Talk:Liancourt Rocks

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) lettherebedarklight晚安 06:37, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

This section is pinned and will not be automatically archived.

Liancourt Rocks → ? – No. There is no evidence that majority of English speakers call the island "Liancourt rocks". In fact, majority of English uses "Dokdo" or "Takeshima". Gerçois (talk) 12:16, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Liancourt Rocks does not actually satisfy WP:COMMONNAME, considering Google ngram search result shows that Dokdo or Takeshima is more frequently used than Liancourt Rocks.

Considering that 1. "takeshima" also refers to name of people in Japanese language, and 2. neither "Dokdo" nor "Takeshima" holds sway over each other, I think title of this article should be changed into "Dokdo/Takeshima" (in alphabetical order, which is used by number of WP:RS^[1][2][3]) Gerçois (talk) 12:24, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose move. We are not dealing with this again. The page is where it is because of the naming dispute, and "Dokdo/Takeshima" gives theoretical precedence to Dokdo. O.N.R. ^(talk) 13:47, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
• oppose unless someone has another good neutral name this is going to end up being a trash fire—blindlynx 19:56, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

  @Blindlynx I dokdo/Tekeshima in alphabetical order because Liancourt rock is not a common name Gerçois (talk) 19:22, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Oppose because renaming the article Dokdo or Takeshima will inherently make it less NPOV. Shadow of the Starlit Sky (talk) 20:11, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@Shadow of the Starlit Sky i propose dokdo/Tekeshima in alphabetical order because it is neutral Gerçois (talk) 19:08, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

But then, doing that can lead to some believing the Korean POV is more important. I just wanted to note that in the past people have switched around Liancourt Rocks to Dokdo/Takeshima to WP:POVPUSH and make WP:DISRUPTIVE edits, and I don't want any of that happening here. Not to mention that writing all those slashes while saying "Dokdo/Takeshima" will reduce readability. Thus, I oppose. Shadow of the Starlit Sky (talk) 19:43, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

If you want proof I can provide some diffs if needed. Shadow of the Starlit Sky (talk) 19:44, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

@Shadow of the Starlit Sky yes please Gerçois (talk) 19:45, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

I've found a few diffs of POV edits (not only switching around Dokdo/Takeshima, but some of them also show people switching around East Sea/Sea of Japan)

(not really dokdo but more east sea/sea of japan)

(this one is an especially good examples of WP:DISRUPTIVE editing via removing Takeshima)

(Sea of Japan)

Shadow of the Starlit Sky (talk) 04:22, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

• Support Most of other disputed islands and boundary dispute use name for its current effective occupier, such as Falkland Islands and Senkaku Islands, and it perfectly follows current norm for WP:COMMONNAME, which is not violating NPOV. Because simply it is 'real' common name for calling. Look at authority files for librarians. Almost ALL of renowned national libraries and institutes uses name of islands along with its occupier, including the Library of Congress.^[4][5] Is their any reason why this specific article should follow particularly different norm or rule? Which is not aligned to any of naming consensus for English Wikipedia? - SCMBD (talk) 05:16, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
• Comment I am somewhat sympathetic to the argument that "Liancourt Rock" isn't really the WP:COMMONNAME in English (it quite likely isn't), and I'm generally of the opinion that we should firmly base our geographical naming practices on "common usage", and in doing so discount all catering to national sensitivities and preferences or balancing between them (which is often misunderstood as a matter of "neutrality"). So, if it was indeed shown that some other name (say, "Dokdo") was indeed a lot more common, I'd be all for changing the name to that, and "neutrality" be damned. The problem is just, in this particular case it is exceptionally difficult, quite likely impossible, to demonstrate such a common usage. It certainly can't be done with simple Google searches or ngrams. Reasons include:
  • "Dokdo" has multiple name variants difficult to search for ("Tokto", "Dok Islands", "Tok Islands", "Dok do", "Tok to", etc.).
  • "Takeshima" is frequently used for different referents, mostly personal names.
  • A large proportion of the web hits for "Dokdo" come from partisan sources – including multiple "patriotic" Korean websites actively created for the purpose of *promoting* the use of that name. All of these ought to be discarded from any reasonable search for what actual common usage in English is.

