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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)

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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)

Yes, I agree the section needs a more neutral stance, but you can't simply put a POV tag to the entire article. Be specific about your points and what can be improved. Wondergirls ( talk) 16:24, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Also, should I mention that an economic miracle is about the "change", not necessarily the "result". The mention of US companies is there for comparison purposes - I know it is long, and should be cut down, but it is a good way to show how far S Korean business have grown. Income per capita is now measured by GDP, not by GNP. If you look at the GDP per capita of S Korea, you should look at PPP, not nominal. Nominal gives a misleading picture about a country's level of economic development because it doesn't take into account the cost of living and inflation, which can distort the real GDP growth. When measured by PPP, the per capita GDP is about $25,000. But more important is that this figure is rising at a speed of $2,500 every year - in another words, it will be sitting at 27,500 next year and at 30,000 by 2010. Of course, the global recession has slowed this down somehow, but the same applies to other countries too, so I guess in comparison to other countries, the figure will rise. My point is that economy is a wide topic and that there are many valuable facts in the article. It makes comparison to other advanced countries to give you an indication to the reader about its current state - not necessarily to "brag" about itself, although I do agree it needs to be toned down. Wondergirls ( talk) 16:31, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I also agree with some of your points, Colliver, and the section needs more neutrality. However, tagging the article against WP:POV is inappropriate because it is only the economic section that has this property. I don't think the economic facts are "laughable" as you say, I think you are quite surprised at yourself how a small country like this can exhibit such characteristics. It suggests you have a biased view towards this country yourself and consider it inferior to advanced countries. This is precisely why these facts are there in the first place - comparisons is the best way to prove the truth. I don't think that, even when measured by GNP nominal (which as Wondergirls points out, is misleading), it is "far below" as you say. In 2005, S Korea had a GDp per capita (nominal) of $16,000. ^[1] Now, just 2 years later, it has surpassed $20,000. This is a figure very close to Portugal (which is historically almost-always considered to be a "developed" country) and above the Czech Republic. But since nominal is a highly misleading figure, when measured by PPP, you can see that it is quite 5 ranks above Portugal and just one rank below New Zealand. The IMF forecasts it will overtake Italy in just 4 years. And Spain in 5 years. ^[2] Would you still say it is "far below" "major industrial nations"? The two words "far below", as I mentioned before, suggests biasm.

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 are childish and immature. It looks like you have a personal/emotional issue with this article. Tagging every sentence with "citation needed". What is your problem? Wondergirls ( talk) 18:30, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

The only childish person is yourself. Silly personal attacks. If you cannot back up your statements, dont make them. Colliver55 ( talk) 18:34, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Your continued reverts without a valid reason is pointing to WP:V. Tagging every sentence with "citation needed" is clearly inappropriate and all facts are sourced properly. If you have an issue with any particular fact stated on the article, please state it here so I can discuss it with you. Lakshmix ( talk) 18:38, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Can I also mention that if you are going to tag WP:POV, don't tag the entire article because that is completely misleading - put it where it belongs to. Lakshmix ( talk) 18:39, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

You are vandalising as much as me my friend. What I propose is that I remove the citations needed from each sentence and replace them with several tags at the top of the economic article section. How does that sound? Colliver55 ( talk) 18:41, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think that is clearly more appropriate. Remove the POV tag on the entire article. Put "citation needed] to sentences where you think needs a citation, but otherwise, please remove them on inappropriate places. I would appreciate your contributions on this, so we can make this section more neutral. Lakshmix ( talk) 18:44, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I have added two tags to the economy section. It needs serious work. I am not going to add citation needed to all those I think need it, as there are too many. I am not an expert on South Korea or economics, but the article is unbalanced. Comparing the article to those for other countries shows how misleading it is. Colliver55 ( talk) 18:51, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I very much appreciate your cooperation. I will be going away for dinner now (it's nearly 7pm here in London) and I will try to sort it all out this evening. I will remove the peacock terms you have mentioned and remove unsourced/biased claims and generally use more neutral vocabulary. Lakshmix ( talk) 18:54, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Lol I know its 7pm in London, I live in the UK too. :-) Colliver55 ( talk) 18:55, 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)

First of all, you have no evidence of me "vandalising" this page. I have put sourced statistics from reliable international organizations and you call that "vandalism"? Also, can you be precise with those "statement"s which are not "properly sourced". You are being very vague here. All facts are sourced from reliable international organizations. I don't understand how I can make it more clearer. The tags do not apply anymore because all peacock terms you have mentioned have been removed and all facts you put a "citation needed" sourced. Put a "citation needed" or a "peacock" term when you think so, but the tags do not apply to the entire section. Your continued reverts without an explanation is point to WP:V. If you think I am "vandalising", let's reach a consensus from other members. Lakshmix ( talk) 18:29, 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)

Please - South Korea is no match for the UK. It is one of the five powerhouses of the world. South Korea is nowhere near that category. Colliver55 ( talk) 19:33, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

The same applies for the military section you put a "neutrality" tag. There is nothing against POV at all in that section. It simply lists statistics from the National Statics Office. I have proof-read the entire sections and couldn't find a single fact that is "misleading" or "unsourced". The facts are all objective, not subjective. Give me a clear, straight example, with precise wording where you disagree with me and I will correct that immediately with a reliable source. But the truth is, they are all sourced. I have tried my best to ensure every single fact there is properly sourced. I hope you don't take this personally, but I really don't think there is any need for a "neutrality" or "misleading" tag and seems to be based on your own POV. Lakshmix ( talk) 18:44, 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)

Sockpuppetry?? The point here is that you are being very vague about your "concerns". You are arguing on a very thin ice sheet here. You seem to simply find an excuse for it by saying that there are "too many to list all at once". If there are too many, give me one single example which is not "sourced properly" as you say. The tags are clearly inappropriate and I will not hesitate to revert it as necessary unless you state precisely what your "concerns" are and what is "not properly sourced". I would appreciate your cooperation on this to improve the section, rather than engage in a pointless edit war. Lakshmix ( talk) 20:24, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Following the Korean War, the South Korean economy grew tremendously, transforming the country into an industrial powerhouse and an influential military power in the world South Korea is not an industrial powerhouse. South Korea is not an influential military power in the world. Can you provide references for these statements? Colliver55 ( talk) 20:44, 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)

No problem, let's work this through then. Having said that, you do seem to have a lot of prejudices about S Korea. It is not surprising considering the education you and I received in the UK, we always think we are better than everyone else in the world. Who would have imagined S Korea would become such an industrial powerhouse of today? Nonetheless, let the sources speak for themself - I got that statement straight from Britannica Encyclopedia. Check it out on the main page. Lakshmix ( talk) 21:28, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

My friend if you check out the UK page you will see how humble we British are. We do not boast and make unwarranted statements. We let history and the figures speak for themselves. I also recieved a very good education at a British university thankyou - we have the second top 500 universities in the world after the US - I am not sure South Korea can say the same. Colliver55 ( talk) 21:39, 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)

Do you think so? Are you implying the statistics are lying? Have you even been to South Korea? Times do change mate and you should respect changes, not dismiss them. It looks like you have clearly a prejudice view on this, which is against WP:N. That is your POV. I don't want to start a general discussion on this or argue which country is better, but let me make this clear - what I have stated there are facts. You can't change or deny facts. I have added all the sources you requested. Straight from Britannica. Are you still willing to deny it? Please stop removing sourced contents and claim it is misleading. Lakshmix ( talk) 22:03, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

No you have not. You have misused most of the references quoted. The quality of this article is appauling. It is not about changing a single citation! Colliver55 ( talk) 22:21, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Jesus, what is your problem Colliver?! You seem to be obsessed with these clearly inappropriate tags. I think the sections are well-written and all facts are properly sourced. If you think the quality is the issue, then put a different tag, but neutrality and misleading tags are too extreme and inappropriate. Wondergirls ( talk) 23:14, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Colliver, as you wrote that you are not expert on South Korea then stop posting here, and stop editing Korean topics. I suspect you being another Taiwanese/Japanese trolls.

I've just been reading this article and I was shocked to see the article is no more than a rankings list for South Korea. South Korea is the largest, South Korea is the third, South Korea is the sixth, and so on and so forth.

The article is massively POV, as in probably the most POV article I've ever read and I've been reading articles on here regularly since 2006. It states little in the way of any content, as it seems to have sacrificed all content to be just a long list of rankings. Even these rankings are worded in such a manner as to mislead the reading into thinking the ranking is higher than it really is.

This article seriously needs a rewrite and needs to take note of how other country articles are written. It seems that one or a small group of very pro-South Korean editors have dominated the article and written it to be basically just a big billboard for how great South Korea is. I think judging by what other editors have written on this Talk page I don't think I'm the only one who thinks this. 88.109.226.107 ( talk) 05:14, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the person above. I've been living in Korea for more than two years, and I was incredulous when I read this article. It sounds like it's been written by the South Korean tourism board. It mostly consists of dozens of "rankings" - "Korea has the world's 17th-biggest cabbage soup industry". Who cares? Whoever is putting all these "rankings" in the article is conveniently overlooking the negative ones - the world's highest suicide rate, and the world's longest working hours.

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)

Reading the article closely, I can see a number of other problems - specifically with the numerous statistics, rankings and figures. For example, it says Korea's teenaged girls have the lowest pregnancy rate in the world. But if you check the reference given, it says that SK teens actually have the lowest BIRTH rate in the OECD - quite a difference, especially if you consider Korea's high abortion rate. Actually, it would be more appropriate to state the SK has one of the lowest general birth rates in the world (at around 1.1 per woman). This is a more interesting statistic, as it highlights SK's long-term problem with declining birthrates and the economic problems this is forecast to create after 2020. Then there's the dubious statement at the top of the article that SK is becoming a multi-cultural society. This is not true at all. There's only 1.5 million foreigners in Korea, out of a population of 50 million. This means that SK's population is 97 per cent homogenous - probably one of the LEAST multi-cultural in the world. Also at the top of the article, there are a bunch of forecasts about how Korea is about to overtake this country and that country. Note that SK is suffering badly in the current global financial crisis, and that its GDP per capita has dropped to US$18,000 - still US$7000 behind New Zealand, which the article says SK will overtake this year. I also believe some of the random tourism photos scattered through the article could be deleted. The first candidate would be the photo of Namdaemun, which was burned down by an arsonist over a year ago and hasn't been rebuilt. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.5.253.175 ( talk) 07:52, 6 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)

I am not Korean and have lived in SK for a little more than two years, 2004/2005. And still go there about once a year. Every country has its good and bads. And we *always* look at it from our own POV. So I would let the numbers do the talking in this case. I don't find Korea's appartements particularly small or grey. Especially not the ones that have been build in the last 10 years or so. South-Korea is certainly not heaven on earth, but no country is. Could we please leave all the nationalism and anti-Korea sentiments behind us!!! Kbarends ( talk) 20:49, 30 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)

Addendum: I have now checked that all parties have been previously advised of the existence of the 3-revert-rule. Be mindful of this when the protection expires. CIreland ( talk) 22:46, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Only 15 minutes? I think at least one-day full protection would've been suitable for the article, given this ridiculous edit wars.-- Caspian blue 22:54, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I am happy to use dispute resolution or discuss this diplomatically, but until consensus is reached, the tags must remain. Colliver55 ( talk) 22:47, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

If somebody should be blocked for the responsible of seriously taunting WP:3RR rule and WP:Civility, that is you. You've reverted more than 20 times and do not use insulting language The above thread tells you that you're the only one who insists on tagging the templates.-- Caspian blue 22:52, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Policy is pretty clear on this: don't protect if blocking is a feasible solution. Since there are only 3 edit warriors and they are all way over 3RR, blocking is the preferred option. Of course, I would rather the edit warriors ceased of their own volition since blocking also holds up discussion. CIreland ( talk) 23:00, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

It seems there is no one who is going to take a neutral view of this. This article is in a shocking state. If you choose to block me then go ahead. It makes little difference. No wonder Wikipedia is doomed! Colliver55 ( talk) 23:14, 30 November 2008 (UTC) I notice all the editors of the article are Korean - how about some outside impartial views? Colliver55 ( talk) 23:15, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

At this point, none would believe that you're neutral or civil editor per your really disruptive behavior. You should present "what is so shocking" to you on the talk page.-- Caspian blue 23:19, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Alright, firstly don't insult Wikipedia like that. Secondly, the sections are well-sourced, clearly cited and use appropriate language. I can't find any evidence that is showing it is misleading. You clearly have a personal issue with this. Wondergirls ( talk) 23:17, 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)

