning of East Asia is Northeast Asia + Southeast Asia, this source not containing other East Asian Flourishing Regions, Such as HK,Singapore,Taiwan.. So, richest is false expression. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Realist24 ( talk • contribs) 04:49, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Hello there: the korean wiki uses Daehan minguk to name the article, shouldn't we use the Official Title of the country to name the article, including that its commonly knows as South Korea?
BTW, yes, the article as a whole sounds biased and chauvinistic, but if reliable sources are provided (as I can see it is in several cases), well, those r the facts...
Plus, I've been adding more information to the KORUS FTA article, using the most wide number of sources available, where sometimes anonimous contrubitors would vandalize adding UNSOURCED DATA, so, thats what we must look after: UNSOURCED DATA. Gumuhua ( talk) 11:30, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
I came to the article with a sincere interest in the economic history of South Korea, but found the overall congratulatory tone of the article distracting, which undermines the content's credibility. I specifically peered into the discussion area wondering whether I was the only one who observed this. I don't want to get into the trenches already carved by the lengthy discussions, but I do want to underline a couple of points. I recognise that proponents of the current state of the article feel that their citations sufficiently justify each claim individually, and that moderators want to hear specific suggestions. The problem, however, is with the general tone, which is a product of the sheer number of rankings and achievements listed. They may all be true, but as a neutral reader, I'm interested in a few key highlights. The sheer volume of rankings, and repetition of vague qualifiers (most advanced, futuristic) give the whole article a biased tone.
There is also a conspicuously cursory treatment of negative facts in contrast to the positive ones. For example, "As with many of its Asian neighbors, South Korea suffered the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, but the country was able to re-emerge and continue its growth towards a major economic power after a swift recovery". My reaction as a reader was that the author was uncomfortable discussing the effects of the financial crisis, instead choosing to rush into the recovery phase with bright adjectives like "major" and "swift".
So to address earlier points, yes a big portion of the article is fine, but there needs to be acknolwedgement that the general tone of the article is biased. There is a palpable need to impress. It leaves me with the feeling that Koreans are insecure, which surely wasn't the authors' intention, so it's in their best interest to tone it down, rather than attack critics with demands for specifics.
Steven ( talk) 08:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Here's what this article has taught me about Korean culture: it spans from the first K-pop band in the 90s to today's most recent cellphones & online games. Are there really no noteworthy Korean poets, writers, philosophers, musicians, artists, etc.? Wallers ( talk) 21:45, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Composer: Ahn Eak-tai
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philosopher: -—Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingj123 ( talk • contribs) 2009-01-10T01:55:05 (UTC)
"Are there really no noteworthy Korean poets, writers, philosophers, musicians, artists, etc.?"
I am not surprised to see such response from the readers; there are indeed serious problems with regards to the research, flow and articulacy of the writing. So, I have made some suggestion for all editors who are willing to improve the quality of the article.
Facts are thrown in this article without a clear analysis and relevance to the overall topic. For instance, many of the claims in the economic sections are disjointed without any “segue.” Hence, as you can see, there is no argument or thesis being portrayed from the section other than "Korea is rich." For instance, we should segregate the era of Asian financial crisis separately from South Korea's growth of the economy ater the crisis, instead of merging them into a single statement: "Korea suffered during AFC but now it is the fast growing economy..."
"South Korea has the second highest savings rate in the developed world[61] and is well protected from external economic conditions through vast foreign exchange reserves.[62] South Korea is a global technology and innovation leader, filing the largest number of patents per GDP and R&D expenditure in the world.[63] It is the world's largest shipbuilder - in 2008, more than half the ships produced in the world were made in Korea.[64] It is also one of the world's top five automobile manufacturing *nations[65] and the sixth largest steel producer in the world.[66]"
:: Interesting sets of information however I do not see the point of this paragraph.
The second problem is that many of the statements are not justified or explained. For instance, "South Korea seeks for reunification with the North" is not sufficient enough. We need to actually go to the library or online databases to look up South Korea's policy to the North and the relations between the two countries. As far as I know, the inter-Korean relation is much more sophisticated and it deals a great deal of explanation.
The third problem is the wording. There are several spots where I find awkward sentence structures and these hamper the soundness of the article. Even a slight change can enhance the impression.
Lack of reliable academic research is the main factor that disrupts the overall credibility of the article. The article is starving for more in-depth content and substance; and the editors have to invest more time researching before presenting the information, and proofreading may help. South Korea is much more than this and it is certainly a great country, however, I find it disappointing to see the article portraying the false image of the country due to the inadequacy of the research content and the basic flow of the writing.
--
Kingj123 (
talk) 01:55, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
No actually, with exception of few statements I do not think the article is bias as a whole, but seem like so. Most of the facts have citations and I have confidence that these claims are indeed true. However, more work needs to be done to support these facts with more explanations and research in order to reduce the "choppiness" of the facts presented; and hopefully dismiss all of the skepticisms.
As far as solution is concerned, we should first:
We can also distribute, for instance
"South Korea has the second highest savings rate in the developed world[61] and is well protected from external economic conditions through vast foreign exchange reserves.[62] South Korea is a global technology and innovation leader, filing the largest number of patents per GDP and R&D expenditure in the world.[63] It is the world's largest shipbuilder - in 2008, more than half the ships produced in the world were made in Korea.[64] It is also one of the world's top five automobile manufacturing *nations[65] and the sixth largest steel producer in the world.[66]"
can be split apart. Then, the statements should be distributed into different topics; in that way we can avoid being repetitive and maintain the flow of the article.
