Talk:Q27092

To Wikipidia.

Firstly, I would like to show my respect for your managing this valuable website. I am a student and a member of the Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK) in Korea. VANK is a non-government, volunteer organization, composed of students ranging from elementary school to college and adults who wish to tell correct information about Korea to foreign textbooks and publishing companies. In fact, we VANK have been investigating the book and the annually revised homepage for about 20 years to check errors about Korea. As you may know better than me, considering the influence and credibility of Wikipidia, even though the Wikipidia should provide impartial and accurate information, as far as I have searched by my own, there are at least some errors on your homepage. As I am going to enumerate the list of errors below, you will find out that the CIA World Factbook (homepage) is actually not providing accurate information, but instead, it is full of preposterous errors and absolutely wrong facts. As a Korean being and a student, I wanted to inform you to re-investigate for facts and correct the errors as soon as possible.

Koreans have called the name of the eastern sea of the Korean peninsula as the ‘East Sea’ for more than two thousand years. However, the World Factbook labels the sea as the ‘Sea of Japan.’ The name ‘Sea of Japan’ is a vestige of Japanese imperialism and is a lopsided name supporting Japanese imperialism. This is an error that degrades the fairness and credibility of the World Factbook. For reference, in 2017, the Virginia House passed the bill that required all Virginia textbooks to include the ‘East Sea’ alongside ‘Sea of Japan.’ Also in 2019, the New York State Education Department updated a portion of the curriculum involving the East Sea, and now uses both names ‘East Sea’ and ‘Sea of Japan’ when teaching about the region.

To Koreans including myself, this error is deemed as an well-known intelligence agency losing its responsibility and the duty to provide accurate information about its neighboring countries. If we leave these kind of things alone, it will cause serious problems that disturb the order of the international community. If the CIA neglects this incorrect information about Korea, it may be a huge problem to the credibility of the Wikipidia and it may also undermine credence of other information. Therefore, the Wikipidia providing correct information about Korea is not just for Korea but for people who visit the web site for precise information too.

As a member VANK, and as a student studying Political Science, I respectfully request that you correct this information since the content of your web site can plant false impression about basic information and geography of Korea to the world citizens who visit your web site. I am writing this to alert you of how this could be viewed as matter of the Wikipidia disregarding Korea(the people, the government, the sovereignty) and geographical, basic facts of Korea.

Please take a moment to give this a careful consideration.

I am looking forward to read more articles on your web site and also would like to see the revised maps and information of the web sites I mentioned above. If you do so, world citizens who visit your web site can get accurate information regarding Korea and Korean geography. My insistence on correcting wrong information on Korea is part of loving my motherland Korea and it is the will of Koreans for peace too. I ask for your participation on Koreans’ hope and I thank you for taking such a heavy and significant role in the international society and I sincerely appreciate your consideration. I would be looking forward to your reply and if you have any questions regarding the issues of Korea and the article, feel free to contact me by e-mail.

Sincerely, a member of VANK