Don't bite, Colliver55. I actually don't mind three are all blocked for their edit war.-- Caspian blue 23:21, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I have an issue with YOU. I have read the discussions between you and lakshmix and your prejudices are appalling in this globalizing 21st century. I have read all the references carefully. They are statistics from the OECD, Goldman Sachs, IMF, Britannica, NSO...etc. Plus, I am not Korean. Yet I think S Korea is a very historic and cultured country, not at all like Western countries. You are making inappropriate assumptions again here. Wondergirls ( talk) 23:23, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Also, can I add that I dont want to be engaged in an edit war at all. The only issue I have is these clearly inappropriate tags. "citation needed" is far more appropriate if necessary. Wondergirls ( talk) 23:28, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I have to say that I agree with the dozens of other people who think there are serious problems with this article. There are way too many rankings and statistics, all of which are favourable to Korea. There's no mention of the working hours (longest in the world), women's rights (only 128th in the world) and suicide (highest rate in the world). Just a whole bunch of stuff about how Korea is best at this, third-best at that, those kinds of things. As for the claim that the article is well-sourced, I think it mostly is well sourced. However, this has nothing to do with POV. This article has POV problems because the information it presents is selective (all good news about the economy, etc) and glosses over anything negative (the environment, working hours, ongoing problems with North Korea, population density, yellow dust storms, teething problems with democracy, etc). This article needs serious attention from editors who are not Korean and have no vested interest in presenting Korea as some type of utopia, which it clearly isn't. I lived in Korea for nearly 3 years, so I should know. Also, the article is too densely written and needs attention from somebody like a newspaper editor, who can make it more readable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.147.59.168 ( talk) 03:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. I attempted to interject some statistics about suicide and corruption. These were removed as "deliberate POV," and the person has been, so far, unwilling to provide an explanation. There are additionally rankings regarding the relatively low productivity within the OECD, but I was unable to pin down the exact source. I could only find vague references within the English media in Korea. 76.187.104.246 ( talk) 16:46, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I had the same problem. I tried to add some rankings about working hours and suicide rates, in order to balance the dozens of other "rankings" that are more favourable. They were removed without explanation and I was accused of "vandalism". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.157.234.16 ( talk) 04:52, 23 January 2009 (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)

As you say "much of it isn't" POV, then why put a POV tag to the entire article? It is clearly inappropriate. I agree the article has some POV problems that must be rewritten, but tagging the whole article as POV isn't very helpful. Lakshmix ( talk) 14:53, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

All that really matters is if everything is factually correct. Aerain ( talk) 14:58, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Every single fact is sourced and referenced. Give me one example which isn't true and I will be happy to remove or find a source for it. Lakshmix ( talk) 14:59, 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)

There is no mention of South Korea being Japan, that is your POV. Yes, South Korea holds more patents than the United States, twice as many, in fact. See here: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_pat_gra-economy-patents-granted

It says "per million people". -embarrassed laugh

Now, revert back to what it was before. Aerain ( talk) 15:03, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Your prejudices and assumptions are pointing to WP:V and original research. You use the word "typically" - this suggests own research, which is not permitted in Wikipedia according to WP:V. Lakshmix ( talk) 16:29, 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)

Itemization of edits & their reasoning:

1. Changed developed one of the [[Democracy Index|most successful democracies]] in Asia.<ref>http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051116-6.html</ref>'' to ''developed '''into''' one of the '''two countries in Asia ranked as a'' [[Democracy Index|'''functioning democracy]], the highest level of democratic freedom.

   Reasoning: changed wording to better match the information given on the linked-to Wikipedia page. The reference was removed as it is from a speech given by President Bush, who isn't a known expert on Korean economics and is referenced only because he mentions that South Korea is "one of Asia's most successful democracies."

2. Moved [[Image:World Cup Seoul 2002 2.jpg|thumb|right|220px|[[Red Devil (supporters club)|Red Devils]] supporting South Korea in [[Seoul]] during the [[2002 FIFA World Cup]] co-hosted by South Korea and Japan.]] and In 2002, South Korea and Japan jointly co-hosted the [[2002 FIFA World Cup]]. The event marked South Korea's emergence in the world stage and provided stronger economic growth and a cultural union between South Koreans. The [[Korea Republic national football team|South Korean national football team]] became the first and only [[Asia]]n nation to reach the semi-finals, beating [[Spain]], [[Portugal]] and [[Italy]] in the knock-out stages. from the History section to the Sports section

   Reasoning: More applicable in the Sports section than in the "After division" History section.

3. Changed .<ref>[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251618,00.html FOXNews.com - North Korea Agrees to End Nuke Program - International News News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> to merely <ref>[http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251618,00.html FOXNews.com - North Korea Agrees to End Nuke Program]</ref>

   Reasoning: Shortened bot-created title

4. Removed the linkage to Seoul in Its capital, [[Seoul]], is consistently placed among the world's top ten [[financial]] and [[commercial]] cities.<ref>http://www.citymayors.com/economics/financial-cities.html</ref>

   Reasoning: Already linked to in the neighboring picture, as well as many other places on the page.

5. Changed South Korea has a higher [[List of countries by life expectancy|life expectancy]] than other advanced economies such as the [[USA]], [[UK]] and [[Germany]] and a greater [[List of countries by economic freedom|economic freedom]] than [[France]] and [[Italy]].<ref>See [[List of countries by life expectancy]] and [[List of countries by economic freedom]].</ref> to South Korea''ns enjoy a high'' [[List of countries by life expectancy|life expectancy]] and exceptional [[List of countries by economic freedom|economic freedom]].<ref>See [[List of countries by life expectancy]] and [[List of countries by economic freedom]].</ref>

   Reasoning: Picking and choosing comparing countries. For economic freedom, Korea ranks 41st in the chart for 2008 and 32nd in the chart for 2007. For life expectancy, South Korea ranks 21st. The picking and choosing of comparisons in order to create the appearance of overall superiority is against W:NPOV. See above for the appropriate quote.

6. The following: The [[South Korean economy]] is the [[List of Asian countries by GDP|fourth largest]] in Asia and [[List of countries by GDP (nominal)|13th largest]] in the world, larger than [[Canada]] and [[Australia]].<ref>http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/GDP_PPP.pdf</ref> Until 2004, it was larger than [[Brazil]], [[Russia]] and [[India]], three of the [[BRIC]] economies today.<ref>http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2008/02/weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=59&pr.y=8&sy=2000&ey=2007&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=223%2C922%2C534%2C542&s=NGDPD&grp=0&a=</ref> which you've added should be changed to The [[South Korean economy]] is the [[List of Asian countries by GDP|fourth largest]] in Asia and [[List of countries by GDP (nominal)|13th largest]] in the world.<ref>http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/GDP_PPP.pdf</ref>

   Reasoning: Picking and choosing comparing countries. Canada is ranked #14, right behind South Korea, and Australia isn't that far back at #18. Why not compare to Italy at #10, France at #7, or Japan at #3?

7. Removed the link to Seoul in [[Image:030cbe9d3d3f71f7f603c71b69de3c1d.jpg|thumb|right|235px|In 2006, [[Seoul]] was the second most expensive [[city]] in the world.<ref>See [[List of most expensive cities for expatriate employees]]</ref>]]

   Reasoning: Once again, excessive linking when Seoul is mentioned.

8. Removed the link to "economic freedom" in [[Image:Pascucci.jpg|thumb|right|235px|South Koreans enjoy one of the highest [[living standards]] in Asia, with a high [[High income economy|income per capita]] and a high degree of economic freedom.]]

   Reasoning: Over-linking. Already linked to in the article.

9. Changed South Korea has currently more [[foreign exchange reserve]]s than the combined reserves of the [[USA]], [[UK]], [[Canada]] and [[Australia]].<ref>See [[List of countries by foreign exchange reserves]].</ref></nowiki'' to ''<nowiki>South Korea has one of the worlds largest [[foreign exchange reserve]]s. <ref>See [[List of countries by foreign exchange reserves]].</ref>

   Reasoning: Picking and choosing countries of comparison is against W:NPOV. (See above.) If the reasoning behind South Korea having more foreign exchange reserves is fully explained, then I could see the reason behind having the comparison. But this really isn't the place for such an explanation, and stating that it has one of the world's largest reserves should be sufficient to show that South Korea values having foreign currency to back its currency.

10. Removed "such as [[France]], [[Spain]], [[Austria]], [[Belgium]], [[Norway]] and [[Luxembourg]]" from South Korea's [[Global Competitiveness Report|global competitiveness]] is ranked above many [[European]] countries such as [[France]], [[Spain]], [[Austria]], [[Belgium]], [[Norway]] and [[Luxembourg]].

    Reasoning: The listing of countries is unnecessary and against NPOV. Why not mention that it ranks below Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom? Actually, the entire line should probably be removed as "many European countries" is probably stretching things, and if that is removed, then what substance is left?

11. Changed and has a larger [[List of countries by exports per capita|Exports per capita]] than other leading exporters such as [[Japan]], [[USA]] and [[EU]].<ref>See [[List of countries by exports per capita]]</ref>> to has a healthy [[List of countries by exports per capita|exports per capita]] level.<ref>See [[List of countries by exports per capita]]</ref>

    Reasoning: Picking and choosing countries of comparison is against W:NPOV. South Korea ranks 29th in exports per capita, below Germany, Kuwait, and Puerto Rico. Comparing its exports per capita to Japan, the United States and the European Union makes it appear as if its ranking is more significant than it is, due to those countries and union being considered as strong economically, but those countries have a higher population than South Korea, which helps to lower their per capita averages.

12. Removed the link to the United States in It is the seventh largest [[List of the largest trading partners of the United States|trading partner]] of the [[United States]].<ref>http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/top/top0712.html</ref>

    Reasoning: Reduction of over-linking. The United States is linked to a number of places on the page.

13. Removed the links to Hyundai Motor Company and Kia in [[Image:2nd Hyundai Santa Fe.jpg|thumb|left|205px|South Korea is one of the world's top five [[List of countries by automobile production|automaker]]s, led by [[Hyundai Motor Company|Hyundai]] and [[Kia]].]]

    Reasoning: Reduction of over-linking. They are linked to in the adjoining passage about automobile manufacturing.

14. Removed the link to shipbuilding in [[Image:Hyundai Container Ship.JPG|thumb|left|205px|South Korea is the world's largest [[shipbuilding]] nation and one of the top ten [[List of countries by exports|exporters]] in the world.]]

    Reasoning: Reduction of over-linking. It is linked to in the passage about shipbuilding.

15. Changed In 2007, [[Samsung Group]] became the world's largest [[conglomerate]]<ref>See [[List of companies by revenue]].</ref> and was larger than all of the top [[United States|US]] [[technology]] firms put together, such as [[Microsoft]], [[Intel]], [[Google]], [[Apple Inc.|Apple]] and [[Motorola]].<ref>See [[List of companies by revenue]].</ref> to In 2007, Samsung Group became the world's largest conglomerate<ref>See [[List of companies by revenue]].</ref>

    Reasoning: The links to Samsung Group and comglomerate were removed due to over linking, and the comparison to the US firms was removed due to NPOV tone and because the comparison is unnecessary and would need explanation to give it context. It's the largest conglomerate, that should speak for itself.

16. Changed In 2006, [[Samsung Group]] alone would have been the world's 34th largest economy if ranked, larger than the entire [[Argentine economy]].<ref>[http://www.chosun.com/economy/news/200602/200602130520.html [초 국가기업] <上> 삼성 매출>싱가포르 GDP… 국가를 가르친다 - 조선닷컴<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> to In 2006, Samsung Group would have been the world's 34th largest economy if ranked.<ref>[http://www.chosun.com/economy/news/200602/200602130520.html [초 국가기업] <上> 삼성 매출>싱가포르 GDP… 국가를 가르친다 - 조선닷컴<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

    Reasoning: The link to Samsung Group was removed, once again, because of over-linkning. The comparison to Argentina is unnecessary, as the "34th" ranking is sufficient to show its strength.

17. Removed In 2007, the [[Hyundai Kia Automotive Group]] sold more cars worldwide than [[Mercedes-Benz]] and [[BMW]] combined<ref>See [[Automotive industry]].</ref> and was larger than the combined [[revenue]] of top established [[European]] car marques such as [[Audi]], [[Ferrari]], [[Porsche]] and [[Renault]].

    Reasoning: Picking and choosing of comparisons. Why not compare to Volkswagen, Honda, or Toyota? Comparing a company such as Hyundai Kia to Audi, Ferrari, and the rest is not a fair comparison, as Hyundai Kia build cars to sell in volume, while those others sell cars primarily for the high-end market. Apples and oranges.

18. Changed and making South Korea the world's seventh largest [[economy]] in 5 years. to and making South Korea the world's seventh largest [[economy]] ''by 2013''.