Ziggymaster, thank you for your interest in the South Korea page. Until recently the page was under protection due to rampant vandalism and edit-warring. Due to these problems and others the talk page for such a controversial article is especially important. Improvements to the article are welcome, but please feel free to post any proposals you have for improving the article on the Talk Page first. Concerning the templates placed, I put them there because these section are either completely unsourced, or have only one source. In this way, it is more appropriate to tag a section than simply add citation needed to every sentence in the section, (although others have tried that.) If you check the "proposals" section you can find what I plan to improve, and my reasoning for the changes. I didn't undo your reverts because I want to talk about the changes first; let's try to work together to improve the article. RlndGunslinger ( talk) 01:23, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
I have made some major changes to the article. It goes without saying that prior to my edits it was a highly biased article that seemed to concentrate on promoting South Korea - advanced this, world leaders in that, blah blah blah.
I am wondering if someone from the South Korean tourism dept was asked to edit this article. カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! ( talk) 04:19, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
I myself disagree with many of the recent changes, but I'm being careful not to revert anything until people have had a chance to respond. Protecting the page is just a short-term solution, we need to "win the hearts and minds" if we are to stop the edit conflicts. RlndGunslinger ( talk) 07:15, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
This article doesn't imply that Korea is better than everyone else. But someone sure sprinkled a bunch of praise all over this article. Good friend100 ( talk) 00:15, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
There's been a bit of edit warring in the last few days; remember, please do not revert each other, even if your edits are consensus-backed. Instead, try to talk it over with users who are not cooperating, and if that doesn't work, report them to WP:AN3 or myself. The page will be protected from editing if it starts going back and forth, though. Thank you, Master of Puppets Call me MoP! :D 18:41, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
and if they remain quiet we might be able to make a few alterations that change the tone of the article into one that isn't so overly positive and is neutral.
before I jump in and remove huge lumps of promotional crap, I wouldn't mind if a few people gave their opinions.
And yes I do know that a lot of the things I have removed in the past had sources, that is not the issue - the tone of the article sucked.
カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! ( talk) 12:55, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
I edited 7 places on Jan 16th, they were all minor edits of just a couple words, and I gave very clear reasons for all my edits, the second day when I checked, all my 7 edits were reversed without giving any reason, or at least i can't tell the reason was referring to me or to someone else (didn't say anything about the content of what i edited). Of my 7 edits, one can be considered positive, a couple were neutral, the rest were changing the original sentence from positive to neutral, they were in general just more accurate. I think at least a few of my edits were necessary to avoid misunderstanding if the original sentence were to be kept. This is the first time I edit something related to Korea, and I just realized there's this editing competition going on here. I am wondering is there an administrator for this article who can tell me how i can avoid being reversed if i believe my edit is genuine and necessary? Chadsnook ( talk) 22:43, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Now the socks are quiet, I have made some major changes. The article really needed these changes. I am sure South Korea is a lovely place, but the article was so positive I was waiting to read that Korea dogs leave golden dog shits on the streets. If I have messed something up and removed an all important reference I am sorry, but I do think the article is a million times better now. Not that I have finished, but I will wait for the dust to settle before I do any more.
カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! ( talk) 15:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
I noticed the statistics about suicide and corruption were removed from the International Rankings. Ex plain yourself, 92.233.108.66. If you refuse to justify your removal, then I will revert your edit or remove the rankings altogether. 76.187.104.246 ( talk) 21:43, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
As yet another example of the numerous problems with this article, South Koreans were recently allowed to visit the US without obtaining visas. Of course, most countries have visa-waiver status with dozens of other countries, and such things are not terribly important. But one of the "Korea-is-great-and-now-America-loves-us" editors thought this significant enough to put in the INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPHS TO THE ARTICLE. This is a symptom of the problems with the article as a whole - whenever something happens that makes Korea look even vaguely good, or accepted by other major countries, it gets thrown into the article as a random fact, with no relation to any other part of the article.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.147.53.5 ( talk) 04:16, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
It is understandable that there are areas which need to be more neutral, however, I widely regard Sennen Goroshi's actions are edits as hostile to Korean editors (reverting any edits by anyone who writes a positive edit). It is clear that outside this article, his articles continue to remove any positive remarks about Korea-related articles - this is very worrying and raising suspiciousness about assuming good faith for this user.
On the other hand, his edits for Japan are extremely favourable - he deliberately removed several A-class Japanese war criminals in this article, with no reason given, clearly pointing to NPOV.
This user is also continuously accused of creating several meat puppets to do what I described above - in the case of his/her sock puppets, the actions were much more hostile, deliberately removing entire paragraphs, blanking out Korean articles and breaking more than a dozen of Wikipedia guidelines.
Sennen Goroshi should be rightfully blocked as he/she has broken the 3-revert rule more than twice in a row - this week alone. He/she is continuing to revert any reverts by anyone and accusing them as "meat-puppets". The problem lies on this user's personal view about Korea, which are irrelevant. He/she continues to remove sourced materials with citations, which is clerly inappropriate and superficial.
I have also noted continued disputes between this user and other editors, and this user continues to use rude language such as "fucking", clearly inappropriate in Wikipedia. Assume good faith. I had to revert some edits and remove some hostile edits for this reason.
My conclusion is that Sennen Goroshi's actions inevitably only lead to continued disputes with other editors and that he/she must work together with other users, stop removing sourced materials and not revert anyone or accuse anyone of meat-puppets. That only creates more hostility.
