Zoe wrote:
>Nonsense. Americans are the citizens or residents of the United
>States. DESIGNED to provoke controversy? Only if you're looking
>for something to make controversial.
I've been wanting to avoid wading into this discussion, but the term
"Americans" does have a double meaning, and its usage as a reference
solely to U.S. citizens rankles with some people from Canada, Mexico
and other parts of North and South America who also consider
themselves "American" as well. The term is commonly used in reference
U.S. citizens, and it doesn't particularly offend me personally, but
I know people who object to it.
Using "Americans" in reference to U.S. citizens is a bit like using
"Indians" in reference to Native Americans or "cripples" in reference
to the physically disabled. I know there are people who find it silly
and irritating that they should be asked to use more "politically
correct" language, but whenever possible I think it's best to be
sensitive about these things. I don't see a downside to saying
"United States citizens." It's precise, unambiguous and offends no
one. That would be my preferred usage.
--
--------------------------------
| Sheldon Rampton
| Editor, PR Watch (www.prwatch.org)
| Author of books including:
| Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities
| Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
| Mad Cow USA
| Trust Us, We're Experts
--------------------------------
There are two issues here and a non-issue.
First the non-issue: there is NO ISSUE to do with
AMBIGUITY. No-one is trying to replace April 1 1999 with
1/4/99, 01/04/99, 01/04/1999, 04/01/99, 1999/04/01 or any
other all-numeric format. The spelled-out month in "1
April" OR "April 1" takes care of that. ISO is irrelevant
to the entire discussion.
Issue No 1: "1 April" or "April 1". WHO CARES? Anyone who
can't count up on his fingers and decide "1 April" and
"April 1" both mean April Fools' Day, please email me right
away. I have a bridge that I sure you will be interested
in.
Issue No 2: The degree to which we should mandate one
style or another. This one is the ONLY important one.
Obviously the date articles should all be named the same
way.
(Whichever way. I don't care, and neither should anyone
else. Utter trivia.)
HOWEVER, mandating that all in-text dates conform to this
style is absurd and restrictive. If a date links to a date
page, sure, write it whichever way the link works. Ouside
of that, we have no business requiring contributors to use
any particular style.
If anyone wants to know which way I myself write a date,
then you will have to find some of the articles I've
contributed to and work it out for yourselves. I honestly
don't know what I usually write, but I do vary it to suit
the particular sentence from time to time. Sometimes one or
another way suits the context, is clearer and conveys the
point better. When writing history, sometimes it is the DAY
that matters most ("... on the *8th* December, the
President made a speech to say that ..."), other times it
is the MONTH that matters ("...it was not until *October* 4
that action was finally taken to ... "). It all depends.
Mostly, of course, it doesn't matter either way.
By all means have the date articles named whichever way is
most desired. When I want to link to a date, I'll write it
whichever way makes the link turn blue. But when I'm
crafting the body of an entry, I should hope I've got
better things to do with my mind than stuff about trying to
remember which particular order the Wikipedia Style Guide
Nazis are insisting on.
Tony (Tannin)
Tony Wilson
(Tannin)
Regarding the dates issue: 2 points.
(1) d/mm/yy is used worldwide and understood (and indeed regularly used) in
the US.
mm/dd//yy is used in the US.
(2) Contrary to Cunctator's assertion, everyone who voted for the dd/mm/yy
version is NOT British. The world does not simply consist of the US and
Britain. There are other countries who use it, and people from other
countries who voted to use it. Whereas dd/mm/yy is used worldwide (even by
Americans), mm/dd/yy simply isn't. So if Wiki wants to use a dating system
that is instantly recognisable to people in 200+ countries, it should use
dd/mm/yy (or at least enable it to be used). It it wants to have a system
that is exclusively used by one, it should require everyone else adapt and
use the US mm/dd/yy.
JT
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On Sunday 02 March 2003 09:08 pm, Sean Barrett wrote:
> I still don't understand what, exactly, is confusing about 2 March 2003.
Yes, I would like to know the answer to this too. It should also be noted that
a majority of English speakers in the world use the International format and
that even American style guides say that the International format is best.
I thought we were an International encyclopedia that accepted all English
speakers... There is nothing confusing about [[2 March]] [[2033]] - in fact,
there is no need to type the blasted comma. This is the format I, as an
American, would expect to find in any publication whose audience is all
English speakers.
So who are we writing for anyway? I thought our audience was larger than just
American readers. It was a mistake to use the American style to begin with.
And no, this isn't the same thing as American vs British spelling because
this is a style, not a spelling issue (and there is no such thing as
"International English spelling").
Even though most Americans will not know that "artefact" is correct British
spelling and will "correct" it to "artifact", they will recognize [[2 March]]
as a valid date format. American's are a smart group of people. [[2 March]]
looks a little odd at first to American eyes but [[March 2]] looks really odd
to non-American English speakers. That format simply is not widely used
anywhere but the states.
--Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
WikiKarma
The usual at [[February 26]] (soon to be moved to [[26 February]])
>From: Zoe <zoecomnena(a)yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
>To: WikiEN-l(a)wikipedia.org
>Subject: [WikiEN-l] 'AIDS Kills Fags Dead' slogan
>Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 19:24:37 -0800 (PST)
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The Cunctator's claims on the 'AIDS Kills Fags Dead' slogan cannot be
allowed to stand.
1. The people he said support his stand don't. Most agreed on the talk page
that the change made was correct.
2. It is debatable whether such an article belongs on Wiki at all. But what
is not debatable is that it does not under any circumstances belong under
the name 'AIDS kills fags dead' slogan.
3. There was full agreement on the move. The Cunctator UNILATERALLY screwed
up everyone else's contribution by deciding UNILATERALLY to change the name
of a page from one there was general agreement on to one there was general
disapproval of, but which seemed to be his pet name for the page.
4. As to the claim that he didn't know where Stevertigo stood, it was
Stevertigo who RENAMED it to the agreed name. If that doesn't indicate where
he stands I don't know what does.
5. Having changed the name against the will of the people working on the
page, the Cunctator then DELIBERATELY created his own personal content for
the [[Homophobic hate speech]] page to ensure that nobody else could return
the page to the agreed name.
By any standards, The Cunctator's behaviour is outrageous. His determination
against the opinion of others (including some who initially agreed with him
but who then sided with the new name) to change the article title, and keep
changing the title when it was reverted back to the agreed name, to a
version that many people find offensive, that Jimbo Wales had issues with,
and about which there was universal agreement that it should not be used, is
bizarre and utterly contrary to the principles of Wiki and the concept of
consensus which had built up against him.
JT
>
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Just so everybody knows, IP 62.147.142.55 just added a stack of
French-language stubs on sci-fi novels at a rate which suggested they had
to be using a bot (over 20 per minute). I've blocked the address to prevent
any more being added and left the user a note saying that one needs
approval before using a bot, and the French language wikipedia is somewhere
else anyway.
Out of interest, am I right in thinking that if this user were to now make
a user account and start again, there's nothing we could do about it until
a developer came along to block them?
lp (camembert)
WikiKarma: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._8_(Mahler)