    Reasoning: Gave the specific year to be more precise. No need to have to edit the "5 years" bit every year as things count down.

19. Changed As a result, the South Korean economy is scheduled to overtake [[Canada]] in 2008 and [[Spain]] in 2011.<ref>See [[List of countries by future GDP (PPP) estimates]].</ref> South Korea's [[GDP per capita]] is also set to surpass [[New Zealand]] in 2009 and [[Italy]] in 2012.<ref>See [[List of countries by future GDP (PPP) per capita estimates]].</ref> In 2007, [[Goldman Sachs]] predicted that by 2050, South Korea's [[GDP]] will quadruple to over $4 trillion and have a [[GDP per capita]] of over $90,000, becoming the second richest [[G-20 major economies|major economy]] in the world.<ref>http://www.chicagogsb.edu/alumni/clubs/pakistan/docs/next11dream-march%20%2707-goldmansachs.pdf</ref> to By 2050, South Korea's [[GDP]] is predicted to quadruple to over $4 trillion and have a [[GDP per capita]] of over $90,000, becoming the second richest [[G-20 major economies|major economy]] in the world.<ref>http://www.chicagogsb.edu/alumni/clubs/pakistan/docs/next11dream-march%20%2707-goldmansachs.pdf</ref>

    Reasoning: Once again, non-neutral tone created by the picking and choosing of countries of comparison. The simple sentence says what needs to be said factually and follows W:NPOV.

20. Change the title "High-tech powerhouse" to read "High-tech industries".

    Reasoning: The title should match the content underneath it. The section discusses South Korea's high-tech industries. Saying "High-tech powerhouse" is blatantly non-neutral.

21. Removed Samsung and LG links from [[Image:Samsung G600.JPG|thumb|right|205px|South Korea is a world leader in [[high-tech]] electronics such as [[cell phone]]s and [[LCD TV]]s, led by [[Samsung Electronics|Samsung]] and [[LG Electronics|LG]].]]

    Reasoning: Reduction of over-linking. Linked to in the accompanying section.

22. Changed South Korea has a very [[high-tech]] and futuristic [[infrastructure]], to South Korea has a [[high-tech]] [[infrastructure]],

    Reasoning: Removed imprecise peacock-like adjectives that give a non-neutral tone to the section.

23. Removed links to :automobiles" and "ships" in goods such as [[electronics]], [[Automotive industry|automobile]]s, [[Shipbuilding|ship]]s, [[machinery]], [[petrochemical]]s and [[robotics]].

    Reasoning: Reduction of over-linking. Links are in their respective sections.

24. Changed It also placed South Korea's [[e-readiness]] above [[Japan]], [[Germany]] and [[France]] in 2007.<ref>See [[E-readiness]]</ref> In the 2008 [[UN]] [[e-Government]] Readiness Index, South Korea was yet again ranked above [[Japan]], [[Germany]], [[UK]], [[France]], [[Canada]] and [[Australia]].<ref>http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/UN/UNPAN028607.pdf</ref> to read South Korea's [[e-readiness]] ranking has also been consistently increasing over the past three years.<ref>See [[E-readiness]]</ref>

    Reasoning: Removed again the picking-and-choosing of countries of comparison due to non-neutral tone. South Korea ranks 15th in E-readiness below the United Kingdom, Singapore, Austria, and Finland, among others. The compared-to countries rank 18th (Japan), 14th (Germany - actually higher than South Korea), and 22nd (France). The section about e-Government was removed because it was only a list of "better-thans", and had no other substance or context given as to its importance.

25. Changed South Korea has surpassed the [[United States]] and [[Japan]] in becoming the world's leader in the [[digital display]] to South Korea has become the world's leader in the [[digital display]]

    Reasoning: Removal of non-neutral tone. The comparison to the United States and Japan is unneeded, as saying that it is the world's leader automatically places it above the United States, Japan, and all other countries.

26. Removed Today, there are many strong South Korean industries. South Korea's largest automaker, [[Hyundai Motor Company]] and its subsidiary [[Kia Motors]] are the fifth largest car groups in the world.<ref>[http://car-reviews.automobile.com/news/hyundai-kia-pass-nissan-to-become-worlds-sixth-largest-automaker/1916/ Hyundai-Kia Pass Nissan to Become Worlds Sixth Largest Automaker - Automobile.com Auto News<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> The South Korean shipbuilding industry is one of the most highly developed in the world, headed by [[chaebol]]s such as the [[Hyundai Heavy Industries]], [[Samsung Group|Samsung Heavy Industry]] and [[POSCO]]. It became the largest after overtaking Japan in 2004.<ref>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BJT/is_7_11/ai_109402867 Shipbuilding on the rise in South Korea - Ports And Shipping Business Asia | Find Articles at BNET.com<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

    Reasoning: These points have already been brought up earlier in the automobile and shipbuilding sections. Removed to reduce redundancy.

27. Removed "excellent and" from Transportation in South Korea is excellent and provided by

    Reasoning: Excellent is an imprecise adjective that isn't able to be quantified and which gives the sentence an non-neutral tone due to its being a value term.

28. Changed South Korea has the world's fifth largest [[rapid transit system]], larger than [[Germany]] and [[France]].<ref>See [[Total rapid transit systems statistics by country]]</ref> to South Korea has the world's fifth largest [[rapid transit system]].<ref>See [[Total rapid transit systems statistics by country]]</ref>

    Reasoning: Removal of non-neutral country comparisons. Germany and France are 8th and 9th. It would be fair to write that "South Korea has the world's fifth largest rapid transit system, behind the United States, China, Japan, and the United Kingdom." That would automatically place it above the other countries of the world and not seem non-neutral.

29. Removed the link to "Gyeongbu" in The Korean [[high-speed rail]] system, [[Korea Train Express|KTX]], provides high-speed service along [[Gyeongbu Line|Gyeongbu]] and [[Honam Line]].

    Reasoning: Reduction of linkage. It's linked to in the preceding sentence.

30. Changed which will be developed as great centres for the country's robot industry to which will be developed as centers for the country's robot industry

    Reasoning: Great is an imprecise term of value that is non-neutral and unable to be substantiated.

31. Changed In 2005, KAIST announced the world's smartest robot to In 2005, KAIST announced they had created the world's smartest robot

    Reasoning: Changed for clarity. How does one announce a robot? You can announce that a robot has been created, however.

32. Removed the link to "dog" in [[Image:Snuppy.jpg|thumb|left|210px|[[Snuppy]] is the world's first cloned [[dog]].]]

    Reasoning: Reduction of linkage. There is a link to "dog" in the text. Do we really need any link to "dog", however?

33. Changed In February 2008, a US woman sent tissues from her dead pet named Booger to RNL Bio, South Korea's first dog cloning business, for cloning it at a cost of $150,000.<ref>[http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2008/02/133_18963.html Dog Cloning Becomes Business<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> to read . In February 2008, a US woman paid $150,000 to RNL Bio, South Korea's first dog cloning business, so that her dead pet pit-bull terrier could be cloned from tissue samples that she sent.<ref>[http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2008/02/133_18963.html Dog Cloning Becomes Business<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

    Reasoning: Edited for clarity and to reduce the awkward phrasing. The dog's name was removed because it isn't important to the story.

34. Changed South Korea came first in [[Problem solving]], first in [[Reading education|Reading]], third in [[Mathematics]] and eleventh in [[Science]], all being significantly higher than [[Western European]] and [[North American]] countries.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PISA</ref> South Korea has the highest [[national IQ]] in the world, estimated at 106.<ref name="main">Lynn, R. and Vanhanen, T. (2002). IQ and the wealth of nations. Westport, CT: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-97510-X</ref> to South Korea came first in [[Problem solving]], first in [[Reading education|Reading]], third in [[Mathematics]] and eleventh in [[Science]].<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PISA</ref>

    Reasoning: Once again removing the comparison to other countries because of non-neutral issues and the lacking of context. The portion about the IQ was supposed to be removed long ago as discussed on the talk page earlier this year.

35. Changed Farmers are forced to look abroad to find their wife</nowiki'' to ''<nowiki>Farmers are forced to look abroad to find wives

    Reasoning: Matching of plural "Farmers" to equally plural "wives". It made it sound as if the farmers were going to share a single wife.

36. Removed "much" from Since the success of the Korean film ''[[Shiri (film)|Shiri]]'' in 1999 Korean film has become much more popular

    Reasoning: Much is an imprecise and unnecessary word in this sentence.

37. Changed is popular among South Koreans of all age and sex. to read is popular among South Koreans of all ages and both sexes.

    Reasoning: "all age and sex" is grammatically incorrect and awkward

38. Uncapitalized "Real-time strategy game" in a link.

    Reasoning: term isn't capitalized, as shown on the linked-to page Real-time strategy.

39. Changed [[Taekwondo]], the world's most popular [[martial arts|martial art]],<ref>''Tae Kwon Do: The Ultimate Reference Guide to the World's Most Popular Martial Art'', by Park Yeon Hee et al. (New York: 1989)</ref> originated in Korea. to read simply The [[martial arts|martial art]] [[Taekwondo]] originated in Korea.

    Reasoning: Having "the World's Most Popular Martial Art" in a book title isn't much of a reference. If another reference could be found showing how it was the world's "most popular", then I can see the section being returned. I have a feeling that it would be better if it could be measured with regard to the ranking of the number of practitioners of Taekwondo compared to other martial arts. "Most Popular", however, is a value term and really shouldn't be included, as it isn't following the NPOV guidelines.

40. Removed the links to "gold", "silver", and "bronze" in In 1988, South Korea hosted the [[1988 Summer Olympics|Summer Olympics in Seoul]], coming fourth in the world with 12 [[gold]] medals, 10 [[silver]] medals and 11 [[bronze]] medals

    Reasoning: Unnecessary links. Why should links to the elements that the medals are made of add anything to the context of the section? They're extraneous to the subject.

That should cover the edits that I made and the reasons why I made them. Unless there are objections to restoring these edits, I will re-add them. KieferFL ( talk) 20:09, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

1. ADDENDUM: Also, a recent edit that I feel should be removed is the addition by User:Lakshmix of the following: South Korea is now a role model for many [[developing countries]]<ref>http://www.freeonlineresearchpapers.com/south-korea-role-model-developing-nation</ref> and its highly successful [[economic policy|economic polices]] are widely replicated in other nations.<ref>http://www.freeonlineresearchpapers.com/south-korea-role-model-developing-nation</ref>

   Reasoning: The given reference is from an (obviously, from the site name) a online research papers site that isn't really much of a scholarly reference. Perhaps the items in the Works Cited section are, but those would have to be looked at. At any rate, the quote is "“Korea is now regarded as an economic model to be emulated by other nations”. (Steinberg 124)", which is not equal to "is a role model". Regarded is a very iffy word. Regarded by whom? Regarded by respected economic scholars? Regarded by the South Koreans? Regarded by the author's next-door neighbor? Also, the phrase "highly successful" is unnecessary and assigns value instead of fact to the information, and therefore the stain of non-neutral wording. Also, the link mentions nothing about South Korea's economic policies being widely replicated by other nations. KieferFL ( talk) 04:48, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

2. ADDENDUM: Also, a recent edit that I feel should be removed is the addition of the following: South Korea's international [[competitiveness]] is strong and its [[Global Competitiveness Report|Global Competitiveness]], [[List of countries by economic freedom|Economic Freedom]] and [[Ease of Doing Business Index|Ease of Doing Business]] is ranked above many [[Western European]] countries.

   Reasoning: the link between the items is a bit loose. Yes, they're all different measures of different factors in the economic situation of South Korea, but none is truly outstanding, and comparing these to Western European countries is, once again, picking and choosing the comparison target. In the case of economic freedom (which should not be capitalized, by the way), it isn't ranked above "many Western European countries." It ranks above France by 7 positions and Portugal by 12, but the UK, Ireland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Spain rank much higher. (Even defining which countries are or are not considered "Western Europe" is a bit of a question, because it depends on which organization's definition is used.) In all these lists, however, South Korea ranks respectably, but not exceptionally so. If these rankings could be explored further, that would be good, but I don't see that a sentence or two here would do the subjects justice or add anything to the broad economic picture. (In fact, I'm actually concerned that the section on the Economy is trying to be too specific, with too many economic indicators, as opposed to talking about the S. Korean economy in general. Shouldn't much of these specifics be dealt with on the Economy of South Korea page? KieferFL ( talk) 05:41, 6 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 reply. I have begun re-integrating various items. You state that some removals are inappropriate and need rewording. It would be helpful if we could discuss which ones, and how to make improvements. Without discussion, I will likely re-add those items. KieferFL ( talk) 05:00, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

You have stated that comparison with other countries is valid for the forex reserves, provided there is evidence. The reason is explained before the listing of countries but you are removing it consistently, which contradicts with your point. If you don't like comparison with other countries, why not go and edit Portugal's article since that has even more comparisons with countries? You are removing clearly appropriate comparisons on the grounds that it is against NPOV, which it clearly isn't, provided there is a citable reason behind it. Also, most comparisons have been removed by User:Wondergirls anyway. I don't want to reiterate the same reasons again and WP:NPOV doesn't directly state that comparing with different countries is against NPOV. Lakshmix ( talk) 22:03, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, what I wrote is: "If the reasoning behind South Korea having more foreign exchange reserves is fully explained, then I could see the reason behind having the comparison. But this really isn't the place for such an explanation, and stating that it has one of the world's largest reserves should be sufficient to show that South Korea values having foreign currency to back its currency." The parts in bold are key. There is evidence, yes, that South Korea has huge stores of foreign currency. But that doesn't mean that it needs to be compared to other countries' reserves. Remember, these sections are supposed to be a brief overview of the various topics. A sort of introductory paragraph or two about the highlights.