  So, to serve as a basis for a well-informed move decision, we'd need a careful, qualitative analysis of high-quality independent sources in English that deal with the islands in contexts independent of the naming/sovereignty dispute. Such an analysis should ideally be provided before a RM is started. The bare link to a single ngram as given in the nomination statement here isn't really that.

  As for the option of using a double name ("Dokdo/Takeshima"), I wouldn't exclude that in principle, if it really could be shown that that in fact comes closer to a "common name" usage, i.e. if reliable sources really used this or similar double references as a matter of routine. We had that solution in "Imia/Kardak" for a long time until recently, where I believe the case for such a "common name" status was much stronger than here, but it was changed to simple "Imia" recently, so reintroducing that solution here would probably be another uphill battle. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:03, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

  Comment But then, the problem is, some disruptive editors might just switch Dokdo and Takeshima around to subtly shift the POV and put WP:UNDUE weight on the Korean/Japanese POV. Putting "Dokdo/Takeshima" implies that the Korean claim is more correct while putting "Takeshima/Dokdo" implies that the Japanese claim is more correct. I just don't want disruptive editors to target this article, that's all.

  Shadow of the Starlit Sky (talk) 13:02, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

  That is not a justified reason to prevent a rename of the article. There are many articles that receive even more attention than this one, but that doesn't provide an encyclopedic reason as to why Wikipedia should consider one name over another. If such repeated vandalism occurs, the solution should be to protect the page, not to alter the name of the page. :3 F4U (they/it) 16:37, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

  Comment I don't agree with the premise of your comment that the ngram results were influenced by "patriotic" Koreaan websites since Google ngram results are exclusively based on printed sources. Google ngram is even officially named "Google Books Ngram Viewer." ^[6]

  Corpus linguistics research is a systematic and neutral method of researching language usage, and Google ngram viewer at least provides a starting point. It would have been more preferable if there were other high-quality sources that meets requirements you suggested; But I believe that raising the standard of proof to such a high level, in absence of counter-evidence, requires a separate argument for it. 아이서울유 (talk) 10:21, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

  Just to respond to your point about Google ngrams being based on books: that's true – but even in a book search, the two first pages of search results are flooded with items such as "Everything You Need To Know About Dokdo", "Dokdo: Korean Territory since the 6th Century", "The Story of Dokdo Residents", "Dokdo is Korean Territory", "Dokdo in Korea: A Story of Dokdo Island, a Korean Territory", "Dokdo in Korea: a story of Dokdo Island, a Korean territory", "The Dokdo Story", "A Story of Dokdo Island: A Korean Territory", "Love You, Dokdo: Historical Trip to Dokdo with a Mentor". All of this is essentially propaganda spam. Incidentally, almost all the other, serious-looking items on the search list are written by Korean authors or at least have Korean co-authors. While I wouldn't go as far as to say that is in itself an exclusion criterion, I do believe that too should make us quite wary about any assumptions regarding regular English usage. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:27, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

  There are indeed political pamphlets written with intention of advancing a certain viewpoint, while I'm certainly sure that political pamphlet, slogan and phrases are part of ordinary English corpus as well as non-political one, the problem is "Dokdo" and "Takeshima" is still significantly more frequent than "Liancourt rocks" at least from late 2010s even if we exclude half of results from both "Dokdo" and "Takeshima". Both of them are more commonly used than "Liancourt rocks". The discrepancy is simply too large.

  Again, there is no reason to exclude "propaganda" materials from English corpus, since WP:COMMONNAME is mainly about ordinary usage of English language, regardless of political background. "Kyiv" would be a good example of such case.

