User:Yonghokim/Situation in ko

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This article

  1. describes my (Yongho Kim) charge that there is systematic NPOV occuring at ko: , specifically against North Korea (NK from now on) by the predominantly South Korean (SK from now on) users.
  2. provides a response to various misconceptions of :ko: users.

Contents

[edit] The problem

[edit]  :ko: article for Korea is titled "SK" (ko:한국, Han-guk)

[edit] There is no equality between NK (informal 북조선, formal 조선민주주의인민공화국) and SK (informal 남한, formal 대한민국

[edit] SK users claim :ko: is based in SK servers

[edit] The response

[edit] References

[edit] Wikimedia

[edit] Fair Use in non-english wikipedias

  • http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-November/042865.html
    Pawe³ Dembowski
    Again, from a legal standpoint, I don't think it should matter whether 99% of editors and readers live in Poland or 5% do. So if someone *could* sue Wikipedia for an image in the Polish Wikipedia, then they probably *could* sue Wikipedia for an image in the English Wikipedia.
    Maybe the likelihood that someone *would* sue Wikipedia changes. But that, at least for images whose copyright is held by American companies, brings back the question of whether or not an American company is likely to sue an American non-profit organization for violating Polish copyright law (regardless of where the servers are located).

es:Wikipedia Discusión:Política de uso de imágenes Wikipedia:Copyright issues Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use/Preemptive fair use Wikipedia:WikiProject Fair use m:Editing Wikipedia:Fair use

[edit] Language specific

[edit] [Wikipedia-l] Policy clarification: separate Wikipedias for cultures, peoples, and countries, or for languages?

Mark Williamson 
Is it considered acceptable to have spearate Wikipedias for different cultures and peoples rather than languages? Are any existing Wikipedias considered in this capacity? [1]
Jimmy Wales 
In general, no, but there are many complications of course relating to ISO language codes, dialects, languages, etc. [2]
Andrew Lih
NPOV works is because there can only be *one* article about abortion, Gdansk, Diaoyutai or scientology in English. Editors have to come to some type of consensus in that one article. Accommodating "different cultures" with different Wikipedias would be akin to forking and reduce the incentive to arrive at the consensus that makes Wikipedia useful. [3]
Anthere
Imho, it is not acceptable at all. We try to reach people in their mother language or at least a language they handle very well, but we should not provide different content based on any other specificity such as nationality, religion, political view point and such. By definition, since we try to stick to neutrality, the content provided should fit all. [4]

If someone want to create a website or a book which is suitable for a specific group of readers, he is free to do so in selecting certain articles or certain part of articles or possibly a mix of articles from different languages. But our goal is to fit everyone and our projects should fit this.

[edit] korean discussion

[edit] Related


[edit] email originally drafted for wikipedia-l

I am Yongho Kim, [[(en/ko/es):User:Yonghokim, the Wikipedia user who's been feeding the debate around NK/SK at :ko:Village Pump, and also came in to #wikimedia and #wikipedia yesterday asking for advice.

For those of you curious, I'll delve further into the name problem, for it is a bit more complext than Puzzlet Chung explained. Be warned though, that I purposefully oppose South Korean Imperialism, so you might want to take my comments with a grain of salt.

Basically, we have three sets of names:

International names: NK / SK (Buk-Joseon / Nam-Han) Official (constitutional) names: DPRK / ROK Colloquial usage (in korean language): Joseon / Hanguk

Problem 1. There is no *political* equivalent of the english word "Korea" in korean lang. In K-History, Korea is Gorio in kor lang. But usage of "Gorio" was dropped in korean society since the XIV century. (That's when Joseon replaced Gorio)

Problem 2. In the korean language, NK and SK are not as NPOV as NK and SK in the english language. In korean lang, North Korea becomes Buk-Joseon, and South Korea becomes Nam-Han - these terms are the most the parties can compromise. Therefore, currently there is no way to say "North Korea" or "South Korea" in the korean language without becoming POV towards one side.

