Talk:Sea of Japan naming dispute

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Sea of Japan naming dispute was one of the Geography and places good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
November 23, 2010	Good article nominee	Listed
April 11, 2025	Good article reassessment	Delisted

Current status: Delisted good article

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GA concerns

I am concerned that this article no longer meets the good article criteria because of uncited statements throughout the article, including entire paragraphs. Is anyone interested in addressing this concern, or should this go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 22:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sourcing quality

This article relies too heavily on first-party government sources and South Korean/Japanese news articles. It needs more references to expert-written books and other peer-reviewed publications. Overall, I don't believe this is a well-written article that merits GA status. Ringo62 (talk) 17:56, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it might not meet GA status anymore. Masterhatch (talk) 19:30, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

GA Reassessment

Sea of Japan naming dispute

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 09:25, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Uncited statements in the article, including entire paragraphs. Source quality concerns have been raised on the talk page. Z1720 (talk) 01:23, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to try improving this – please ping me if I haven't gotten around to it within a week. Toadspike [Talk] 07:25, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Z1720 I've gone through and added a few tags. Could you please check if all issues that should be addressed in this GAR are tagged? This would help structure my work. Toadspike [Talk] 09:32, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Undue weight/tone issues

I see a few instances of undue weight or an unnecessarily editorializing tone in the article and wanted to check with others if my view makes sense:

"In the French language, the word orientale includes both the meaning of "eastern" related to compass direction and the meaning of "oriental", the Asiatic region. The same ambiguity is present in the Russian language, with both "eastern" and "oriental" indicated by one word." – This part is uncited, though I have no doubt that it's true. However, it seems completely irrelevant. I have yet to check the sources to see if it is mentioned, if it isn't I would like to remove these two sentences.
"Thus, the Japanese side argues that the South Koreans misunderstand the history of the name." – This may be accurate, but it should be made clear from the examples earlier in the section and not tacked on to the end of the section. I would like to remove this sentence.
"As a result, the international name of the sea changed from no name to the Sea of Japan, on the maps drawn by countries other than Japan or Korea during the 17th to 20th centuries." – This is very poor wording, verging on POV.
"Contrary to the position of a few major countries..." – This whole paragraph is uncited and reads very POV. I would like to remove it, since the point it makes should be covered by a list of examples (which this section is) instead of evidence-free editorializing.

I haven't checked the referenced parts of the article yet, I assume there are more POV issues to come. Given the topic, I am not surprised. Toadspike [Talk] 09:40, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"comparison of surveys" table

I had to look at this table several times to understand what it is trying to say. It is extremely wide (going far off of my screen in Vector 2022) and the important trend it tries to show, the switch from "East Sea" to "Sea of Japan" from the 18th to 19th centuries, is hidden in a sea of irrelevant details. To fix this, at the very least the US, FR, and DE columns should be removed. Perhaps the table should be removed altogether and replaced with a graph. The citation (to an extremely partial Japanese government webpage – not ideal) needs to be reformatted to actually link to the data, not just to the main page of the report. Toadspike [Talk] 09:49, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Toadspike do you intend to continue working on this article? No worries if not. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:47, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@AirshipJungleman29 Great question...I might remove some of the poorly sourced stuff, but finding sources hasn't been the easiest. I can't guarantee that I can get this fully up to GA-level beyond fixing the unsourced content. If that would be enough to keep, then please keep this GAR open for a bit longer – if not, then you can close as delisted and I'll work on this when I have more time. Toadspike [Talk] 16:54, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think replacing the potentially non-independent sources, as mentioned on the talkpage, might be needed to retain GA status. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:56, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Edit the article title

It seems that there are multiple articles related to naming disputes whose titles demonstrate multiple names in dispute.

Here are the examples.

Gulf of Mexico–America naming dispute

Denali–Mount McKinley naming dispute

Isn't it more appropriate to follow them and modify this article's title into "Sea of Japan-East Sea naming dispute"? RaveEffect (talk) 08:43, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's something worth looking into. I think we should get a few more people's opinions before boldly moving. May I suggest you doing an official move request? That way we can get the community involved. Masterhatch (talk) 14:19, 16 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]