As for editing Portugal's article: I don't know see what the state of the Portugal article has to do with the article about South Korea. Maybe I'll go there next, but I'm more concerned with the state of this article and the horrible lack of discussion right now. Maybe you are happy with this page being the laughingstock of Wikipedia, but I'm not. This article needs a LOT of work to make it useful as an introduction to South Korea.

As for NPOV: as I stated in the beginning of this section, NPOV certainly does address this situation. It states: 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. What if an editor went through and listed five random countries that South Korea ranked lower than on these charts? (In many of which, I've noticed in my research, South Korea ranks below about 1/3 of the countries in the world.) It would be seen as horribly non-neutral. The same therefore also goes for the opposite. The countries were clearly chosen to make South Korea appear even stronger in those categories than its ranking might otherwise indicate. Just state the facts as clearly and plainly as possible. If you honestly believe that these comparisons are not a violation of NPOV, then bring up the topic on the NPOV talk page.

I am still disappointed that despite all the reverting you've done, you've only brought up the one point for discussion. Almost every time someone other than Wondergirls makes an edit, you revert it without any discussion here in the talk page, no matter what it is, even if it is an obviously necessary correction.

As an example: twice now you've reverted the link correction that Kusunose made, which originally read: It has the world's highest [[scientific literacy]]<ref>http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_mat_lit-education-scientific-literacy</ref> and second highest [[mathematics|mathematical literacy]].<ref>http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_mat_lit-education-scientific-literacy</ref>

Kusunose edited it to read: It has the world's highest [[scientific literacy]]<ref>http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_sci_lit-education-scientific-literacy</ref> and second highest [[mathematics|mathematical literacy]].<ref>http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_mat_lit-education-scientific-literacy</ref> A small edit, but this way, the reference for scientific literacy links to the page for scientific literacy, instead of linking to the same mathematics literacy page that the mathematics literacy reference links to.

At any rate, are there any more of these changes that you would like to discuss? KieferFL ( talk) 03:13, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I am shocked to see that an article of a country that is not a insignificant power is in such a poor state. It is probably the worse case of POV I have seen out of all notable articles. This page is riddled with inaccuracies and erroneous remarks about how Seoul is an international financial city (which it isn't), South Korea has a trillion dollar economy (which it does not), etc etc. This is on top of the egregious POV. A POV tag for the whole article is completely justified. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.113.81.33 ( talk) 05:35, 10 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.

Be objective and precise. Precisely what is POV or boosterism? unless you can provide evidence, your claim is against WP:POV. Lakshmix ( talk) 01:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the first person above. This article is loaded with POV. There are many, many examples given by many, many people on this discussion page. Look and you will see. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.5.253.175 ( talk) 16:23, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

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)

Your continued unexplained removal of contents and edits are highly controversial and point to WP:N - You deliberately added "a cause of both national and international celebration in contrast to great turmoil of the past", which is inappropriate and suggests original research. All your past edits suggest you praise Japanese related articles and have continued to dispute with Korean editors and Korean articles, vandalizing Korean articles for no valid reason. All facts are clearly sourced and are objective. You are removing sourced materials without prior consensus. Lakshmix ( talk) 07:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

My edits are fully explained on this talk page. I did not add that phrase, I removed it - so check your diffs before you accuse me of anything. My edits in the past have no relation to my edits on this article, assume good faith. Sennen goroshi ( talk) 07:54, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

It is simply amazing still user like Sennen goroshi actively make edits in wikipedia without any penalty or prohibition. It is so obvious this person keep trying to harm on Korea-related articles and praise anything but all Japanese-related stuffs. This kinda crooked patriotism actually lead Japan was hit by two nukems in the past. I hope you can learn lessons from the past and please don't forget that. By the way, any commendations or ranks in this article, especially Sennen goroshi listed supported by valid references, which means they are allowed to be posted and valid!!! Patriotmissile ( talk) 20:52, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

No personal attacks please. -- Apoc2400 ( talk) 16:39, 10 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)

If you look at my contributions, you can see that I have repeatedly invited the various editors to discuss the changes that they continue to revert no matter how large or small the edit is. Early on I even went so far as to list 40+ changes that I made, gave the reasons behind them, and have since invited on their personal talk pages all the editors doing the reverting to discuss these edits here on this talk page. (Some multiple times.) It's true, the edits I've made don't have anyone supporting them in the discussion, but neither do they have any editor opposing them in discussion, either. I'd take either, really, just to get a discussion going! This article will never improve until there is discussion.

I'm afraid that any neutral editors have been long scared away from South Korea-related pages, due to the constant partisanship displayed by the various editors, lack of discussion (except for 3RR warnings, ANI threats, and bickering), and rampant ownership taking place in those pages. I'm certainly understanding where they are coming from. KieferFL ( talk) 06:25, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Case in point. Despite a note on User:Kuebie's talk page, he or she has just blindly reverted everything again without discussion. I think it's interesting that there are 3 editors reverting each edit that I make, but not willing to discuss any of those changes. KieferFL ( talk) 06:49, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I support KieferFL. This article is ridiculous and needs this change and much more. If you disagree with his changes then dispute in here on the talk page rather than just reverting. -- Apoc2400 ( talk) 16:45, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

My comment for support would not be a necessary since I requested the RFC. However, in order to send a clear message to Lakshmix, Wondergirls and others who wish to include all about "great South Korea", I also support KieferFL's edit in general for NPOV. The article is still a lot to be cleaned up if we want to try the article at least up for WP:GA. Besides, Lakshmix and Wondergirls should come to the talk page if you want to get a consensus or support from other editors.-- Caspian blue 19:30, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I've looked over the edits (and edit history) and I also support KeiferFL. I need some time to make sure that useful links weren't thrown in the dust bin with other questionable ones, but on the whole his edit seems much less juxtaposed and much more streamlined. RlndGunslinger ( talk) 11:10, 16 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)

Oh, I see there's a rationale at #Economy section. This kind of thing should be mentioned in an RFC summary. Again, I strongly support cutting the hyperbolic language, but think that the trimmed version eliminates too much detail. Cool Hand Luke 22:57, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Looking over this more carefully, I greatly prefer the KieferFL version. I was afraid that it completely cut out details like Hyundai being one of the largest automakers in the world. Actually, it appropriately states their rank. That's precisely what it should do. The longer version has a lot of repetitive superlatives, and it's hard to see that from the diffs alone. Cool Hand Luke 23:14, 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)

First of all, in a certain sense, yeah why not? In a view point that both tour guide and Wikipedia purport to introduce the designated issue, they definitely have commons. What really matters is if the contents introduced are underpinned by facts. As seen, most contents in the thread are backup by reliable references. Before you make any complaint, please denote which parts are actually violating the Wikipedia rules. For God sake, why the heck this Korean thread is always under dispute and crowded with users with certain intention? Please remember one will pay the fiddler when time comes. Patriotmissile ( talk) 21:04, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I have denoted which parts of the article should be improved. Don't just take half of my words and then ignore others. (ie Scroll down....). You asked "Why not?". First off, Wikipedia is not a gallery of propaganda to showcase splendid photography skills. Don't go saying that im jealous or envy your beloved Korea - judging from your previous posts, you take great satisfaction in jumping to conclusions. The good side of things should be told, but not exaggerated. Please remember that. My intention is to improve this article, and what is yours? To object to every suggestion made? -- Platinum inc ( talk) 18:27, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Do you have specific instances that we can discuss? Many people have come to the talk page to say that the page is biased, but without those editors willing to stick around, discuss specifics and build consensus, then there isn't much that can be done to improve the page, I'm afraid. It would be nice to build consensus on some things while the page is protected for the next few days.

Personally, I think that much of the page is quite good. There are a few sections which are mostly a listing of rankings and which don't give much context to the ranked items, and aren't good for inclusion in an introductory page on South Korea, however. Because of the sheer number of rankings and due to the lack of context, I think that it gives the page a bit of a boastful taint, but I'm not sure it is blatantly biased. (There are some non-neutral country comparisons that I have been trying to get removed and rewritten, however.) The section on education does need a more balanced tone, more like the main Education in South Korea article, however, as it doesn't mention the effect that not passing the various tests has on the students. KieferFL ( talk) 18:11, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

What do you think of these phrases?

-major global city

-leading international financial centre

-second largest metropolitan city in the world.

-oldest civilizations in the world

-most advanced democracies in Asia

-industrial powerhouse

-influential military power in the world

-South Korea is a major economic power and one of the wealthiest countries in Asia.

and they are only from the opening pharagraphs. Platinum inc ( talk) 20:31, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Are there facts to back these claims up? If so, then for the most part I don't see a non-neutral tone. "Powerhouse" has a bit of a boastful connotation to it, and another term might be more appropriate, but I'm not sure if one could say that Seoul isn't a major global city or a leading international financial centre or that Korea isn't one of the oldest civilizations in the world, a major economic power, or one of the most advanced democracies in Asia. I'm not sure about the specifics of it being an "influential" military power, so that may be questionable. What about these phrases do you see as being tainted with bias? KieferFL ( talk) 03:30, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

What I am trying to say is, that the article is over glorified and a little dramatic. There are around 50 images; which is superfluous, as most good articles usually have around 20 - 30 (see New York City, London.)There are reasons why South Korea has not been a featured article, but it is obvious that some choose to blatantly throw a veil over them. Platinum inc ( talk) 19:43, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Not that I know there's any rule designating the number of images is restricted in Wikipedia. In addtion, those are the pictures loyally carry out the ultimate goal and spirit of Wikipedia as an internet encyclopedia. In my opinion, judging from your words, you may consider how dare the number of images South Korea can exceed those for New York or London. More over, I think it is not sensical to make comparison between a country and a city, where the former definitely has much more things to be introduced. Patriotmissile ( talk) 21:14, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there is a rule, but an article (or section of an article) shouldn't be overwhelmed by the pictures. It is best if the pictures represent the section well, and add to the information given. The question isn't really could all those pictures be included, but should all those pictures be included. Whether the article is about a country or a city or an animal or a person, too many pictures can actually detract from the purpose of the article, and that purpose is to inform. KieferFL ( talk) 21:57, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the number of pictures do seem a bit much, and some of them don't really match the section very well. The Demographics section is one that should be looked at. Is there a picture of a Korean family or something that would better match the topic of the section? People talking on the street, maybe? The Military and Economy sections also are picture-heavy. The other sections seem okay to me and the pictures match fairly well. If you'd like some of the pictures changed, it would probably be best to make a proposal of removals or replacements while the page is protected, so that discussion can begin and a consensus reached. Once consensus is reached, we can put up the "editprotected" template and get the changes made. KieferFL ( talk) 21:57, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Patriotmissile: Did I ever say that there was a restriction to the amount of images?

"More over, I think it is not sensical to make comparison between a country and a city"

Answer this: when did I compare a city to a country? I compared the articles. I suggest reading my post again.

Also, most country articles have less images than South Korea. Here are more examples of locations with "good article" status: USA, Iran. I believe that some of the images in South Korea are irrelevant and a little too conspicuous. Please don't jump to conclusions. Why would I say "how dare the number of images South Korea can exceed those for New York or London", if that was the case, wouldn't I just add more pictures on those articles? or start a section on adding more pictures? Platinum inc ( talk) 18:13, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

You came back to complain about Patriotmissile's wording (which I already addressed in my comment), but didn't leave any suggestions as to changes you'd like to see??? Come on, guys! (Everyone, not just Platinum inc.) Bickering at each other isn't helping anything. This article has been locked for another month because of just this sort of thing, and rightfully so. Discussion = Consensus = Change = Article improvement. Bickering = Edit wars = 3RR violations = Account blocks = Bad articles. Which set of items does everyone want? *sigh* Done with my soapbox now. KieferFL ( talk) 18:48, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

KieferFL, I have already pointed out what I think needs changing:

• reduce the number of images
• tone down the deification

-- Platinum inc ( talk) 21:07, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you spoke of those general problems, but not the specific changes you'd like to see. If you look at the proposals that I have made at (what is currently) the bottom of the page, those are specific changes. State what you want changed, how you'd like it changed, and give the reason why. I've already responded with what sections I feel are overloaded or have pictures that don't really match their topic, and perhaps I'll get to those problems myself, but I'm still trying to go bit-by-bit through the changes that I had made that were being consistently reverted. If you want things improved, you can't just say that the page has too many pictures and is overly positive, you have to suggest specific changes. KieferFL ( talk) 04:53, 13 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]]."