  While I indeed believe there are merits of argument against the move based on WP:NPOV, WP:COMMONNAME does not provide such merits anymore. 아이서울유 (talk) 14:08, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

  The main reason why specific term "Dokdo" looks like specifically promoted by Korean patriots in internet, is that term is brought out from Revised Romanization of Korean after year 2000 to call "Korean: 독도", when there was already ongoing fierce dispute by patriotic internet users between Japanese and Korean. The English term for "Korean: 독도" before year 2000 , by McCune–Reischauer style, is "Tokto".

  Another important point is that English users does not normally uses geographic term in foreign language, such as 'field', 'mountain' or 'island'. For example, the famous mountain in Japan "富士山" is read by Japanese as "Fujisan" or "Fujiyama" yet it is called Mount Fuji by English, as the "Fuji(富士)" is designation of the mountain and "san(山)" or "yama(山)" is just Japanese term meaning mountain. Likewise, English users does not call Korea's famous southern island "제주도" as "Jejudo". English users rather call it as Jeju Island, as "do" is just Korean term meaning island, while "Jeju" is distinguished designation for that island.

  In this manner, it is quite surprising that English users have to choose headline for this article's islands between "Dokdo" or "Takeshima", because Korean 'do' and Japanese 'shima' is just a noun meaning island. More natural headline for English users would be "Dok Island(Korean term)" or "Take Island(Japanese term)". And as I explained in above paragraph, most of librarians actually uses term "Tok island" for this article's islands,^[4] as the Korean designation of the islands "독" is romanized as "Tok" in old McCune–Reischauer style, while new Revised Romanization of Korean uses "Dok" for "Tok".

  Then what would be natural conclusion for this all argument? I suggest we use "Tok Island" or "Dok Island".

  (1) Simple search result for both "Dokdo" and "Takeshima" term is harshly contaminated by patriotic Japanese and Korean internet users, so those results cannot be preferred ground for designation of this article. And also, they do not follow real English usage, as Fuijsan is Mount Fuji and Jejudo is Jeju Island in English Wikipedia.

  (2) While search result for google in "Take Island" makes no sense, search result for "Tok Island" makes perfect sense, as it is the real common term widely used by intellectuals, including librarians, in English world for calling this article's islands.^[4] - SCMBD (talk) 00:22, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

  I'm sorry but its this reply that makes no sense. Dokdo and Takeshima are far more commonly used in English than "Dok Island"/"Tok Island"/"Tok to"/"Take Island"/etc etc. (which are all outdated anyways) Whether or not to include the island suffix is a completely case by case situation, based the on English usage in that specific situation. If you want previous precedent, see Ulleungdo. :3 F4U (they/it) 00:29, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. There's no clear and neutral common name in English. That's why Liancourt Rocks is used. Masterhatch (talk) 16:38, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

  @Masterhatch I propose dokdo/Tekeshima in alphabetical order because Liancourt rock is no the a common name

  reliable sources such as the BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-19207086 and DW https://www.dw.com/en/south-korea-starts-drills-at-japan-claimed-islands/a-50155334 use dokdo/Tekeshima Gerçois (talk) 19:17, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

  "dokdo/Tekeshima" doesn't work because wikipedia doesn't like those slashes in article names. So, keeping status quo is still the best option at this time. Masterhatch (talk) 19:23, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

  @Masterhatch I'm i didn't understand is it a technical problem or a rule because there are a lot of article that use the slash such as /pol/ Gerçois (talk) 19:28, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

  It's not a technical issue. It's style. When there are two relatively common names for a subject, generally speaking, both names are not used with a slash between them. One name is chosen. With both Dokdo and Tekeshima being very hot button names, a more neutral name has been chosen (Liancourt Rocks). I would be more open to a debate about renaming this article either Dokdo Islands or Tekeshima Islands than I would about using both names with a slash. Masterhatch (talk) 20:15, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

  @Masterhatch i understand, I think we should leave it as Liancourt until dokdo or Tekeshima become more used, because right now they are used equally as much it we'd be biased to choose dokdo or Tekeshima Gerçois (talk) 20:19, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