This is for the improvement for the article, not a direct criticism to Sennen Goroshi.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.233.108.66 ( talk • contribs) 2009-01-22T00:02:03 (UTC)
Seriously, I can sense the hidden implication in pictures. I'm gonna remove or replace current excessive, unnecessary, unfit images from the article. Encyclopedia is NOT an image repository or catalog, but the images on the article really prevent me from "read" texts or edit further.
gallery |
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-- Caspian blue 07:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Moreover do not make pictures in a forced size because according to image policy, people can make images bigger or smaller by adjusting in preference. Also the "right" function is a default setting, so inserting it is simply redundant.-- Caspian blue 08:01, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
When we first come into a wikipedia article about a country, nation or a state, we know that the lead is one of the most important sections of the page as it is opening and introduction to a user. I have seen many, so many other country articles and I have to say with absolute honesty that the lead for South Korea is probably the most strikingly bad introduction. Economic, scientific, military and educational achievements take up more than half the physical contents of the opening lead. Why is there a need to include things such as vise waiver, top scientific literacy and having a strong cultural influence? This is completely unacceptable. There are also other wealthy major economies in the world that have achieved just as much or more that Korea, but when you compare South Korea's lead to other countries, Its fair to say that it is overly positive. This article is already detailed enough and mentions all and more of what is in the introduction. It even has a ranking table in the end; Something which most country articles don't have. I am very aware of, and have for a while kept my eyes on edits made by users such as Sennen goroshi who make rather distruptive changes or cause vandalism(but not always). However, these attacks are a common occurance on country related articles, and there are also those who wish to present a more constructive and neutral point of view. I will put forward a new toned-down introduction to the article which can address as many relevant points as possible. Pds0101 ( talk) 10:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
It's obvious that this article is seriously lacking in NPOV. Don't even think about asking me for specifics; they've been clearly laid out previously, some are just too POV oriented to see it. Plus, I have a life other than editing Wikipedia, so....
What about uniformity standards? I'm sure there are some. If this article doesn't look uniform to say...USA, England, Japan, etc., then it should be revised to look that way. If the USA's article doesn't have rankings, then why should South Korea's? I think you see the point here. If it doesn't look like other countries (not facts, obviously, but format, layout, etc.) then it should be revised to be such.javascript:insertTags(' 69.23.143.175 ( talk) 15:24, 22 January 2009 (UTC)',,)Nathan
//If the USA's article doesn't have rankings, then why should South Korea's?// Is there a wikipedia rule which says if USA does not have, so should South Korea? Don't get me wrong, I don't think this article actually needs a ranking table, but not everything needs to be perfectly aligned with the US page. Though we can adopt a similar article structure as with other major country articles. The structure of the introduction and economy section at this point concerns me the most. I think these are areas which need to be toned down. Pds0101 ( talk) 00:37, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
Now that Lakshmix has been indef blocked for sock-puppetry and Wondergirls has been indef blocked for racist personal attacks, perhaps we can get back to editing this article.
It is looking a touch better, but still a long way from perfect - the general tone of the article has to change - all of the terms such as "world leaders in ..." do nothing for the article apart from making it POV - also 6th best in the world at whatever, is hardly notable - perhaps it would be notable if it was a small country, but for a nation such as South Korea it isn't needed.
This article should have been perfected a long time ago, the article was easy - dealing with constant reverts and multiple accounts was what made improving the article difficult. カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! ( talk) 19:33, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
I removed the controversy charge with regards to the 2006 World Baseball Classic. I could find nothing to validate this other than Wikipedia. However, these pages include the same story. That is, South Korean beat Japan in the first and second round-robin pools, but then lost to Japan in the single elimination semifinal game. I can see how this might be frustrating, but without some sources supporting the controversial nature of the tournament format I see no reason to include this statement. Further note, this story is repeated on other pages. Hence, they will need some cleaning as well. Liberum.philologus ( talk) 03:27, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Compare the introduction to this article to the Korean-language Wikipedia. The difference is amazing! The Korean introduction has three paragraphs that briefly describe Korea: 1) the country, its capitol and its form of government, 2) the fact that Korean has grown from a war-ravaged country to a strong economy (mentioning "miracle of the Han River"), 3) and a distinction between North and South Korea. These are the essential facts that describe South Korea.
