On 20/09/05, Rowan Collins <rowan.collins(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 20/09/05, Jack & Naree <jack.macdaddy(a)gmail.com> wrote:
And what
if they search for "red", which version does it link to?
a single version of course, as mentioned, and as is surely obvious.
No, I meant would it link to "color", "colour", or both.
it's link to "red" wouldn't it? and on the red page, you could have a
link
to both "color" and "colour" - unless of course you have previous
selected
the English (US) wiki, in which case, the issue shouldn't arise, should it.
Then perhaps a solution to that problem, such as one article having
multiple headwords, might be more appropriate?
Agreed.
Sure; and some don't; and some articles which
don't have varying
"orthographies" might contain different information. If it's a really
fundamental difference, we use "disambiguation" of some form; if it's
a more minor difference, the difference is incorporated and/or
discussed in the article itself. There is no correlation between
needing such disambiguation or discussion and having two spellings, so
why build a policy as though there were?
I think the issue was mainly about choosing one headword/spelling over
another. The fair solution is to include both; how is tricky.
It should be no problem to have multiple headwords, but in text it seems
impractical.
Unless of course you can have a bit of software that makes the article
headword active (a php thing perhaps) and that inserts the headword you
searched for whereever it appears.
Otherwise it seems likely that the only articles that will be in English
English will be ones about the British Isles. Pretty much everything else
will end up American.
So a British reader might come upon a sentence saying
"it is made from
[[eggplant]]/[[aubergine]]", and, seeing that the two articles were
separate, assume that these were alternative ingredients. Then,
following the links, they might realise that the two were actually the
same text copy-and-pasted with a bit of search-and-replace, and wonder
why on earth we didn't just have one article.
I actually thought an Eggplant was an Avocado, and I don't think it's fair
to assume that all, most, or even any significant number of British people
will necessarily know or understand the American language entries. It works
against Accessibility and Inclusiveness.
What you are advocating is effectively that British people learn American,
and accept it; and also accept that the orignal English form is defunct, or
"lesser", and is putting English English on linguistic death row..
Can what? I was trying to point the absurdity of treating "aubergine"
and "eggplant" as different subjects.
Like I said, I didn't even know what an Eggplant was until I tried
searching for Aubergine.
It sounds like a very fair solution to have the scientific name as the
headword for both "Eggplant" and "Aubergine" -searchers to be directed
to.
But if you want a question to
respond to, what "orthography" would you
write the article in if it
was under its scientific classification? Such an article would contain
exactly the same *information* whichever of the 3 headwords you filed
it under, so the only possible reason for having more than one would
be to "translate" a few usage differences to suit the same dialect as
I'm sorry but there are not a "few" usage differences, there really are
quite a lot. And this is more than just dialect we are talking about: I'm
not arguing for "equal rights" for each dialect; but for "equal
rights" for
the two orthographies, in the same way as Scots, and the two forms of
Norwegian.
this is just an example:
http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~jphb/american.html
http://www.krysstal.com/ukandusa.html
the headword [I note from the Wikipedia article that this *wouldn't*
be possible in this case, because there are two
species, but the point
stands]
Well, since any "good" edit to the article "eggplant" would also be
a
"good" edit to the article "aubergine" (except for those edits
correcting orthographical differences), I fail to see how
synchronisation could be avoided.
In some or many cases yes, but... blanket policies are flawed. it may be
inconvient, but can't assume that two apparently identical articles should
be entirely synchronised - even if they are talking about the same thing,
because the articles can also contain other culturally-specific information.
No. They are *arguably* two separate languages, though
I've heard few
people take such a strong stance, except in jest. If it was at all
clear, we wouldn't be having this argument.
it might not be clear to people in the mainstream, but that is the result
of accepting Americanisation.
Here is an American academic piece which supports my argument that these are
not the same language:
http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~nunberg/norton.pdf
"blatant waste of effort" is invested in
creating wikis for tiny,
pointless
languages and dialects: Ossetic, Tartar, Walloon,
Interlingua,
Limburgish,
Western Frisian, Asturian, Sicilian, Scots,
Macedonian, Esperanto, the
list
is bloody endless.