  @Gerçois I suggest "Tok Island" instead, as it is more normal English naming style. You can find many reasons why I support this alternative plan from my reply for @Future Perfect at Sunrise in above paragraph. SCMBD (talk) 00:28, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

• Support. While I agree that neither Korea nor Japan prefers "Liancourt rocks" over "Dokdo" or "Takeshima" respectively, "Liancourt rocks" does not strictly fall under "neutral" point of view because official position of Korea is that there is no dispute at all.^[7] It's more of an outsider point of view. It's akin to Taiwan. Both "Republic of China (Taiwan)" and "Taiwan, province of China" favors a certain POV, but it does not automatically mean that "Taiwan" is a neutral name.

  Since "Liancourt rocks" is neither a neutral nor common but outdated name shortly used during early 20th century, I guess there are three options:

  • Dokdo, which obviously favors Korean POV but is consistent with other articles using a name preferred by administering state. (Falkland islands, Kuril islands, Senkaku islands and etc.)
  • Dokdo/Takeshima, which contains both "Dokdo" and "Takeshima", reflecting a practice of using both "Dokdo" and "Takeshima, which is common in English literature, in alphabetical order, which is also a common way of ordering words, phrases and sentences in English language. Putting a simple explanation in FAQ section that following alphabetical order does not mean Japanese POV is more illegitimate should solve NPOV problem. "D" simply comes first.
  • Status quo, which is neither common nor neutral but the title of the article remains same, like Republic of Ireland except that there is no WP:ARBCOM order in this case. 아이서울유 (talk) 11:23, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
• Strongly support move to Dokdo As has been previously discussed, having an article title with both names is not an acceptable solution (ie. Dokdo/Takeshima or Dokdo or Takeshima). It has also been discussed that Google Ngram information on "Takeshima" is unreliable because of its use as a common Japanese name and also because of its use as the name of Takeshima (island) (not to mention that having parenthetical disambiguation is discouraged when not necessary). Two points that have not been brought up yet are:

1. "What are the islands called outside of the context of the dispute?"
2. "What is the island called in the most cited academic literature on the topic?"

I have gathered references on the two questions below:

Given this evidence, several conclusions can be drawn.

1. "Dokdo" is by far the most common name used in the English-language academic literature on the islands. In addition, in articles examining the islands from an international relations perspective (as opposed to that of domestic politics), it is disproportionately the name of choice, and when discussing the islands outside of the context of the territory dispute, the term "Dokdo" is practically universally used.
2. "Liancourt Rocks" is an uncommon name for the subject and several references use it solely as a dated historical name for the islands. The name has sometimes been used in academic literature, but its use is surpassed by "Dokdo" and "Takeshima" by large margins. Its neutrality has been disputed by a number of articles and the last publication which has seriously considered "Liancourt Rocks" as a name for the islands has been more than a decade ago. In general, most of the usage of "Liancourt Rocks" dates back to the 1980s and 1990s, with the most recent source that seriously considers the name being O'Shea (2012).
3. There is also evidence that suggests that this Wikipedia article's name has influenced the popularity of the "Liancourt Rocks" as a name for these islands.
   • (Ekstrand and Riedl 2009) and (Sumi, Yasseri, et al. 2011) both mention this article in highly cited conference proceedings analyzing Wikipedia edit wars. The articles both use the name "Liancourt Rocks", citing the title of this article, to refer to the islands. I find it highly believable based on this that it is not unlikely, that Wikipedia's use of this article title has played a minor, but significant role in supporting the legitimacy of the term "Liancourt Rocks" in recent years.
4. I would also go further to argue, as expressed in (Cho, Kim, et al. 2009), Wikipedia's usage of "Liancourt Rocks" does not provide a neutral POV,^[14] as this name provides legitimacy to far-right (a)historical scholarship that would count under WP:FRINGE. In addition (Cho, Kim, et al. 2009) further states, "Furthermore, since 2000, Japan has taken active measures to list the islet as Liancourt Rocks in the publications of foreign governments, and international organizations. As a result, currently the US CIA World Factbook, Wikipedia, and the Netsaber site all use the term, Liancourt Rocks, to refer to Dokdo/Takeshima."