On the other hand, the English-language introduction overuses superlatives, and while factual, the overstatement of fact lessens the credibility of the article. Others who have commented make the same argument, which I'll restate: overstatement and redundant superlatives confuse the reader, and make an immediate, negative impression of Korea. Consider the difference between the Korean- and English-language introductions:
Korean wiki | English wiki |
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Seoul is the capitol. | Its capital is Seoul, a major global city with the second largest metropolitan area population in the world. |
The president and the head of state, is Lee Myung-bak, the 17th president of the Republic of Korea. The prime minister is Han Seung-soo, and the chairman of the National Assembly is Kim Hyeon-goh. | Korea is one of the oldest civilizations in the world, first inhabited as early as the Lower Paleolithic. Following the unification of the Three Korean Kingdoms under Silla in 668 AD, Korea went through the Goryeo and Joseon Dynasty as one nation until the end of the Korean Empire in 1910. After liberation and division, South Korea was established in 1948 and has since become one of the two full democracies in Asia. |
...a war-ravaged county, the economy has grown to 13th-ranked GDP in the world. | Following the Korean War, the South Korean economy grew significantly, transforming the country into a major global economy. ... South Korea is a developed country. It is the second most prosperous major economy in Asia and a High-income OECD member, classified as an Advanced economy by the CIA and IMF. South Korea's exponential economic growth is called the Miracle on the Han River and earned the distinctive reputation of Asian Tiger in the world. Today, it is leading the Next Eleven nations and its economic success is a role model for many developing countries. |
DPRK is North Korea... Republic of Korea is South Korea... | South Korea shares the most heavily-fortified border in the world with its only land neighbor, North Korea. |
— | South Korea has a high-tech and futuristic infrastructure, and is a world leader in technologically advanced goods such as electronics, automobiles, ships, machinery, petrochemicals and robotics, headed by Samsung, LG, Hyundai-Kia and Hyundai Heavy Industries. It is a global leader in the fields of education, having the world's highest scientific literacy and second highest mathematical literacy. South Korea was also estimated, in the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations, to have the second highest average national IQ. |
— | Since the 21st century, South Korea's modern culture has become popular in Asia and beyond in a phenomenon known as the Korean wave. |
— | South Korea has an international outlook with memberships in the United Nations, WTO, OECD and G-20 major economies. It is also a founding member of APEC and the East Asia Summit, being a major non-NATO ally of the United States. |
Simply put… follow the example of the Korean-language article. Reduce the introduction to the essential facts about Korea. Eliminate overstated facts and facts that belong in the body of the article:
Many of these facts have a place in the body of the article, or spread out in the related main articles. But in the introduction, the concentration of non-stop superlatives is off-putting to the reader. The problem is not a POV issue in the literal sense, but rather in the tone of the text and how it's presented. Other sections of the article need the same reduction of concentrated superlatives, but trimming the introduction is the first step. Comments welcomed! -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 12:07, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
For more discussion about the intro, please read Cherry picking. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 19:46, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
This article is truly pathetic, which is completley biased and unbalance. It is written as an advertisement, and no real encyclopedia would ever have an article as disgusting as this one. All i have learned from this is that South Korea is supposedly the "best" country at everything. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.35.143.14 ( talk) 16:37, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
I agree with these tags for this article. See " An assessment of the Introduction" for my reasons. Lets not attack the editor... Please discuss the article. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 07:36, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I looked at the Military section because it's an interest of mine. The opening paragraph says (my emphasis),
A major military power in the world, South Korea possesses the world's sixth largest number of active troops, the world's second largest number of reserve troops and one of the ten largest defence budgets in the world. The South Korean army has 2,300 tanks in operation, consisting of technologically advanced models such as the K1A1 and the new K2 Black Panther. The South Korean navy has the world's sixth largest fleet of destroyers and is one of the five navies in the world to operate an Aegis guided missile enabled destroyer, the King Sejong the Great class destroyer.
Not one of these extraordinary claims are supported by the citations. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. One document cited for these claims was published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). It's an academic analysis of military forces in Asia. A quote from the analysis puts the comparison of spending by North and South Korea in proper perspective:
Figures 5 and 6 show that South Korea greatly outspends North Korea, but that
North Korea has increased its military spending more quickly. North Korean expenditures are low, however, because state determination of prices and the ability to enforce very low manpower costs. Its expenditures would be
significantly higher if measured in comparable prices.
The claim that South Korea has the sixth largest number of active troops is not supported by the CSIS citation. The table on page 35 shows figures for Australia, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam; the rest of the world is not included. South Korea (678,700) is ranked fourth, exceeded by China (2,255,000), India (1,325,000), and North Korea (1,106,000). That does not mean South Korea has the fourth largest number of troops in the world. Instead, the citation has been incorrectly quoted.
The CSIS article does not mention Korea's K1A1 or K2 Black Panther tanks. It compares South Korea's tanks to other nations' tank forces only by number and type. The one verifiable fact from the CSIS article (Figure 7: Asian Military Forces in 2006: Part 1, p. 24) is that South Korea has 2,330 main battle tanks; versus China (7,580), India (3,978), North Korea (3,500), Pakistan (2,461), et al.
The next citation, dated May 2007, is an article summary (not a quotation) of another article that is no longer available online. This is the entire text:
The same day that North Korea again test-fired several short-range missiles, South Korea launched the first of three new Aegis destroyers equipped with advanced air and sea weaponry. President Roh Moo-Hyun, speaking at the launch of the one-billion-dollar 7,600 ton KDX-III destroyer, said “We cannot sit idle in the face of a continuing arms race in the Northeast Asian region." The destroyer, named the King Sejong, was built with stealth technology, making detection more difficult. South Korea becomes the fifth country after the United States, Spain, Norway and Japan to have the Aegis integrated weapons control system. The South Korean ship will be deployed operationally in 2009. A second Aegis destroyer will be launched in 2010, and the third in 2012.
The citation says nothing about the size of the South Korean destroyer force relative to the the rest of the world. It does not say South Korea operates an Aegis-equipped destroyer, only that one ship was launched in 2007. "It has also the world's largest fleet of frigates, the sixth largest of corvettes and the fourth largest of submarines in operation," has no citation.
The third citation is a table of South Korea's Air Force equipment. The table does not compare Korea's air forces to the rest of the world. The paragraph states that Korea operates "advanced American fighters such as the F-15K, KF-16 and advanced indigenous models such as the T-50 Golden Eagle." This is overstatement of the capability of the T-50. The T-50 is a trainer — it has no fighter capability. According to the table, the TA-50 version, a combat capable trainer, will be available in 2015.
There may be a question, "why is the entire article tagged unbalanced and weasel words?" I didn't tag the article, but I agree the tags are needed. Please read this discussion and the archives Talk:South_Korea/Archive_1, Talk:South_Korea/Archive_2, and Talk:South_Korea/Archive_3. Look for "POV" and "disrupt" in the archives. The problem of POV is a recurring one. The article is rated as Top-importance by the WP:WikiProject Korea, but remains at C on the quality scale. South Korea was twice nominated for good article, but failed both times. The same quality problems have remained for two years.
