Guettarda wrote
Yeah, it's great to attack BE spelling on the BBC (it sounded to me like he was about to say "British spelling" before he changed it).
Interesting argument that the majority of readers are American, so that American spelling should be used. What numbers do we have on that? ComScore has something; our total readership is in the region of 150m?
Charles
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On 3/7/07, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Guettarda wrote
Yeah, it's great to attack BE spelling on the BBC (it sounded to me like
he
was about to say "British spelling" before he changed it).
Interesting argument that the majority of readers are American, so that American spelling should be used. What numbers do we have on that? ComScore has something; our total readership is in the region of 150m?
Charles
Of course, where do the figures come from? In addition, how does he come to the conclusion that Wikipedia editors are 7x more liberal than the average American? And does he mean American editors, or all editors? And how much more "liberal" is the rest of the world than the average American?
I don't doubt that our editors are more "liberal" than the average American - we're also probably better educated than the average American, more computer literate than the average American, better informed than the average American, and more likely to be non-American than the average American. But how does claiming that "dinosaur" is a Latin-root word, discussing the amount of space on the ark http://www.conservapedia.com/Dinosaur
and including pix of Jesus riding a dinosaur (gone now, but oh so amusing) http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Dinosaur&oldid=17255
somehow balance the "liberal bias"? Since when do conservatives believe that the opposite of liberal is nut?
On 3/7/07, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Of course, where do the figures come from? In addition, how does he come to the conclusion that Wikipedia editors are 7x more liberal than the average American? And does he mean American editors, or all editors? And how much more "liberal" is the rest of the world than the average American?
"Polls show that about twice as many Americans identify themselves as "conservative" compared with "liberal", and that ratio has been increasing for two decades.[1] But on Wikipedia, about three times as many editors identify themselves as "liberal" compared with "conservative".[2] That suggests Wikipedia is six times more liberal than the American public. "
Yeah, that's how statistics work :)
I don't doubt that our editors are more "liberal" than the average American
- we're also probably better educated than the average American, more
computer literate than the average American, better informed than the average American, and more likely to be non-American than the average American. But how does claiming that "dinosaur" is a Latin-root word, discussing the amount of space on the ark http://www.conservapedia.com/Dinosaur
and including pix of Jesus riding a dinosaur (gone now, but oh so amusing) http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Dinosaur&oldid=17255
somehow balance the "liberal bias"? Since when do conservatives believe that the opposite of liberal is nut?
Can I just make this point again: what did you expect? This is a website with its POV right there in the name! Of course it has a conservative bias, of course their arguements aren't going to make sense, of course it's going to claim that dinosaurs was created on the 6th day! There isn't any logic to it, it's a bunch of people that are 100% certain of their beliefs, and they aren't going to let silly stuff like "neutrality", "fairness" or "reason" stand in their way.
Have we learned nothing from the Time Cube guy?
--Oskar
On 3/7/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
From http://www.conservapedia.com/Dinosaur
"Polls show that about twice as many Americans identify themselves as "conservative" compared with "liberal", and that ratio has been increasing for two decades.[1] But on Wikipedia, about three times as many editors identify themselves as "liberal" compared with "conservative".[2] That suggests Wikipedia is six times more liberal than the American public. "
Yeah, that's how statistics work :)
Ahh, wrong link, its http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia obviously. Sorry 'bout that
Ahh, wrong link, its http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia obviously. Sorry 'bout that
A website who's sole aim is combating bias, and they don't even know what bias means. Most of that page is just a list of Wikipedia's mistakes (many of which they acknowledge have since been fixed) - few of them are mistakes that indicate bias. For example, they complain that our mathematical articles aren't sufficiently rigorous - I wasn't aware that rigour was a conservative quality...
On 3/8/07, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Interesting argument that the majority of readers are American, so that American spelling should be used. What numbers do we have on that? ComScore has something; our total readership is in the region of 150m?
These arguments seem to be predicated on the false assumption that any English speaker can write equally well in British or US spelling. It's not the case. Most Americans think "tyre" is a typo, not a British spelling.
Steve
On Thu, 8 Mar 2007 09:40:22 +1100, "Steve Bennett" stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
These arguments seem to be predicated on the false assumption that any English speaker can write equally well in British or US spelling. It's not the case. Most Americans think "tyre" is a typo, not a British spelling.
Two great nations divided by a common language :-)
Guy (JzG)
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Thu, 8 Mar 2007, "Steve Bennett" wrote:
These arguments seem to be predicated on the false assumption that any English speaker can write equally well in British or US spelling. It's not the case. Most Americans think "tyre" is a typo, not a British spelling.
Two great nations divided by a common language :-)
They never tyre of their differences. :-)
Ec
On 3/8/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Thu, 8 Mar 2007 09:40:22 +1100, "Steve Bennett" stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
These arguments seem to be predicated on the false assumption that any English speaker can write equally well in British or US spelling. It's not the case. Most Americans think "tyre" is a typo, not a British spelling.
Two great nations divided by a common language :-)
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
The Volvo Repair Manual Glossary of English/American Autopart Equivalents gives one of the best insights into the differences in the language.
On Thu, 8 Mar 2007 13:01:41 -0700, "Rob Smith" nobs03@gmail.com wrote:
The Volvo Repair Manual Glossary of English/American Autopart Equivalents gives one of the best insights into the differences in the language.
I've been driving Volvos for twenty years and I've never come across it. Mind, you don't often need a repair manual for a Volvo - none of mine have exceeded 200,000 miles, barely run-in - so that might account for it.
Guy (JzG)