Chitu Okoli wrote:
By this rule, I would think that "wikipedia"
(small letters) should refer to
any of various language wikipedias (e.g.
de.wikipedia.org and
zh.wikipedia.org), whereas "Wikipedia" (capitalized) should refer to the big
mama that comprises all the daughter wikipedias (the Wikipedia should be
www.wikipedia.org, though that link automatically points to the wikipedia at
en.wikipedia.org, I guess because that one was the first, and is the largest
and the most visited).
Wikipedia with a big W is the concept and the entirety of our project.
Not the english wikipedia only (note the small w).
2 years ago, it made sense to talk of the mother (the english) and the
daughters (the other ones). But since some of the other ones are quite
big now (as a reminder, de is now 100 00 pages) and have their own very
well established rules, customs and community, I think that speaking of
the big mother with a big W as being the reference of the concept, with
the other ones being just sprouts is likely to be increasingly wrongly
perceived.
Just a sociological comment :-)