One alternative to the article tags is tagging each questionable item within the article. That's been tried before, and it doesn't work. When there are too many tags within the article text, the tags themselves become disruptive. Tag-wars are edit-wars in disguise.
My purpose in support of the tags on the entire article is to encourage discussion. If I had no experience with Korea or Korean culture, I'd have a negative impression from reading South Korea. South Korea deserves a better article! -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 23:11, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
If you identify problems in an article but don't have the time to fix those problems, at least take the time to choose the most relevant and specific tags, and consider leaving some explanation on the talk page so that others can understand what the problem is and determine if they can do anything to fix it. — quoting WP:RESPTAG
This back-and-forth tagging really needs to stop. Personally, I agree with Mtd2006 that the article has issues that need addressed...but right now I'm trying to speak as an impartial observer, because no matter whether or not the tags belong there, edit warring over them is even worse. Here's my suggestion for how we can find a happy medium until the article is cleaned up:
Identify the most problematic subsections of the article and tag those. As Mtd2006 pointed out, over-tagging can harm readability and be bad for the article... but at the same time, this article has certain subsections that are fine and factual (such as the ones about climate, administrative divisions, and other boring stuff), and having all-encompassing tags that cover the whole article seems to offend some people. So I think tagging the three or four most problematic subsections will keep people from being offended (since it avoids saying "this entire article is bad"), and it will be more constructive because it will show people more specifically what needs to be edited.
My suggestions for what needs to be tagged:
rʨanaɢ talk/ contribs 01:45, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Like Rjanag, I come to this article as an impartial observer. I haven't contributed to the article. I admit to being frustrated that the edit wars continued with very few comments in the discussion… until another editor added tags. The tag/no tag problem is a repeat of previous problem in the archives. One editor, angered that he couldn't tag the article, decided to tag the text instead. This too was ineffective and ultimately disruptive. It's called WP:Tag bombing. When an new editor comes to an article, the tags indicate that discussion is needed. An editor who sees no tags rightly assumes there are no issues that need discussion, which leads to an edit war. The tags are intended to encourage discussion. There's no other purpose or intent. Can we reach consensus if we don't discuss?
To Rjanag's list, I would add the introduction. I agree about the other four sections. Based on the edit history of this article and the numerous edit blocks that have occurred, there will be little progress until editors can agree on what's wrong and what needs to be changed.
Introduction: In my attempt at an assessment, I mentioned the Korean-language version of this article. I read Korean poorly. I can make out the basic meaning, but the tone and specifics are beyond my abilities. If someone who is fluent in Korean would look at the Korean version of the introduction, I think we would have a good example to follow. What better description could there be than one written by Koreans?
Specifics:
A general remark about the article itself… The basic problem is not the facts in the article or the references that are cited. The problem lies in the way the facts are presented and how the references are used. Call it what you like: POV, wordiness, etc. If you look at the history of this article, isn't that the main problem? Please don't mistake criticism of the article on South Korea with any intent to defame Korea or Koreans. My goal, and the hope of others who have tried before is to improve this article. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 05:30, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Another reason for article improvement tags, besides encouraging discussion and concensus, is that tagged articles appear on the WikiProject Korea's list of articles needing cleanup. Tagging this article alerts members of the Project that attention is needed. Removing tags, without fixing problems, simply hides the problem from the editors who are most interested in its quality. That is truly unfortunate. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 05:33, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
http://stats.oecd.org/OECDregionalstatistics/indexTL2.html(OECD Japan / Korea(TL2)
This source's GDP per capita calculation is falsed; Gyeongnam Region(pop. 7745535/GDP. 178059 Million USD)'s GDP per capita calculation result is must be around of 23,000 USD. not 36,000. in this source, Japanese Regions GDP per capita calculation also falsed. this source is not 'RELIABLE' source. so, i think this source and source-related article parts must be deleted.
AND Ulsan is Second Lichest City in E.Asia and Tokyo's GDP per capita is just 45,000 USD? it is just ridiculous. Tokyo also Osaka GDP per capita exceed 70,000 USD in 2004 Source and Nagoya's GDP per capita in 2005 is around 5.5million yen. please LISTENING READER's OPINIONs for make GOOD ARTICLE.
GDP of Tokyo [4] Osaka [5] Nagoya [6] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.111.130.185 ( talk) 13:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Regarding this edit: while the way the information was inserted was clearly unconstructive, The Onion's atlas ( Our Dumb World: The Onion's Atlas of the Planet Earth) actually does have a long parody article on something like "South Korea: best at being second best" or whatever. Maybe it would be worth mentioning somewhere that this popular stereotype exists (as long as we are clear that it's a parody and a stereotype, not a legitimate view of historians and social scientists and whatnot). rʨanaɢ talk/ contribs 19:07, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Update citation for url= http://www.rom.on.ca/news/releases/public.php?mediakey=sg1yebpnv8
-- Mtd2006 ( talk) 03:51, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
This news release from the Royal Ontario Museum is used to support the statement that "Korea is one of the oldest civilizations in the world". The reference has been misused. It's an example of cherry picking (see Cherry picking below). The news release was incorrectly titled "Ancient Civilizations" in an old revision [7]. The news release is not about ancient civilizations. It's an announcement that the Royal Ontario Museum will display over 250 Korean objects in its new gallery.