Sorry for the long message. Cheers! :3 F4U (they/it) 15:23, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise Is this what you had in mind? :3 F4U (they/it) 16:29, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Could you explain the far-right thing?—blindlynx 15:00, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

(Sakamoto 2011) Mirroring the post-1990s historical revisionism, netto-uyo exhibit xenophobia towards immigrants, depict Korea and China negatively, and uphold revisionist history, justifying and glorifying Japan’s wartime actions...They became visible through a number of Internet-generated controversies that erupted around 2002-2004 such as those over the World Cup Soccer hosted by Korea and Japan, 'Hate-Korea' comic books, the so-called 'Nanjing Massacre comic book' and Dokdo/Takeshima, to name just a few.

(O'Shea 2012) The net effect of all this was to fundamentally change the Japanese discourse on the rocks, making them into a major issue for traditional right-wing conservatives and for the new 'youth nationalists' (they were always a major issue for the far-right ultranationalist).

(Hunter 2013) However, the release of the 'New History Textbook' draft in 2000 (claiming the islets as Japanese territory) and the pronouncement of 'Takeshima Day' in Japan on 22 February 2005 have rekindled the controversy. South Korea and China are particularly sensitive to these acts as signs of postcolonial aggression, given Japan's imperialist past.

(Oh 2009) The fierce political disputes between South Korea and Japan were ignited again in April 2005 when the Japanese government approved, as available choices for Japanese schools, textbooks that described Dok-do as islets belonging to Japan and glorified Japan's colonial past more cunningly than ever before.

(Cho et al. 2009) The expanding Japanese empire forced Dokdo under its sovereignty while curtailing Korea's diplomatic rights in 1905. Japan eventually annexed the whole Korean Peninsula in 1910.

For articles discussing the issue on a broader scope, see (Bukh 2014), (Fern 2005), (Van Dyke 2007), and (Choi 2016). Pretty much all of the scholarship above that discusses the dispute also concludes that South Korea has a stronger claim to the islands and that Japan's dispute over that claim generally has to do with influential domestic right-wing nationalist groups and a fear over domino effects on the Sea of Japan/Senkaku Islands disputes. The scholarship above also generally concludes that the annexation of Dokdo by Japan in 1905 is a part of its colonization of Korea, and not a separate event. :3 F4U (they/it) 16:18, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Another comment, this ngram also shows that Dokdo / Takeshima is also a demonstrably more popular name than "Liancourt Rocks". A slash does reduce the suitability of the article's title, as detailed in MOS:SLASH, however, it doesn't outright rule it out and I think this is in the end, a far better solution than using "Liancourt Rocks", which as I have stated is not a common name for the rocks. :3 F4U (they/it) 22:11, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. As there is no clearly-defined neutral name used by the majority of reliable and neutral English-language sources, we should keep the article at this name. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 18:40, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose, as there is no name other than the current one that satisfies NPOV + out of the two suggested names neither is more used than the other, which is why the Sea of Japan title argument doesn't work in this case. Summer ^talk 18:46, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
• Comment I have noticed no one has so far mention Google Trends although it is a tool recommended in WP:COMMONNAME to determine the most common name for a topic as it keeps track of what people search for on Google. In the case of this topic, according to the GT comparison I just ran there have been more searches for "Dokdo" wordwide than for "Takeshima" and less searches for "Liancourt Rocks" than the former worldwide over the past five years. However, as this is the English language Wikipedia and the topic does not have any strong national ties to any particular English-speaking country I had better filter my results to the most populous English-speaking country however, GT turned out a similar result for the United States and a similar result for the United Kingdom which speaks the next major dialect of English. This suggests the Korean name is the most common among native English-speakers. However, according to WP:NPOVTITLE neutral titles are preferred on Wikipedia although they admit that the most prevalent name for a topic is not always neutral. Tk420 (talk) 06:55, 25 March 2023 (UTC)