Greetings Mr. Kwon!
Thanks very much for your e-mail.
I interviewed your father last Spring while doing research for my article on Han Bong Soo for Black Belt Magazine. It was a great pleasure to talk to him. He was so helpful and refreshingly forthcoming with information.
Wikipedia has some unique challenges in that anyone can post anything at any time! Frequent contributors try to make some checks and balances on the submissions because not all the writing is equally reliable nor equally well written, but it is challenging as anyone can come and change them again immediately!
There are also rules regarding the kind of information which is preferred and the way in which it is written. It is preferred that one be able to footnote any information placed in the submission by an existing publication in print. First person research is not considered valid. (Strange though this may seem.)
Case in point: Someone posted some information about your father regarding his early training in taekwondo and the age and numbers seemed funny so I looked up the information posted on his webpage and tried to amend them. I was told that since the original information came from a print source, a magazine article by Scott Shaw, that as a print source it took precedence over the article placed on Master Kwon's own webpage! I couldn't argue although I would assume that an article that Master Kwon would allow to be posted on his own webpage would be more accurate than something someone wrote for a magazine article who may or may not have ever spoken to Master Kwon. So if you can find quotes from texts (probably magazine articles) which support the submissions you make regarding your father and footnote the references you have a better chance of not having your submissions altered by others.
Also, writing about my own teacher Master Hwang In-Shik was very difficult. I know much from the things he has told me as well as what other senior teachers told me while I was living in Korea however I am not allowed to write these things because I can't back them up with print source footnotes. I know it sounds ridiculous but that is how Wikipedia works. In the end I had to turn to one biography which written about him from his Hong Kong cinema days and use that as the primary source.
Most of the information in the Choi Yong-Sul article comes from the book written by Kimm He-Young in conjunction with Master Ji Han Jae. The other primary sources were interviews with Choi's first student Suh Bok Sub and others. I didn't write the introduction but I wrote most of the other sections. As Suh and Ji were the earliest senior students of note their version of the events seemed like the logical ones to take precedence.
When people have a disagreement about a submission or change in an article they are supposed to take things to the TALK section which exists for every page in Wikipedia.
I started the article on Master Kwon because there wasn't one and I thought there should be due to his high standing in the Korean hapkido community. I'm sure that it can be much improved on and of course will respect any changes you choose to make to that page.
. Perhaps your father might like to have something written up in a more permanent and reliable resource than Wikipedia. : ) --Mateo2006 11:02, 1 November 2007 (UTC)