An editor found the quotation, "Considered one of the oldest civilizations in the world, Korea has evolved as a distinct culture making its mark through art and technological accomplishments." The news release is an incorrect citation for the claim that "Korea is one of the oldest civilizations in the world". A correct reference would be a research paper that describes ancient civilizations. A museum press release doesn't do that. The statement should be removed from the introduction. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 04:46, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
If you find unsourced facts that you can't verify, please comment here. List the section and quote the unsourced fact. Unsourced facts should be verified or removed, see WP:VERIFY. Please sign with ~~~~ , and thank you. Mtd2006 ( talk) 04:35, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Section | Statement/Comment |
---|---|
Transportation and Energy | "South Korea has currently the world's fifth largest rapid transit system." This statement has a reference to Total rapid transit systems statistics by country, but that article has no reference at all. Mtd2006 ( talk) 04:35, 17 February 2009 (UTC) |
Right now, the article has many instances of cherry picking. Cherry picking happens when an editor finds a source of information, but selects only the most favorable (or least favorable) facts.
This sentence is from the introduction: "Its capital is Seoul, a major global city with the second largest metropolitan area population in the world." The citation for this statement come from this published research paper: Which are the largest? Why published populations for major world urban areas vary so greatly. From the title alone, I think we can see that the reference is not about which cities are largest, but rather it's about why it's so hard to know which city is first, second, or third. Here's what the reference says about Seoul's population:
Source | Rank | Population in millions |
---|---|---|
A | #2 | 22.9 |
B | #4 | 21.7 |
C | #2 | 20.7 |
D | #4 | 20.2 |
E | #7 | 16.9 |
F | #4 | 19.8 |
G | #18 | 9.9 |
H | #9 | 10.2 |
In Table 2, p6, a United Nations population estimate lists Seoul, ranked #18, with population 9.5 million.
A wiki editor cited this reference but selected only the most favorable fact. These two tables really say that Seoul's population ranks between #2 and #18, depending on how population is counted. The sentence in the introduction is incorrect according to the reference. Moreover, even if a source is found that only lists Seoul's population as #2, it should not be used to justify this factoid. The reason is explained in the conclusion, p37 (my emphasis):
This paper has made an effort to clarify the statistical portrait of the world's most populous urban areas, and to explain that differences between published lists of such areas are due primarily to differences in geographical definitions. [...]
Each type of definition has both advantages and disadvantages. In any major metropolitan area, the administrative central city is an important entity and well known locally, and statistical data for it are essential to its efficient operation. However, it rarely provides a good basis for comparisons with other large urban areas except on limited issues of municipal administration. Likewise, definitions based on administrative areas larger than the central city may be useful locally but offer little comparability with other areas and other countries.
For these reasons, I propose that the sentence, "Its capital is Seoul, a major global city with the second largest metropolitan area population in the world." should be revised to read, "Its capital is Seoul."
Comments always welcome.
--
Mtd2006 (
talk) 06:43, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
Editors frequently add the words "world's first" to the T-50 Golden Eagle trainer. This is untrue. I suspect there's an incorrect news release or web site that makes this claim. There are other supersonic trainers that are older than the T-50. One famous example is the SR-71B. There's a nice drawing of the SR-71B at the U.S. Air Force web site. Notice the extra instructor cockpit just above and behind the main cockpit. Please don't add "world's first" to the description of the T-50. Thank you. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 05:13, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
The introduction states that Korea has "the world's highest scientific literacy and second highest mathematical literacy." The problem with this statement is that the references at http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_sci_lit-education-scientific-literacy and http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_mat_lit-education-scientific-literacy don't support the claim. Both table are the results of testing 15-year-old students. It's easy to miss the definition at the bottom of each page that says "mean value of performance scale 15 years old 2000". These factoids are only true for 15-year-olds in the year 2000. The phrase "having the world's highest scientific literacy and second highest mathematical literacy" is not true according to the NationMaster web site and should be removed from the article.
If this factiod is important to the article, its correct place is in the Education section. However, you should explain that the tables from NationMaster are the result of testing 15-year-olds in 2000, because this fact is easy to miss if you read the references. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 05:46, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
This issue has been discussed previously and the problem recurs. In English, we use "Korean" for both the spoken and written Korean languages. We have a bias in English-speaking countries and generally all counties that use the Latin alphabet; we rarely make a distinction between our language and our alphabet. The "English alphabet" is really the Latin alphabet from the middle ages; see a clever graphical illustration at Evolution of Latin Characters from Evolution of Alphabets.
Other languages have specific separate names for the spoken and written forms of language. Korean is one of these. Written Korean is called Hangul; the spoken language is called Hanguko (formally), Hangukmal (general use), or several variants used in North Korea. Another variant of written Korean is called Hanja. Because this article is about South Korea, Hangul is the best name for the written language.
Follow the link to Korean language, and the distinction is clear,
This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Although I accept that common English usage is to use "Korean" for both the spoken and written languages, our bias is incorrect. Admittedly, Hangul is an unfamiliar term to most readers. The nice thing about unfamiliar terms in Wikipedia is that they can be easily linked to an appropriate article that explains them. The label [[Korean language|Korean]], directs readers to the spoken language. But Korean language redirects readers interested in the written language the Hangul article. The [[Hangul]] label explains the unfamiliar alphabet to readers who can't read Hangul. Isn't it most appropriate to refer readers to the directly to the separate article about the Korean written language when we introduce an unfamiliar alphabet?