• Reason: The article on anti-Japanese sentiment is an article about world-wide anti-Japanese sentiment, while the article on Anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea is more specific and better related to the topic.

2. Currently: "Many of these forces are concentrated near the border with North Korea, near the demilitarised zone."

• Change to: "Many of these forces are concentrated near the Korean Demilitarized Zone."
• Reason: Adding a link to the related Wikipedia article can add context to the situation and is not linked to elsewhere on the page. The phrase "near the border with North Korea" was removed as it is repetitive and unnecessary with the addition of the link.

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."

• Change to: "...and is well protected from external economic conditions through vast foreign exchange reserves."
• Reason: Picking and choosing countries of comparison is against 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.") If the reasoning behind South Korea having more foreign exchange reserves was fully explained, then I could see the reason behind having the comparison. But this really isn't the place for such an explanation, and stating that it has one of the world's largest reserves should be sufficient to show that South Korea values having foreign currency to back its currency.

KieferFL ( talk) 19:14, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support per the fairly neutral suggestion with reasonable rationales.-- Caspian blue 19:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

 Done — EncMstr ( talk) 20:03, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

• Support most, but I would prefer "Many of these forces are concentrated near the border with North Korea, near the demilitarised zone." Readers may not know what the demilitarised zone is, and shouldn't have to click the link to understand such central things. -- Apoc2400 ( talk) 22:40, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I can see that. How about this, then: "Many of these forces are concentrated near the Korean Demilitarized Zone at the North Korean border." KieferFL ( talk) 03:30, 11 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>"

• Change to: "Education in South Korea is regarded as being crucial to one's 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>"
• Reason: Adding "as being" & "one's" to reduce the awkwardness of the wording. Uncapitalizing "Problem solving", "Reading", "Mathematics", & "Science" as they are not terms that are normally capitalized.

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>"

• Change to: "A centralised administration in South Korea oversees the process for the education of children from kindergarten to the third and final year of high school. South Korea has adopted a new educational program 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 South 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>"
• Reason: Replacing "third grade high school" with "the third and final year of high school" to help clarify the situation, especially as in the U.S., there are four years of high school. This wording matches what is on the Education in South Korea page. Linking of the 2nd and 3rd sentences, for better informational flow and connection. Replacing of abbreviation "S." with the full word, "South."

3. Currently: "Korean farmers have a hard time finding a wife,..."

• Change to: "Korean farmers have a hard time finding wives,..."
• Reason: Matching plural "farmers" with the plural "wives". KieferFL ( talk) 06:41, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

 Done Ruslik ( talk) 07:40, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

New proposals concerning overlinking

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.

• Proposed Change: I propose that the links to Seoul be kept in the 1st paragraph (Its capital is Seoul, a major...), in the section on History ("...and moved the capital to Seoul.), and in the 3 tables (Infobox, Administrative divisions, & Largest cities), but all other links to Seoul removed.
• Reason: According to MOS:LINK, an article may be overlinked if: "A link for any single term is excessively repeated in the same article." Those other links do not add context to their statements.

2. Currently Snuppy is linked to twice in the Biotechnology section.

• Proposed Change: Removal of the link in the picture's caption.
• Reason: The links are very close to each other, and adds context to the section, but not to the picture.

3. Currently Samsung Group and Samsung (which redirects to Samsung Group) are linked to a total of six times, four links in picture captions.

• Proposed Change: Removal of the links in the picture captions, except for the one showing the Samsung sign (Samsung04.jpg). KieferFL ( talk) 02:15, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

 Done — EncMstr ( talk) 21:44, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposals for Change #4

{{ editprotect}} 1. Currently: "...it is neighbored by China to the west, Japan to the east and borders North Korea to the north."

• Proposed Change: "...it is neighbored by China to the west, Japan to the east, and shares a border with North Korea to the north."
• Reason: Current wording can be misinterpreted to mean that South Korea is north of North Korea, which (obviously) isn't the case.

2. Currently: "...in the 14 century and the rise and influence of [[Confucianism]]."

• Proposed Change: "...in the 14th century and the rise and influence of [[Confucianism]]."
• Reason: 14th century is the correct form.

3. Currently: "...[[renewable energy]] to reduce its [[reliance]] on foreign oil imports..."

• Proposed Change: Removing the link to reliance.
• Reason: Does not add context, common enough term.

4. Currently: "South Korea is the world's sixth largest nuclear power producer and the second largest in Asia."

• Proposed Change: Removing the link to Asia.
• Reason: Does not add context to the sentence, WP:CONTEXT states that "the names of major geographic features and locations" need not be linked to.

5. Currently: "...capable of expressing human [[emotion]]s."

• Proposed Change: Removing the link to [[emotion]].
• Reason: Does not add context, common enough term.

 Done. I unlinked 3 more Asia/ Asian links in addition to the requests above. — EncMstr ( talk) 08:12, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposals for Change #5

Three days & no opposition, so: {{ editprotected}} 1. Currently: " Balhae, Silla's neighbor to the north, was formed as a successor state to Goguryeo."

• Proposed Change: Removing the link to Goguryeo
• Reason: linked to already six sentences earlier

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..."

• Proposed Change: "South Korea has been the second fastest growing economy..."
• Reason: The reference is to support the phrase "one of the world most successful economies", but it is a transcription of a speech that President Bush gave and isn't an analysis of the economics of South Korea. The phrase itself is vague (successful how & compared to what), is better said by the facts presented in the section, and adds unnecessary wording to the sentence which is about the phrase "second fastest growing economy", which has its own reference.

3. Currently: "The Hyundai Kia Automotive Group is the second largest car company in Asia..."

• Proposed Change: removal of the link to "car"
• Reason: link unnecessary - common term

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>"

• Proposed Change #1: removal of "economy" link
• Reason: Unnecessary because the entire section is about the economy
• Proposed Change #2: "...and making South Korea the world's seventh largest economy by 2013."
• Reason: Giving a specific date as opposed to the non-specific, which will change over time.

5. Currently: "Transportation in South Korea is excellent and provided by extensive networks of..."

• Proposed change: removal of "excellent and" to read: "Transportation in South Korea is provided by extensive networks of..."
• Reason: "Excellent" is an unnecessary value term

KieferFL ( talk) 21:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

 Done — EncMstr ( talk) 05:14, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposals for Change #6

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.”

• Proposed Change: Removal of the Skytrax endorsement, and verbiage changed to the past tense
• Reason: Skytrax is one evaluator among hundreds, and is not sourced. Also, the award was given in 2006.

2. References

• Proposed Change: Adding “Unreferenced” Tag to the following sections, : History, Transportation & Energy, Science & Technology, Education, and the Culture section.
• Reason: The Culture section in particular has not a single citation or reference after the introductory sentence. The other sections are almost as bad, with some only having one source per fifteen lines.

RlndGunslinger ( talk) 11:59, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

• 1. Demographics sections are basically to give the statistics of the population for race, economic status, job percentages, religion, etc. Culture is more of the likes and dislikes of the country, music, entertainment, sports, social activities and the like, so I don't really see much out of place currently. I think that the demographics section might actually need some things added, but the population information and the religion information I think are good where they are. The "Largest Cities" should probably be moved to the section with the Administrative divisions, but then the title would need to be changed to something more descriptive. "Administrative divisions and cities"?

I'll leave this alone for now, then, as I'm not that familiar with what else should go into Demographics, and I don't want to play around with the titles just yet... RlndGunslinger ( talk) 07:50, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

• 2. SUPPORT If my suggestion to change the picture there to Image:Korean.747.arp.750pix.jpg is thought of value, then this won't be a problem...that picture and its caption will no longer be included. If the picture is kept, I completely agree with your suggestion.

• 3. From what I've read, this section has had a bit of controversy in the past as to what to include and what not to include. Perhaps creating a page to contain this information separate from this article would be good. Part of me was thinking that some of the excess baggage from the article could be removed because that information was included in this table, however. (Sort of the reverse of your thought, that the table could be removed because the info was in the article.) Without the table, there may be fewer reasons to eliminate some of the ranking info in the sections (such as the Economy section) that doesn't tie in well with the surrounding information. That's the drawback that I can see to it's removal/move. So, keep it if the similar information can be removed from the article, or if not, move it to it's own page. (I agree that it is a problem that more references aren't used. NationMaster.com isn't the originator of these stats, though, are they? I think that it is just the collector of the information. It would be nice to reference the originators of these statistics/rankings.)

I'm not that invested in deletion or movement, so I would be fine with your proposed assimilations into the other sections. At any rate, it sounds like we both find a problem with the redundancy of listing the facts and figures twice: once in the paragraph, and again in the table. The main reason I proposed removing the table altogether, (rather than just moving pieces) is that it reinforces the comparative tone of the article; “Korea is more X than Y.” “Korea is the most X and Y etc.” (As for the sourcing, I tried digging through the NationMaster site to find out where they get their data from, but it was a dead-end. There must other similar sites with more transparency though, like the OECD, or the UN.) RlndGunslinger ( talk) 07:50, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

• 4. SUPPORT Sounds fine to me. Hopefully some of those needed references can be filled in during the continuing editing process, and perhaps even some editing of the sections will remove portions that needed reference. If you want "Additional Citations Needed" tags added by an admin, you'll have to be more specific as to where, though. KieferFL ( talk) 18:55, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposals for Change #7

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.

• Proposal: The section should be tagged "Unreferenced."
• Reason: The section is, in fact, completely without citations or references. Although this section (and others) may soon become well-sourced, it would be a disservice to those who visit the page in the meantime not to mark it.

"Modern South Korean culture is heavily dominated by technology."

• Proposal: Clarification of the sentence
• Reason: It is unclear what is meant by 'heavily dominated', and simply changing 'dominated' to a weaker synonym like 'influenced' does not help make the implied comparison any clearer: Korean culture is "more" influenced by technology than other cultures? Whose?

"In recent years games, both online games..."

• Proposal: Deletion of the sentence
• Reason: Despite reinforcing the preceding statement, 'significant' is a rather weasely word and without sourcing it's difficult to tell who decided/defined that PC gaming is now significant.

Paragraph beginning: "Modern South Korean culture is dominated by..."

• Proposal: Either unlinking many of the games, or removing excess examples of PC games.
• Reason: Much of the "blue" in this article has already been carefully excised (by KieferFL and EncMstr), but this rather short paragraph has an average of two links per sentence. That's over-kill.

"This is by far the preferred pastime for students..."

• Proposal: Revision as follows: "This is a pastime for students but is enjoyed by many other Koreans as well."
• Reason: This sentence is particularly in need of a citation, but even with a moderately supportful one it seems unlikely that 'vastly preferred' by 'everyone' is not hyberbole.