Solution to 2. Korean Wikipedians at :ko: have solved this issue by naming the title of articles of NK in NK's terms (DPRK, and not "Buk-Han") and putting SK in SK's terms (ROK)

Solution to 1. Korean Wikipedians at :ko: have linked en:Korea to ko:Hanguk The article, then, explains that this is not SK, but Korea, and that they should go to ROK for SK (using a disambig template)

Problem 3. "DPRK" in korean lang is extremely long (Joseon-Minjujuwi-Inmin-Gonhwaguk, 11 syllables - ROK is only 4 syllables). The official consensus seems to use only "official" names, and point to other (international, colloquial) as mere references in the country page. For everything else, the official names are used, e.g. Poets of ROK Political parties of ROK etc etc etc. However, because DPRK in kor lang is so long, no one uses it outside of the DPRK page itself. So we have Poets of ROK and Poetks of Buk-han (I made up this example, as I'm not looking right now), which is heavily POV towards SK because SK is getting its official name and NK is getting the SK version of NK.

Problem 4. Because we don't have "Korea" in kor lang, we also don't have "Korean language" in kor lang. NK calls it Joseon-language and SK calls it Hanguk-language. Currently, :ko: is called "the Hanguk-language wikipedia" and language templates say "I speak hanguk-language fluently" etc. Sometime during Summer 2005, an user changed the template to "I speak Hanguk-language / Joseon-language fluently". He was yelled at, and the template was reverted back.

Solution 3. None yet. Solution 4. None yet.

[edit] On the status of "Hanguk"

Proponents of Solution 1 argue that the use of the word "Hanguk" is NPOV, because it was the last united Korean polity. They argue it refers to the Korean Empire, "Dae-Han-Je-Guk", and the short form is "Han-Guk". Here is a brief chronology of names:

  • XIV~ Joseon Dinasty
  • 1897 Korean Empire, "Dae-Han-Je-Guk" (Great Korean Empire)
  • 1910 Japanese Imperial Occupation
  • 1919 Sam-il (3.1) Movement, Declaration of a Provisional Goverment in Shanghai, DRK ("Dae-Han-Min-Guk") (Democratic Republic of Korea)
  • 1945 End of WWII, SK/NK under US/USSR Military Occupations, respectively
  • 1948-50 First Republic of ROK, Separate SK Elections

I don't know at which point NK had separate elections, but it was around this time.

[edit] What I think is a problem with Sols. 1 and 2

[edit] The chances of Wikipedia or a local chapter violating the SKNSA

I wrote a rather long entry in this section, and sent it all to

en:National Security Act (South Korea) http://tinyurl.com/7uyl8 (specific revision)

I am not giving a legal opinion here (I'm not a lawyer). But I think, politically, and because of legal ruling precedents observed since 1992 and especially 2002, chances of the SK state trying to do anything about Wikipedia or Wikimedia Foundation are fairly dim, because the state is only charging individuals and organizations that it already wants to prosecute for something else (something politically significant, such as en:Hanchongryun, which is organized enough to injure SK Military Policemen who were defending a US Military Base's perimeters in Pyongtaek in 2005.) And the thing is, neither Wikipedia as a website, nor the Wikimedia Foundation, nor some local representative thereof, (which doesn't exist yet) engage in demonstrations or direct action. (I'm thinking here of what may or may not happen if :ko: tried following the steps of :de: , who are trying to get Wikipedia into print or a CD-ROM, no?)

[edit] Current debate at ko:Village Pump

I strongly disagree with User:WonYong's assesment that SK users are "offended" by a "rude" usage of NK's official terms upon itself that "pushes NK ideology in front of their noses" (this last one is not a direct quote) in :ko: Wikipedia. I think, the issue is more that they are afraid that they will be violating the SKNSA, resulting either in individual prosecution or the closing of :ko:, because seeing a violation of SKNSA and not reporting it to the authorities in a timely manner (SKNSA Art. 10, as explained in :en:NSA-SK) might result in *them* being in violation.

I proposed yesterday at :ko:VP that we use "Buk-Joseon" and "Nam-han" for NK/SK and "Han-Guk" for en:Korea and generally I think it has had a good reception (even though I've only had one User agreeing to my proposal in full so far.)