-- Mtd2006 ( talk) 16:44, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Personally, my intuition is that this sentence is not intended to introduce the spelling of a word, but to introduce a new word (ie, saying "This is how you say "Korea" in Korean," rather than "This is how you spell tey han min guk in Hangul"). Since the word is a Korean word, not a Hangul word (Hangul is, as you said above, only a way of spelling Korean words), I feel that is the most appropriate way to introduce it. It's not a huge deal, though, and I am certainly open to other opinions. rʨanaɢ talk/ contribs 17:06, 19 February 2009 (UTC)often referred to as Korea (Hangul: 대한민국)
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK) ( Hangul: 대한민국, Hanja: 大韓民國, IPA: [tɛː.han.min.ɡuk̚]), ), often referred to as Korea, is a…
At various times, the infobox has cited two sources of financial statistics. One is the IMF (the International Monetary Fund) and the second is the CIA World Fact Book. Of the two sources, the IMF is an internationally recognized authority. The World Fact Book is published by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency and is not internationally recognized as a source of financial data; it's not the best source we can use.
We need four statistical items of financial data for the infobox.
The IMF resource provides all four items from a single, consistent source. The IMF statistics are clearly marked as actual figures or staff estimates. As of February 2009, the 2007 data is the most current actual data; the IMF has not published 2008 actual figures.
The World Fact Book lists only GDP (PPP), GDP (PPP) per capita, and GDP (nominal). These statistics are labeled "(2008 est.)". The CIA resource does list actual data as of February 2009, nor does it list the 2007 actual figures.
The IMF is the single best source for the GDP statistics that are needed for the infobox. The CIA does not publish the four statistics that are required for the infobox, and its figures are estimates rather than actual data. When the IMF publishes 2008 data, the infobox should be updated with that information. Is IMF the most consistent, most accurate, internationally recognized source of this information? Is there another source?
--
Mtd2006 (
talk) 06:25, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
What is the Joshua Project? The "Joshua Project is a research initiative seeking to highlight the ethnic people groups of the world with the least followers of Jesus Christ." [8] It's not a census of the population in Korea and it's POV by its advocacy. It focuses on select groups of ethnic people based on religious preference.
The web site states:
The exactness of the above numbers can be misleading. Numbers can vary by several percentage points or more. [9]
A non-POV, census-based source is needed for ethnic statistics with accurate figures. "Numbers can vary by several percentage points or more" isn't a reliable source for statistics as precise as: 96.9% Korean, 2.01% Japanese, 0.14% American, 0.13% Other Asian, 0.03% Eurasian, 0.02% European, 0.76% unclassified. The Joshua Project statistics should be removed or another source located. Comments welcome.
--
Mtd2006 (
talk) 16:47, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
rʨanaɢ talk/ contribs 12:07, 23 February 2009 (UTC)96.9% Korean, 2.01% Japanese, 0.14% American, 0.13% Other Asian, 0.03% Eurasian, 0.02% European, 0.76% unclassified [4] verification needed
I found a huge tidal wave of requests regarding revision and amerioration on this article, raised by about a full single digit of editors. In my opinion, it is relatively much easier to just pick faults (?) and raise question against them. Moreover, it is quite difficult to make fill out the article with contents (whether they are based on facts) to satisfy every users in Wikipedia. In addition, zillions of websites are scattered all over the internet, so it is nearly impossible to check all websites to assess if there's any other web source telling an antagonistic fact(s) to others.
So, my suggestion is that the editors raised questions and requested improvement on this article may participate in revising and ameriorating contents in the article immediately rather than just simple presenting the long lists of . Starting from there, I guess other editors can initiate 2nd round revisions upon the revisions the editors who raised questions will make. Judging from the volume of requests, I am sure that that will pave the much faster way for drawing consentment from the majority. Patriotmissile ( talk) 22:26, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
The section has no lead-in. This leaves the reader at a loss for context, that is, what's the importance of this section and how does South Korea present itself to the rest of the world?
I suggest a simple solution. Move the text from the
Other nations sub-section to the top Foreign relations section, and eliminate the "Other nations" sub-section. The "Other nations" text nicely summarizes South Korea's place in world politics, and presents a significant fact that Ban Ki-moon serves as United Nations Secretary-General.
Mtd2006 (
talk) 20:54, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I didn't see the discussion at User_talk:Dekimasu#South_Korean_and_South_Korean_(disambiguation) and I didn't see anything at Talk:South_Korea. I removed the redirect because of the original argument. Terms like "South Korean" are demonyms. Demonyms are not tied to ethnicity (the ethnic term "Korean" is an ethnonym); they refer to the residents of a region (country, state, city, etc.) Demonyms are used as adjectives, for example: South Korean history, South Korean culture, South Korean art, South Korean people. When a reader looks for "South Korea", certainly the South Korea article should appear. A reader who looks for "South Korean" is searching for a more general concept. Isn't the South Korean disambiguation page the most appropriate?
I can't find a Wikipedia guideline for demonyms that refer to countries. I ran a quick survey of 195 typical demonyms. 132 connect to disambiguation pages, 52 redirect to country articles, and 11 aren't used as demonyms. There doesn't seem to be a correlation to ethnicity in the 195 items I checked, nor should there be. Instead, should there be a consistent standard? I prefer disambiguation because, intuitively, a reader who searches for a demonym is looking for information about a general concept (in the sense of an adjective) rather than a specific country.
Used as an ethnonym or as the name of a language: Batswana, Emirati, I-Kiribati, Kirghiz, Kyrgyz, Luxembourger, Malagasy, Marshallese, Monacan, Ni-Vanuatu, Palauan.