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)

I agree that some pictures in the article should probably be removed, (and not just in the Economy section.) The pictures you've proposed to remove seem reasonable, given your explanations for each. Besides, to give an illustration of the "norm" Iran, France, the U.K. and Japan pages have an average of 30 pictures. (This article has around 50.) These all are (or were--France) Good Articles, so I think that it isn't necessary to have so many pictures in order to have a Good Article. RlndGunslinger ( talk) 10:58, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Some of pictures are surplus, but could you provide ideal examples here or on your subpage? The suggestion without anything viewable is hard for editors to follow.-- Caspian blue 19:32, 24 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)

If you think the article is that biased, could you please give specific examples of what is NPOV? You could aid us; we could always use more editors to help improve the page. If you've already identified problems that would even give you some momentum to fix them. RlndGunslinger ( talk) 23:31, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, as I already said, the tone in the lead is very chauvinistic. Korea is best in this, Korea is best at that, Korea is the best country for X and Y is by far best in Korea. If you read the lead and count the superlatives used there to tell the reader how great Korea is, you will find a very large number. If you compare that with the lead for other highly developed countries such as Canada, the US, France, Switzerland or Germany you'll see that they are not written even remotely in the same way, even though we could list similar achievements in the lead for those articles as well. In short, I don't think the lead is the place for huge dose of "Korea is BEST BEST BEST". If there were two or three of these statements in the lead, the reader might think "Wow, Korea looks like a really great country" and I'm that's what we'd all want. At present, the reader is much more likely to think "Wow, Korea looks like a really nationalistic and insecure country" and I don't see why anyone would want that. JdeJ ( talk) 07:48, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

In order for any change to take place, however, specific edits must be discussed. Personally, I think that much of the obvious non-neutral language has been removed. Now, it is a matter of re-writing the sections (such as the Introduction and the Economy sections) that have a lot of the tone that you mention. Not so much because of the "BEST BEST BEST" feel, but because of their incohesive, random nature. They essentially contain lists of the things that South Korea is good at. They may be true, but everything that South Korea is good at doesn't need to be listed here. The main country article should serve as an introduction to that country, not a "Master's" course. It should "flow" better in order to convey the information in a clearer fashion, and the constant listing of achievements is a barrier to that goal. Once these random sections are edited, I think that the "BEST BEST BEST" feel of the page will diminish. But, once again, we need to talk in specifics when it comes to what changes should be made. If not, then an "editprotected" tag can't go on the proposals for an admin to make the changes, and nothing is accomplished. KieferFL ( talk) 18:56, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it is an extremely over-positive article, it sounds like something the North Korean govt would say in a press release about their own country. Instead of stating the the country is the best for producing something, just state that they produce it - or even better don't say anything - we don't need a huge list accompanied by images stating that Korea makes cell-phones - such things may be relevant for an economy of south korea article, but not for this article, I propose as soon as the editing ban is lifted that huge chunks of this article are changed/removed. I can't be bothered to list everything I wish to change, and I am sure the nationalistic editors will whine about it and back up their claims stating that in 2004 south korea was voted number one at something, but whatever - the article needs major change. Sennen goroshi ( talk) 13:24, 25 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:

1. "Korea is one of the oldest civilizations in the world"
2. South Korea is "one of the two most advanced democracies in Asia"
3. "an industrial powerhouse and an influential military power in the world"
4. "South Korea has an international outlook"
5. "South Korea is a major economic power"
6. "one of the wealthiest countries in Asia"
7. "a trillion dollar economy that is the fourth largest in Asia"
8. "South Korea is one of the world's top ten exporters"
9. "The Asian Tiger is leading the Next Eleven nations"
10. "one of the world's fastest growing developed economies."
11. "South Korea has a high-tech and futuristic infrastructure and is a world leader in technologically advanced goods"
12. "It has the world's highest scientific literacy"
13. "second highest mathematical literacy"
14. "is a trend setting country in Asia"
15. "exerting strong cultural influence in the continent"

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)

I think there should be one mention in the lead of the economic changes that Korea has gone through, that is notable, however being fourth, second of "one of" is not notable, also peacock terms such as "trend setting" and "influential" should be banished from this article. The point that is the worst as far as I am concerned is "one of the two most...." to me that seems as if they are the second most...but someone wishes to hide that fact and state that they might be first or second. Either way, this should not have to turn into something overly negative, a history section should make interesting reading, a South Korean economy article can easily make the point that they are a major industrial nation. Sennen goroshi ( talk) 12:07, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

It seems like Sennen goroshi has a history of removing "huge chunks" of contents off Korean articles such as what you did with Seoul. Least surprised that you are Japanese, but regardless I have to agree that this article is overly positive and extremely nationalistic. The introduction is completely fuelled by rankings and world class achievements. There are too many "words" and sentences that are just repeating over and over. About half of the things mentioned in the introduction could be taken out and still convey to a user the same meaning, just without the excessive boasting.

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)

Sockpuppets that disagree with each other and have different editing and writing styles? Okay, anonymous visitor. KieferFL ( talk) 02:27, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, we're trying to gather consensus unlike some who would rather make ad hominem attacks. Also, I'll thank you not to POV push unsourced changes on the U.S. beef imports page. RlndGunslinger ( talk) 03:22, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

That's rather rich, an anonymous IP accusing all non-Koreans, engaged in long and constructive discussions, for being racists. I wonder how this "new" user managed to find this discussion? It's not the first time we meet accusations saying that everybody who isn't Korean is a racist. Defining racism by race, that's a new concept JdeJ ( talk) 08:42, 2 January 2009 (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)

Thank you for your interest in the South Korea page. Using the common country name for the article is standard practice throughout Wikipedia, for example China or Australia. Currently the title is listed as "South Korea" although the lead explains that the official state name is "The Republic of Korea." Although the page is currently under protection please feel free to post any proposals you have for improving the article on the Talk Page. RlndGunslinger ( talk) 14:18, 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)

There are some prominent people in this list, but we still need to do some research.

Composer: Ahn Eak-tai

20th century poets

Pak Tu-jin Cho Chi-hun (1920-1968) Cho Chung-kwon (born 1949) Ch'ŏn Sang-pyŏng (1930-1993) Cheong Chi-yong (1903-?) Choi Nam-son (1890 -1957) Choi Seung-ho (born 1942) Chu Yo-han (1900-1980) Hong Yun-suk (born 1925) Hwang Tong-gyu (born 1938) Im Hwa (1908-1953)

Jeong Ho-seung (born 1950) Joo Duk-In (1989- ) Kim Ch'un-su (1922-2004) Kim Dong-hwan (1901 - ?) Kim Gu-yong (Kim Kku) (1922 - ) Kim Hye-soon (born 1955) Kim Jong-chul (born 1947) Kim Jong-gil (born 1926) Kim Kwang-kyu (born 1941) Kim Myung-son (1896-1951) Kim Seung-hee (born 1952)

Kim Sowol (1902-1934) Kim Su-yŏng (1921-1968) Kim Young-moo (1944-2001) Kim Yun-sik (1903-1950) Ko Chang Soo (1934-) Ko Un (born 1933) Ku Sang (1919-2004) Moh Yoon-sook (1910-1990) Oh Se-young (born 1942) Pak In-hwan (1926-1956) Pak No-hae (born 1956)

Pak Tu-jin (1916-1998) Park Mok-wol (1916-1978) Park Yee-moon (born 1930) Seo Jeong-ju (" Midang") (1915-2000) Yi Sang-hwa (1901-1943) Yi Sang (1910-1937) Yi Yuk-sa (1904-1944) Yu Chi-hwan (1908-1967} Yun Tong-ju (1918-1945)

philosopher: -—Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingj123 ( talk • contribs) 2009-01-10T01:55:05 (UTC)

You raise a great point: most of this section (and indeed the article) focuses on the last 30 years of Korean history. Nonetheless, it's important to remember that the article as well as the respective sections of the article are meant to be summaries or overviews. As such, they can't really be exhaustive lists of people, places and events.

I think that you have some good examples above, but I also think they would belong better on the main Culture of Korea page. If you're worried about the brief summary paragraphs on the in the Culture section, then why not offer some changes or additions? Although the page is protected now, if you make some proposals we should be abel to get them in the article. RlndGunslinger ( talk) 06:16, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Note I insert a table and missing signature of Kingj123 ( talk · contribs) to reduce the unnecessary lengthy space. The previous version can be seen in this diff-- Caspian blue 01:17, 22 January 2009 (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)

If you think the rest of the article is also biased, could you please give specific examples of what is NPOV? You could aid us; we could always use more editors to help improve the page. I see above that you've already identified some problems which is a good start. Could you please offer some solutions? Although the page is protected now, if you make some proposals we should be abel to get them in the article. RlndGunslinger ( talk) 06:09, 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:

• Identify a passage that needs to be improved.
• Break down the passage; highlight some key points
• Research
• Reorganize the materials (i.e. chronologically or by topic)
• Divide into several paragraphs

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)

Wondergirls, I see you have also come back now that the page is unprotected. I assume that you're here to help, but please use the talk page when possible. It looks like you've tried to make some phrases more NPOV, and even added sources, which is great. Nonetheless, the recent reverts of other users' edits aren't constructive without consensus. This was, and still is, a controversial page. Therefore, let's try to use the talk page both to explain any changes/reverts, as well as to gather some agreement. RlndGunslinger ( talk) 07:27, 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)

When I asked for your editing help, I had hoped that you would try to gather consensus before making such bold edits. I understand that many people have complained about the bias of the article, but we should try to work together; it wasn't that long ago that this page was locked because of edit warring.

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)

Yeah, I see your point. I went there with the best of intentions however the article for want of another word - stinks. If there had been a reasonable conversation in the past, I might give the talk page a few days before editing anything, however the people on this talk page seem to be either 1. responsible editors who see the bias for what it is and wish to remove some of the OTT statements 2. Nationalistic editors who for whatever reason want to turn this into a huge KOREA IS BETTER THAN EVERYONE article and don't understand the meaning of notable and/or balanced. I personally would like to see an admin take this article, change it for what is generally acceptable in wikipedia and then lock it. カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! ( talk) 14:44, 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)

That is why I am not going to jump back in and undo reverts of my edits..for the time being. BTW Lakshmix and Wondergirls are either the same editor, or similar editors who share an interest in editing a huge amount of the same articles. I can understand them both editing Korean articles, but it seems strange that in addition to Korean articles, they are both editing an article relating to an obscure private school in the UK. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_College_School - I smell sock. カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! ( talk) 04:26, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

It now seems abundantly clear that Ziggymaster, Wondergirls and Lakshmix are all the same editor, and without their recent contributions, there would have been next to no edit wars on this article. I suggest that they are reverted on sight. カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! ( talk) 18:40, 16 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)

It's nearly a month since your changes, but still, when I read the article… well, there's a comment below that says "Absolutely Horrible". I admire the Koreans and their success in rebuilding South Korea. Sadly, this article gives a bad impression of a remarkable and accomplished nation. Korea deserves better! -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 08:48, 15 February 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)

Please sign your contribution. Pds0101 ( talk) 10:24, 22 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)

Then Sennen Goroshi must be reported to an administrator. Anyone care to do so? Pds0101 ( talk) 12:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

A sock and a sock IP in conversation? カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! ( talk) 15:20, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

If you are concerned, file this account as well then instead of callng every editor here a sock. Other editors are just worried for the good of this article from distruptive edits like yours. Pds0101 ( talk) 00:31, 23 January 2009 (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

1. Olympic Park (Ziggymaster) 2. Seoul World Cup Stadium (Ziggymaster) 2. Seoul World Cup Stadium (Ziggymaster) 3. Gyeongbok Palace (Ziggymaster) 4. LG phones (by Ziggymaster) 5. DMB phone (Ziggymaster) 6. Seoul Grand Park Hill (Ziggymaster) 7. Korean Air Cargo Aircraft (Ziggymaster) 8. Lotte World Theme Park (Ziggymaster) 9. KTX Seoul Station (Lakshmix) 9. KTX Seoul Station (Lakshmix) 10. A ROK Marine (U.S. Navy) 11. Night scene of Haeundae (Patriotmissile) 11. Night scene of Haeundae (Patriotmissile) 12. HUBO (Mac) 13. (Jpbarrass) 14. Myeongdong (HunkinElvis) 15. TVXQ in Paris (Ninjacatherine) 16. Gimbap (ZenKimchi) 17. Gyeongdan, a variety of tteok, (a flicker user) 18. Daechucha, jujube tea (a flicker user)

-- 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)

But you should not just removed everthing that says "world leaders.. 6th largest". These are generally all facts and correctly cited. The thing that concerns me is their random occurance in the article or there are just too many these "leading" implications especially in the economy section. These areas need to be toned downed. We can compare this article to other major country articles. If you thoroughly read through those, You will see that South Korea is in structure wise similar but with a tad too much of an pleasant icing. This article can informatively address a user with the exact same contents as now, but just without so much of a boastful tone. To Sennen Goroshi please do not remove contents such as the section on Japanese class A war criminals(these have been discussed before) or change per capita figures as they have not officially been released yet. Pds0101 ( talk) 00:55, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Pds0101 - before I interact with you, I would like to clarify if you are another sockpuppet - there seems to be some evidence dates/articles/tone that you are the same person as Ziggymaster/Lakshmix/Wondergirls カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! ( talk) 03:57, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I have nothing to do with Ziggymaster/Lakshmix/Wondergirls, although we do edit on the same articles quite alot. If the authenticty of my account concerns you that much, then very well you can file me out. But I assure I am not a sock of anyone. Pds0101 ( talk) 07:04, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I apologise if the suggestion that you are a sock puppet offended you, after having to deal with a few of them on this article it isn't so easy to assume good faith. But I guess concentrating on the edits rather than the editors might make things easier for me to deal with.

