> From: Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net
>> I don't think we need to record misspellings, otherwise we can get >> stuck up with every variant typo, incl. Jospeh Goebbels.
> If a misspelling gets 70,000 hits on Google it deserves a brief mention.
No, if a mis-spelling gets 70,000 hits it deserves a *redirect*. A name variant only deserves a mention in the article if it's one that people actually consciously use (e.g. Rameses/Ramesses).
Noel
J. Noel Chiappa wrote:
No, if a mis-spelling gets 70,000 hits it deserves a *redirect*. A name variant only deserves a mention in the article if it's one that people actually consciously use (e.g. Rameses/Ramesses).
But I'm not so sure that 'mis-spelling' is what this is, given that both variants have been used in the titles of books by reputable publishers. I absolutely agree that a redirect is in order -- we don't need two articles here. But I also think that a line or two in the body of the article covering the variant spelling is warranted, since it's something that a reader is likely to wonder about.
--Jimbo
J. Noel Chiappa wrote:
No, if a mis-spelling gets 70,000 hits it deserves a *redirect*. A name variant only deserves a mention in the article if it's one that people actually consciously use (e.g. Rameses/Ramesses).
But I'm not so sure that 'mis-spelling' is what this is, given that both variants have been used in the titles of books by reputable publishers. I absolutely agree that a redirect is in order -- we don't need two articles here. But I also think that a line or two in the body of the article covering the variant spelling is warranted, since it's something that a reader is likely to wonder about.
--Jimbo
Apparently your writ does not run as far as that article. A vote on the matter has come up about evenly divided. Several attempts have been made to put some language in about the matter. All such attempts have been reverted, usually by Wik.
Just an aside, but Adolph is an accepted English spelling, just look at any Coors or bottle. A google search for either name will bring up coors.com.
Fred
Fred Bauder wrote:
Apparently your writ does not run as far as that article.
No, of course not. :-) I don't want to get into the business of trying to dictate the answers to content disputes, outside of the very abstract policies that guide the process.
For example...
A vote on the matter has come up about evenly divided. Several attempts have been made to put some language in about the matter. All such attempts have been reverted, usually by Wik.
Voting on the content of articles is not something that I think is generally helpful, since it tends to lead to a lot of carping about what the result of the vote actually means.
Rather than voting one way or the other, a better approach is for all sides to work towards creatively accomodating the other people working on the article.
In general, let's say the vote goes 80%/20% on some specific content issue? To me, that says that the 20% side has conclusively demonstrated that the article is _not_ NPOV. NPOV requires (near) unanimity.
I wish, too, that people would generally refrain from reverting, except in cases of actual simple vandalism. Reverting doesn't say "I don't fully agree with your changes, but I'm willing to work with you to try to improve the article." Reverting says "I refuse to co-operate with you by pretending that what you're doing is in any way worthwhile."
Hey, sometimes the second is actually true, and we actually should refuse to co-operate. If someone puts in utter and complete nonsense, a very good thing to do is just clean it up, revert it, quickly and with as little effort as possible.
But in this case, Adolph/Adolf, I don't see how it's appropriate to just revert.
--Jimbo
J. Noel Chiappa wrote:
> From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud@ctelco.net> >> I don't think we need to record misspellings, otherwise we can get >> stuck up with every variant typo, incl. Jospeh Goebbels. > If a misspelling gets 70,000 hits on Google it deserves a briefmention.
No, if a mis-spelling gets 70,000 hits it deserves a *redirect*. A name variant only deserves a mention in the article if it's one that people actually consciously use (e.g. Rameses/Ramesses).
70,000 hits + multiple appearances in print authorities should get a mention in the article ("commonly seen as Adolph, although technically incorrect"). Wikipedia should address frequent errors, not try to pretend they don't happen. That doesn't mean all errors need this treatment - for instance, "Adlof Hitler" gets 310 hits, but I'll be so bold as to say there is not a single person in the world that would consider this to be anything but a typo; indeed, even Google's software automatically offers me to search on the corrected name.
Stan