Disambiguated demonyms: Afghan, Albanian, Algerian, Andorran, Angolan, Antiguan, Armenian, Austrian, Azerbaijani, Bahamian, Bahraini, Bangladeshi, Barbadian, Barbudan, Belarusian, Belizean, Beninese, Bhutanese, Bolivian, Bosnian, Brazilian, British, Bruneian, Bulgarian, Burkinabe, Burmese, Burundian, Cambodian, Cameroonian, Cape Verdean, Central African, Chadian, Chilean, Chinese, Colombian, Comoran, Congolese, Cuban, Cypriot, Czech, Dane, Dominican, Dutch, East Timorese, Egyptian, English, Eritrean, Estonian, Ethiopian, Fijian, Filipino, Finn, French, Gabonese, Gambian, Georgian, German, Greek, Grenadian, Guatemalan, Guyanese, Haitian, Herzegovinian, Honduran, Hungarian, Icelander, Indian, Indonesian, Iranian, Iraqi, Irish, Israeli, Italian, Ivorian, Jamaican, Japanese, Jordanian, Kazakhstani, Kuwaiti, Lao, Laotian, Latvian, Lebanese, Liberian, Libyan, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malaysian, Malian, Maltese, Mauritanian, Mauritian, Monegasque, Mongolian, Montenegrin, Motswana, Namibian, Nauruan, Nepalese, Norwegian, Omani, Pole, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Saint Lucian, Samoan, Scottish, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Somali, Sri Lankan, Swazi, Swede, Tadzhik, Taiwanese, Tajik, Thai, Tongan, Tunisian, Turk, Turkmen, Tuvaluan, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Venezuelan, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yemeni, Yemenite, Zimbabwean.
Redirected demonyms: Argentine, Australian, Belgian, Canadian, Costa Rican, Croat, Djibouti, Ecuadorean, Equatoguinean, Equatorial Guinean, Ghanaian, Guinean, Kenyan, Malawian, Mexican, Micronesian, Moldovan, Moroccan, Mozambican, New Zealander, Nicaraguan, Nigerian, Nigerien, North Korean, Pakistani, Panamanian, Paraguayan, Peruvian, Qatari, Rwandan, Salvadoran, Sammarinese, Saudi, Saudi Arabian, Senegalese, Seychellois, Sierra Leonean, Singaporean, South African, South Korean, Spaniard, Sudanese, Swiss, Syrian, Tobagonian, Tanzanian, Togolese, Trinidadian, Ugandan, Uruguayan, Uzbekistani, Zambian.
South Korean
might not be looking for South Korea). Removing the dablink isn't a problem if we have South Korea go to the disambiguation page (and, in that case, we could just move
South Korean (disambiguation) over
South Korean); it's just that the dablink probably shouldn't be removed until that change is made, since otherwise people might get redirected in the interim and not know how to get to the disambig page.
rʨanaɢ
talk/
contribs 17:01, 26 February 2009 (UTC)This discussion page is too long. I'll archive old discussions, but I'd like to refactor (rearrange and combine) some topics that are still relevant. It's important to preserve the blatant criticism of the article in the archives, but some entries aren't going anywhere or they're OBE (overcome by events). Give me a go-ahead and I'll refactor. We can restore if there are controversial topics that need to stay. Mtd2006 ( talk) 19:11, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
The main article implies that the T-50 is an aircraft model indiginous to South Korea. Actually this model is constructed jointly between Lockheed Martin and the KIA. The link I have given is Lockheed Martin's online brochure page for the T-50 from their corporate press kit section of their website. http://www.lockheedmartin.com/data/assets/corporate/press-kit/T-50-Brochure.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.176.214.225 ( talk) 10:30, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
I removed this prediction from the Demographics section, "The latests estimates state that Korea will have an aged society by 2018, and that the economy will collapse by 2036 unless birth rates increase or immigration is substatially boosted." The cite for this statement is: Tackling Low Birthrate Requires Shift in Thinking.
There are four problems with the "collapse by 2036" statement:
--
Mtd2006 (
talk) 18:51, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | → | Archive 10 |
This article is in serious need of attention. The continuous and ridiculous economic miracle facts are laughable. When you look at South Korea's GNP(nominal),it is far below other major industrial nations - that is the important information. Keep rambling on about how its industries are bigger than Coca Cola and Burger King etc. put together do nothing to help the reader actually gain the information they are looking for. Colliver55 ( talk) 16:13, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
I came to the article with a sincere interest in the economic history of South Korea, but found the overall congratulatory tone of the article distracting, which undermines the content's credibility. I specifically peered into the discussion area wondering whether I was the only one who observed this. I don't want to get into the trenches already carved by the lengthy discussions, but I do want to underline a couple of points. I recognise that proponents of the current state of the article feel that their citations sufficiently justify each claim individually, and that moderators want to hear specific suggestions. The problem, however, is with the general tone, which is a product of the sheer number of rankings and achievements listed. They may all be true, but as a neutral reader, I'm interested in a few key highlights. The sheer volume of rankings, and repetition of vague qualifiers (most advanced, futuristic) give the whole article a biased tone.
There is also a conspicuously cursory treatment of negative facts in contrast to the positive ones. For example, "As with many of its Asian neighbors, South Korea suffered the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, but the country was able to re-emerge and continue its growth towards a major economic power after a swift recovery". My reaction as a reader was that the author was uncomfortable discussing the effects of the financial crisis, instead choosing to rush into the recovery phase with bright adjectives like "major" and "swift".
So to address earlier points, yes a big portion of the article is fine, but there needs to be acknolwedgement that the general tone of the article is biased. There is a palpable need to impress. It leaves me with the feeling that Koreans are insecure, which surely wasn't the authors' intention, so it's in their best interest to tone it down, rather than attack critics with demands for specifics. Steven ( talk) 08:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Everything is sugarcoated in order to promote. Please, somebody give the article a good rinse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Platinum inc ( talk • contribs) 17:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)