I have never thought that any of the claims were incorrect, I just don't see a lot of them as being relevant. I suggest that all leading terms are removed - world leaders in blah blah..they have no place in this article. This article needs to be assumed to be neutral when someone reads it - at times it has been pathetically over-positive and anyone reading it would know straight away that it was written by a Korean who wants to portray their nation in the best way possible. カンチョーSennen Goroshi ! ( talk) 13:07, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Thats fine. I understand why you might have thought that way. But back to your point, Well I don't think it would hurt if them term "world leader" was used at least somewhere in the article when necessary, as it is used in other country articles too. But these kinds of overly positive words do occur perhaps too often. I have tried to some make changes to the introduction several times already to tone things down (at least this is a start), but it seems making any edits to this page is virtually impossible. When you compare South Korea's lead to other major countries, it is the only one that comes to my mind as strikingly bad. Pds0101 ( talk) 01:33, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello! I just thought I'd drop in with some comments.

First, do not use Wikipedia as a citation. I can see that with the comment It is a global leader in the fields of education. I would only give factual references as to where it comes in league tables and the like. "A global leader" is a subjective term depending on how you define it, so I would not use it unless someone like the OECD do in recent publications.

Second, more generally I do not see proper citations that accompany "world leader" throughout the article. Remember that if this article is to get FA status it needs to be properly citated. I promise you the article could fail on this point alone so you might as well try to avoid such subjective terms to begin with. It adds nothing to the article, other than to make some South Koreans proud. I hope you'd all agree that's not what the article should be about.

Third, I feel the tone of the article is like a promotional campaign for why South Korea is generally "great". Some of the citations are clearly not appropriate. You can't say Frequently described as a technology superpower and use a US-Korean student conference as a citation.

Fourth, keep the image captions simple and don't put contentious statements in there without a proper citation. Comments like EveR-2 is a highly sophisticated android capable of expressing human emotions naturally. and Albert HUBO is one of the most advanced humanoid robots in the world. are subjective and may even be controversial. Just say what the image is and leave it at that - unless say it won a very prestiguous international award. For example Kim Yu-Na is a world leading figure skater and one of the most recognized athletes in South Korea. should be changed to Kim Yu-Na is a medal-winning ice figure-skater. It's factual and simple.

Fifth, I think the article could do with a link to an article on racism/racial issues in South Korea if there is one under the demographics section. If not you could use Anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea.

Sixth, the citations need formatting and there need to be a lot more of them. John Smith's ( talk) 13:30, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your contribution, I hope to see that at least some of your points will be implemented. Pds0101 ( talk) 12:24, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I want to chime in with Sennen Goroshi and John Smith--esp. the captions for the pictures really make this look like a brochure from the Korean chamber of commerce; they are decidedly unencyclopedic. Drmies ( talk) 03:28, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree about the overuse of superlatives and overstated facts that occur throughout the article. In the intro alone there are plenty to remove. If we agree, how do we start and how do we convince with those who disagree? -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 08:14, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

About cited superlatives… many references use them. A web page about a new aircraft will say it's the most advanced in the world. Another about shipbuilding will have plenty of data to support a claim of long-term success. But part of editing for an encyclopedia is reducing extraordinary claims to ordinary fact. Is it necessary to repeat every best, greatest, most advanced, highest, etc., that we find in references? When we cite references, people can read them. Korea's accomplishments are significant. It should be easy to say so without overstatement. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 08:28, 15 February 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:

Comparison of Korean- and English-language Wikipedia

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.

Proposed change to the Introduction

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:

• second highest average national IQ, (deleted by another editor, please discuss before restoring this information)
• high-tech and futuristic,
• major global economy,
• advanced technology world leader,
• most heavily fortified border,
• world's highest…,
• global leader in…,
• modern culture [is] popular… Korean wave,
• second most prosperous major economy,
• leading the Next Eleven nations,
• role model for developing countries,
• distinctive reputation of Asian Tiger,
• one of the two full democracies in Asia, etc.

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)

58.35.143.14 the words you decribed regarding this article is absolutely not proper and polite. 68.40.179.217 ( talk) 19:30, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I removed a portion of the remarks by 68.40.179.217 ( talk) per WP:TALK. Please comment about the article and avoid remarks about other editors. Thank you.

just like every wikipedia article, liberals dominate the wiki imo. -- Andersmusician NO 03:48, 16 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 think I agree. The manner in which the editor has placed the tags is not very constructive, but his concern with the article's pov is well-placed. Personally, I have looked through some areas and haven't even known where to start; cleaning up the article is probably going to be a pretty massive task. rʨanaɢ ^talk/ _contribs 07:43, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

An example of unbalanced and weasel words

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.

You only exemplified a couple of sentences in the military section, and now you are claiming that entire South Korea article is bluffed. That's what people say exaggeration. I guess you have to consider what kinda tags you can use properly first. 68.40.179.217 ( talk) 19:30, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I made no such claim. The article is not "bluffed". It contains overstated facts like those in my example. I agree with the unbalanced and weasel words tags, and I've tried to explain my reasons. Please comment about the content of the article and avoid remarks about other editors. Thank you. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 21:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

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.

No wonder why this article has fallen to the C grade article. How could possibly this artcle maintain 'good quality' (to which standard?) against so many those biased attacks? Those kinda crooked chauvinisitic attacks really make Wikipedia's neutralism in peril. 68.40.179.217 ( talk) 01:37, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The standard is WP:WikiProject Korea rating of articles. The good article rating process is explained at the top of the discussion page. Let's discuss the article and avoid remarks about editors. Thank you. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 04:31, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

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)

Simply to convene discussion, you said you put tags. That's really something I don't think you are supposed to do. Yes, it deserves a better article. The real problem is people have different views upon the standard of better article. As everybody knows, we are not all angels, so some people are willing to abuse the freedom of this editing or tags as a weapon for meeting his/her chauvinisitic partiotism. 68.40.179.217 ( talk) 01:37, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

There are published standards for this article. Please read about the article quality scale. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 08:10, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Here's my suggestion. Now you are claiming that the South Korea article is full of unbalanced and weasel words. Then my suggestion is you to make a desirable draft for correcting those words you indicated. About the tags, as I know puttung those kinda tags cannot be used as a weapon and also determined by individual judgement. I will ask this article to be protected from this absurd situation. Before you bring the draft and reasonable numbers of consentment on putting the tags, the tags should be removed until then. 68.40.179.217 ( talk) 01:21, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The purpose of tags is to alert editors that the article needs improvement and invites new editors to join a discussion. Please read WP:Tag First and WP:RESPTAG. Thank you. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 08:10, 16 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

In addition, I think it is not reasonable and justifiable that putting the tags to entire article, simply because someone has tried to put the tags on certain sections of the article, but claimed it was in vain. This kinda act really makes all those efforts by many users in vain. Please consider it. 68.40.179.217 ( talk) 01:48, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The tags are not the issue (or they shouldn't be) and they are not a weapon. We should discuss the article, not the tags! Tags are not a criticism of the subject of the document. They indicate the document needs work. If the tags are removed, it indicates the article is fine as it stands. Dead lock. Nothing will change. It's pointless to make changes that are immediately reverted because there's no consensus on the problem. That's where this article has been for two years. Yes, the whole document needs scrutiny, some areas more, some areas less.

The purpose of the tags is to engage a discussion. We remove the tags; the discussion ends; dead lock; nothing happens.

I haven't edited the document because I've seen how contentious the process has become. I commented on the problem before tags were added — I did not add them. Anyone is free to tag an article that they feel has problems. It's wrong to remove a tag unless the problem is addressed. The problem is not the tags or who added them. The problem is why they were added and the reason is that the article needs work. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 04:22, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

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:

1. Military (This is a short enough section that the problematic peacock bits could probably be identified and edited in barely any more time than it takes to tag.)
2. Economy
3. Science and technology
4. Culture

rʨanaɢ ^talk/ _contribs 01:45, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Would you be more specified to the fatual revisions you are expecting on those sections you listed? As I know, most lines are underpinned by reference(s). So I wonder how you wish to be cleaned up those sections: just revising their ways of expression or consolidating with more citations? 68.40.179.217 ( talk) 01:56, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Some parts are referenced but just much more wordy and flowery than they need to be (Mtd2006 put together a list of examples above). The other problem that comes up in some of these sections is that, even though everything is referenced, it's only really showing one side of the story; the original author of those sections may have cherry picked a lot of the references to include only the positive ones. As editors, we need to be evaluating the references and their claims, and trying to represent our best approximation of the truth, rather than just a view that happens to be supported by certain references we find. rʨanaɢ ^talk/ _contribs 02:23, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm all for this approach if it works. I made my assessment to a deafening silence until another editor added tags. The tags are not the issue; their purpose is to bring editors to the discussion page to reach consensus about the article. No tags… deafening silence. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 04:37, 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:

1. Do we agree to remove superlatives, wordy and flowery language? In the first paragraph of the Military section alone, we'll lose some highly complimentary statements.
2. References — several problems, but there are plenty of good-quality references

Korean language references per Non-English sources,

I agree about cherry-picking, exceptional claims require exceptional sources,

Citations missing publisher, date, and author information — a "small" problem that makes finding replacements for dead links especially difficult

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)

Yep, I agree with this assessment. We should definitely remove superlatives unless they are really notable; South Korea is already a country, so it's not like we have anything to prove. With articles about joe schmoe garage band you often have to say it's the "most" something in order to prove notability, but that's not a concern here, so we can afford to be neutral. I have been slowly working on taking superlatives out of image captions (image captions aren't the place to impress people anyway; that stuff goes in the main text. The image caption should be describing the image.).

References are also a major problem. For the image caption about Korea Air, it said KA was the largest cargo carrier in the world, and when I checked the reference it was actually listed as the second-largest, which is a very big difference. Needless to say, I removed the reference and the statement. We are going to have a lot of work on our hands checking all these references wherever there's an extraordinary claim, but it needs to be done, because right now all references and claims are suspect.

And, of course, the incorrectly formatted citations (bare URLs, etc.) need fixed. This has always been one of my major pet peeves. In the process of checking facts we can also fix the citations as we go. rʨanaɢ ^talk/ _contribs 14:58, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

The reasons for article improvement tags

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)

The problem is not that OECD's data is unreliable but that those claims are not actually supported by the referenced pages. The TL3 data is used for Ulsan's "the second richest city" claim. However, The TL3 obviously is not city level division but provincial and metropolitan city level division in South Korea and prefectural level division in Japan. As noted above, several cities in Japan have higher GDP per capita than Ulsan. The TL3 data also shows that Gyeongsangnam province's GDP per capita is 20,737 USD. Also note that those data cover South Korea and Japan only so cannot be used to assert their relative wealth "in East Asia". Based on this, I removed those claims. -- Kusunose 14:40, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Thank you for researching that one. I restored the OECD link for GDP data. It's a better source than City Mayors. N.B. I also changed the Lichest to Richest for this section's title.

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)

That's a scary idea. Let's not open that can of worms right now. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 22:27, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I believe "The Onion" is not a proper source for information of any kind, according to the verifiavility policy of wikipedia, TheOnion is a parody project -- Andersmusician NO 22:49, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Ditto! -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 04:50, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Update citation for url= http://www.rom.on.ca/news/releases/public.php?mediakey=sg1yebpnv8

• Old title: "Ancient Civilizations"
• New title: "News Releases: Gallery of Korea"
• Date: 12 December 2005

-- 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)

I'm glad someone else noticed this. I tried to delete this part of the sentence, and provided a rationale for doing so, but the passage was instantly reverted by a Korean editor.

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:

Table 1. The World's Twenty Largest Urban Areas According to Eight Different Sources, p2.

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)

I agree 100%. Great work! rʨanaɢ ^talk/ _contribs 11:20, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, I love cookies. -- Mtd2006 ( talk) 19:58, 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)

I guess the issue is whether we feel we're presenting a Hangul term or a Korean term. The sentence at issue is this one from the lead:

often referred to as Korea (Hangul: 대한민국)

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)

I don't think that's quite what I said, or if I did, that wasn't my intent. Hangul is the official, written Korean language, not just a way of spelling. The McCune-Reischauer system (see The McCune-Reischauer Korean Romanization System and Romanization System of Korean: McCune Reischauer (with minor modifications) BGN/PCGN 1945 Agreement) is a way of spelling. McCune-Reischauer is not a language. For more about romanization of Korean, see Korean romanization. Since this discussion began, another editor has added the Hanja version of tae-han-min-guk.

Some difficulty may be that the Hangul and Hanja follow the word "Korean". Since 대한민국 and 大韓民國 translate to "The Republic of Korea", would it be better to move them after the words "Republic of Korea"? How's this?

South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK) ( Hangul: 대한민국, Hanja: 大韓民國, IPA: [tɛː.han.min.ɡuk̚]), listen ^ⓘ), often referred to as Korea, is a…

It may be that this was how the article read at one time, before the extra words, "often referred to as Korea" were added.

