Addressing the example - this IS a (possibly the most) widely propagated example of political correctness gone mad in the UK. Just google for "blackboard political correctness". However I can't for the life of me find the original story that led to this (if there was one in the first place)
the wub
On 10/15/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
First, and example, and then a question/suggestion. If you get bored with my example, please continue anyway to my question/suggestion. :)
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/10/15/how_many_times_mu...
Some are easy, of course, like the Wikipedia entry claiming that the word blackboard ''is now perceived by some as being 'politically incorrect' in the United Kingdom.'' ''Citation needed,'' a parenthesis cautioned. Indeed: a Nexis search of UK publications found some 30 blackboards in a week, against just three chalkboards.
This is a quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change
Our full text reads:
Political correctness is a real or perceived attempt to refine or restrict language and terms used in public discussion to those deemed acceptable or appropriate. For example "blackboard" is now perceived
by >some as being "politically incorrect" in the United Kingdom, [citation >needed] and so teachers are instructed to call it a "chalkboard" >instead.
The tag was added here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Semantic_change&diff=43364581&...
So from March 12 until now, we have a request that this dubious tidbit be sourced, with no movement.
I think that clearly this bit should have been sourced or removed a long time ago.
Is there any way we could have a date-stamped fact tag? Which would put such things into a category or other similar page? The purpose would be to provide a mechanism for people to find *older* examples of fact tags, in order to go ahead and remove them.
I would recommend that anything like this for which no citation appears within 7 days be removed or edited in some fashion to remove the need.
--Jimbo _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l