-- Mtd2006 ( talk) 05:20, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

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.

1. GDP (PPP)
2. GDP (PPP) per capita
3. GDP (nominal)
4. GDP (nominal) per capita

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)

I left the editor a message a few minutes ago asking about this, at User talk:Cryingnut#Ethnic groups of South Korea. S/he said that it's from the UN census. Personally, I don't mind that it's a Christian organization (sometimes these POV organizations can still put out good information...for example, SIL International is one of the best resources on language typology, even though they are unfortunately affiliated with missionary activities...it's just something we take with a grain of salt); what really caught my eye was that it lists "American," "British," and "Deaf" as ethnic groups, which seems very strange to me. rʨanaɢ ^talk/ _contribs 16:56, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I think you identified the problem when you observed that "American," "British," and "Deaf" are identified as people groups by the Joshua Project. I had looked at the sources of the data [10]. The United Nations is not among them. The sources are advocacy groups. The Joshua Project is an unreliable source for ethnic group statistics. The reference states that "numbers can vary by several percentage points or more". From this source, we can conclude that 97% of the population of Korea claim Korean heritage, and 3% claim "other". Can we move these people-group statistics to the talk page until ethnic-group statistics are located? United Nations census data would be a sufficient reference. Mtd2006 ( talk) 00:27, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree...I don't see UN in there, as claimed. I know Ethnologue is a decent source (although almost certainly not the one that was used for ethnic group statistics; Ethnologue is a language database), but I can't vouch for any of those others. I have removed the information:

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}

rʨanaɢ ^talk/ _contribs 12:07, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

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)

Identification of problems is necessary to document pervasive problems with the article. Piece-meal, incremental changes are subject to edit-warring. The entire article is rated C-class because the entire article has multiple problems that are never addressed ( independent assessment by administrator Antandrus). A recent attempt to revise the economy section was reverted to nearly its previous condition. The 42-point list of problems were not discussed. This is the pattern of attempts to revise the article. Moreover, attempts to tag the article for improvement are attacked as unnecessary. A Top-importance article that's persistently rated C-class is, by definition, in need of improvement. Article-improvement tags are the only way to alert editors that the article requires research, assessment and revision. We don't vote by majority here (see Wikipedia is not a democracy), we discuss and arrive at consensus (see WP:Consensus). As a counter-proposal, I suggest that the article be permanently tagged until it improves. An objective measure of improvement is when the the article achieves a B-class rating. Mtd2006 ( talk) 23:18, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

At least, from you, I've learned that I clearly misunderstand the basal spirit of Wikipedia. I thought the reason for opening editorial privilege is to pursue democracy here. By the way, I don't think there's anyone who disagree that there are points to be improved like all other articles, but the key is who's standard for which we should make satisfied. As you may know, this article has been attacked ceaselessly, and that ironically has driven this article turned towards kinda nationalism. What I'd like to ask to administrators is to be less silent to those who have really harmful intention on this article. Sometimes, it's indeed hard to understand the way how wikipedia runs. Honestly speaking, there is growing conspiracy theory that in overall, Wikipedia has a quite prejudiced view point for certain groups, which makes Wikipedia less reliable and popular. Patriotmissile ( talk) 21:08, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't really understand what your proposal is. We already are working on improving the article directly; the reason Mtd2006 and I have been documenting problems here as well is 1) so that other users explain why we are making controversial changes; and 2) so that others can see what needs improvement and can help with the cleanup. rʨanaɢ ^talk/ _contribs 23:35, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

@Patriotmissile, Thank you. We're moving off-topic with this thread, but I think we agree that "majority rules" can't work. In a pure democracy, if three of four editors agree today, a new majority of four other editors can reverse an agreement tomorrow. The result is chaos. It's unfortunate that some editors view article-improvement tags as an attack on an article. Instead, tags are the start of peer assessment, discussion and consensus.

Other editors have asked your question, "whose standard decides what's good?" The Wikipedia short answer is the assessment process. The long answer is explained here. For the South Korea article, WikiProject Korea assigns an article rating. An article can be submitted for an independent assessment. It's a workable process.

Single-digit-editors are a symptom of democracy — anyone can edit and anyone can tag! The huge tidal wave of single-digit-editors and drive-by taggers are the voice of democracy. The voice isn't an attack on the article, it's a critique. All of these editors are saying the same thing: the article needs improvement.

Rjanag and I are cooperating to improve the article. We're attempting a different approach, and we need help. We don't agree on everything, but we've avoided edit wars. Rjanag is working to reduce flowery language, soothing contentious edits, and making incremental changes. I'm working on references and documenting problems. When Rjanag or I find a problem, I try to document it and suggest a fix. Our goal is to follow Antandrus' advice by revising one section at a time. Again, Patriotmissile, thank you for taking timeout to discuss the article and how we can improve it. Mtd2006 ( talk) 04:27, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Mtd2006, I appreciate for your detailed explanation. No wonder why there's some restriction on democratic atmosphere in wikipedia, since I've also witnessed many ill-mannered & harmful editors. Please, go ahead and make this article imroved. I am looking forward to seeing a better trimmed article here. However, I hope you understand that if trims and revisions are considered to be too radical or distorted facts, then I'am willing to defy those trims and revisions in a logical way. Thanks. Patriotmissile ( talk) 22:07, 27 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.

I'm fine either way; I was just keeping the dablink because South Korean currently redirects to South Korea, and if it goes there then there should be a dablink to help with navigation (since people typing 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)

I started to change South Korean to the disambiguation page when I noticed it's a hornets nest of controversy. The question is, should demonyms and ethnonyms redirect to a country article, or should they lead to a disambiguation page.

Wikipedia should establish a guideline/standard to resolve this common dilemma.

• If a reader looks for country, that country's article is most relevant,
• A reader who searches for a demonym or ethnonym is looking for something less specific, and should be given a choice; a disambiguation page is most relevant,
• Wikipedia should present readers with consistent results for demonym or ethnonym terms that relate to countries that have articles.

Failing a broader solution, let's keep the redirect.
Mtd2006 ( talk) 18:24, 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)

I think archiving would definitely help. Most of the entries up above are old and aren't being acted on any more; the more recent entries are still relevant to the ongoing cleanup. I don't have a problem if you do some refactoring and archiving. rʨanaɢ ^talk/ _contribs 20:07, 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:

1. The chosun.com article is an editorial, not research, nor news reporting,
2. Quoting the editorial, "In 2036, that ratio will change to one Korean in his productive years having to supporting one senior citizen. The economy will be unable to withstand the pressure, and the social safety system will collapse." The editorial does not say, "the economy will collapse by 2036 unless birth rates increase or immigration is substatially boosted;" specifically, the editorial predicts the social safety system will be stressed because, by 2036, one working Korean will support one senior citizen.
3. The editorial predicts future events if action is not taken or policy is not changed; the editorial doesn't claim that no action will be taken, nor that policy will not change,
4. The editorial concludes, "Korea either must change its perceptions, practices and institutional framework when it comes to marriage, family and childcare, and endure the side effects, or open its doors to immigrants and embrace multiculturalism. The country is getting closer to the day when it will have to choose between the two." The editorial asserts that South Korea must make social and economic changes, but presents two options that may or may not occur in fact.

-- Mtd2006 ( talk) 18:51, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

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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've just been reading this article and I was shocked to see the article is no more than a rankings list for South Korea. South Korea is the largest, South Korea is the third, South Korea is the sixth, and so on and so forth.

The article is massively POV, as in probably the most POV article I've ever read and I've been reading articles on here regularly since 2006. It states little in the way of any content, as it seems to have sacrificed all content to be just a long list of rankings. Even these rankings are worded in such a manner as to mislead the reading into thinking the ranking is higher than it really is.

This article seriously needs a rewrite and needs to take note of how other country articles are written. It seems that one or a small group of very pro-South Korean editors have dominated the article and written it to be basically just a big billboard for how great South Korea is. I think judging by what other editors have written on this Talk page I don't think I'm the only one who thinks this. 88.109.226.107 ( talk) 05:14, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the person above. It mostly consists of dozens of "rankings" - "Korea has the world's 17th-biggest cabbage soup industry". Who cares? Whoever is putting all these "rankings" in the article is conveniently overlooking the negative ones. unsigned comment added by 124.5.253.175 ( talk) 09:31, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Reading the article closely, I can see a number of other problems - specifically with the numerous statistics, rankings and figures. For example, it says Korea's teenaged girls have the lowest pregnancy rate in the world. But if you check the reference given, it says that SK teens actually have the lowest BIRTH rate in the OECD - quite a difference, especially if you consider Korea's high abortion rate. Actually, it would be more appropriate to state the SK has one of the lowest general birth rates in the world (at around 1.1 per woman). This is a more interesting statistic, as it highlights SK's long-term problem with declining birthrates and the economic problems this is forecast to create after 2020.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.5.253.175 ( talk) 07:52, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree too. 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)

Every country has its good and bads. And we *always* look at it from our own POV. So I would let the numbers do the talking in this case. South-Korea is certainly not heaven on earth, but no country is. Could we please leave all the nationalism and anti-Korea sentiments behind us!!! Kbarends ( talk) 20:49, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I have to say that I agree with the dozens of other people who think there are serious problems with this article. There are way too many rankings and statistics, all of which are favourable to Korea. As for the claim that the article is well-sourced, I think it mostly is well sourced. However, this has nothing to do with POV. This article has POV problems because the information it presents is selective (all good news about the economy, etc) and glosses over anything negative (the environment, working hours, ongoing problems with North Korea, population density, etc). This article needs serious attention from editors who are not Korean and have no vested interest in presenting Korea as some type of utopia, which it clearly isn't. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.147.59.168 ( talk) 03:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I absolutely agree. I attempted to interject some statistics about suicide and corruption. These were removed as "deliberate POV." 76.187.104.246 ( talk) 16:46, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I had the same problem. I tried to add some rankings about working hours and suicide rates, in order to balance the dozens of other "rankings" that are more favourable.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.157.234.16 ( talk) 04:52, 23 January 2009 (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. 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)

I am shocked to see that an article of a country that is not a insignificant power is in such a poor state. It is probably the worse case of POV I have seen out of all notable articles. A POV tag for the whole article is completely justified. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.113.81.33 ( talk) 05:35, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

This article is loaded with POV, boosterisms, poor references and copyright violations. One of the weakest country articles I came across.

Be objective and precise. Precisely what is POV or boosterism? unless you can provide evidence, your claim is against WP:POV. Lakshmix ( talk) 01:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the first person above. This article is loaded with POV. There are many, many examples given by many, many people on this discussion page. Look and you will see. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.5.253.175 ( talk) 16:23, 31 January 2009 (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)

Actually, there was a kind of a miracle....Except that the miracle ended about a few years ago with the slowing of development and the increase of violence and corruption. South Korea happaned to be one of the most ravaged countries in the world at the end of the Korean war, but you have to consider the rising of South Korea in a few decade a true miracle..Although I'm not sure how it began and continued. Also Samsung, Hyundai, and a few other companies are indeed larger than Coca Cola and Burger King but Samsung, Hyundai, and those few other companies are conglomerates unlike Coca Cola and Burger King. Also, I have to agree with people that this article has too many statistics, even for the number-loving me. I also see that the maker of this article has neglected to mention about the huge corruption and the slump in economy that the Lee-Myung-Bak administration has created. There is also a huge increase in murders and kidnappings. The Hegemarch(Who is a South Korean) —Preceding undated comment added 11:42, 9 July 2009.

Celebratory tone is distracting

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)

Remarks regarding neutrality

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)

First of all, in a certain sense, yeah why not? In a view point that both tour guide and Wikipedia purport to introduce the designated issue, they definitely have commons. What really matters is if the contents introduced are underpinned by facts. As seen, most contents in the thread are backup by reliable references. Before you make any complaint, please denote which parts are actually violating the Wikipedia rules. For God sake, why the heck this Korean thread is always under dispute and crowded with users with certain intention? Please remember one will pay the fiddler when time comes. Patriotmissile ( talk) 21:04, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

The reason why "this Korean thread is always under dispute" is that the South Korean article is a very poor one. The reasons are too numerous to list here, but the main problem is that it has been written by highly patriotic South Koreans who delete anything remotely negative from the article and insert cherry-picked favourable facts. In western cultures, one of the most unlikeable personality traits is vanity. This article reeks of vanity and boastfulness.

In the year or two since I became aware of this article I have made numerous attempts to imrove its quality by re-writing flowery sections so they do not sound so boastful. Every time, a South Korean editor has deleted my alteration and replaced it with an even more boastful and jingoistic passage. Personally, I believe this article will never achieve "good article" status. Nor does it deserve to!