So, because we have wikis in languages which are "pointless" but
unambiguously distinct languages, we should not have wikis which
include minor variations of the same language?
these are not minor (unless you can prove it) - they are quantifiably the
same as several of the differences between wikis that currently exist.
But I won't go into this - if you want to read endless debates about
wiki creation policy, go to
http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/ Yes, we have lots of
wikis. Yes, a lot of them are controversial. No, you're not the only
one who thinks we have too many. No, you're not the first to suggest
merging some similar ones. Right now, however, we're discussing the
particular case of the English wiki, not some other case with
different political, linguistic, and geographic facts.
The discussion of the particular case of the English wiki, must include a
justification of why other languages with similar degrees of difference -
such as Norwegian - are allowed two wikis, when English is not.
You've even got the two forms of Norwegian! Yet
English English speakers
have to accept American-English!
And "American-English" speakers have to accept a little bit of
"English English" in return. Most of us learn to live with it.
And so why don't Bokmal speakers have to put up with Nynorsk? The ratio of
Bokmal speakers to Nynorsk seems to reflect the difference between the size
of the USA and UK.
Indeed, the
main problem would be defining the various variants (it
would be as arrogant to claim there are only two
"proper" forms of
English as to claim there is only one)
there really are only two orthographies. Canadian and Australian just
aren't
anywhere near divergent enough.
I'm sure Canadians and Australians will be pleased to hear you
pronounce that from your golden pedestal. As will Indians, New
Zealanders, South Africans, etc etc. [It was pointed out, for
instance, that an Australian user would not wish to select either "US"
nor "British" spellings, because they would naturally use a mixture of
the two.]
I'm sorry, but there's no evidence to support that view. Provide evidence,
and I'll agree with you. How does an Australian write "colour" then? They
choose one or the other, if they wrote "culla" for instance, then I'd agree
with you, but they don't, do they.
have a look, find me some "Australian English" variations from either
American or English:
http://www.abc.net.au/default_800.htm
The only thing you'll find is Labor = American orthography, it is not
uniquely Australian. The content is at least 99% identical to the BBC site.
Compare to any American text.
and
there'd still be compromises needed on
grammar and punctuation issues, etc etc
grammar and punctuation is a different issue - one for edit whores.
Why? Because it doesn't annoy you as much as spelling does? Because
it's not as straght-forward to "correct"? It seems to be very much
part of the same issue if you ask me.
No, because it's a different issue to orthography. The fact that you
recognise the differences implies that you recognise that these are two
different orthographies - just like the two forms of Norweigan.
The question remains why does a country of less than 4m deserve more than a
country of 60m?
the "we're all against you" playground
routine doesn't wash. It's no
surprise for a handful of Americans and
Americanised types to oppose
this,
but I doubt you'd get the same from Brits and
Irish.
If this is to be an inclusive, uniting project, then this issue over
American-English hegemony needs to be resolved in a fair way.
I am British, born and bred, and strongly object to being labelled
"Americanised" simply because I am pragmatic enough to put up with two
spellings of the word "colour".
"put up with". You may not like it, but if you accept and use American
orthography (use in general), then you are Americanised to a degree.
I hate to say this, but you're
beginning to remind me of a
much-discussed-on-this-list anti-semitic
individual (sorry, "White Nationalist") who believed Wikipedia was run
by a Zionist Conspiracy of Jews, with the unaware support of "useful
idiots". I am not a "useful idiot" of either a Jewish or an American
conspiracy, I am an individual who tries to examine propositions
logically and reach his own conclusions.
That is a disgusting and pathetic insinuation to make, and makes your
declaration of trying to examine propositions logically, laughable.
You have already proven that you have flawed logic by deploying a logical
fallacy in your rather pretentious "thought experiment", which was a total
straw man.
It is not morally wrong to be patriotic; it does not make you a fascist -
what If I told you I was Jewish-Scottish-British, would that make you look
like an idiot?
It is not morally wrong to campaign for equality for English with
American-English.
There is a section of society that wants to make people feel wrong and
embarrassed about preserving what's good about Britain. If we yielded to
that tyranny, then we may as well fold away our flags, and have
American-English taught in our primary schools, and consign everything in
English English to museums and skips, and apply to become the 51st state.
Why should we? Why should we accept Americanisation? Why should we accept
the abolishment of Britain? Why should we be ashamed and embarressed of who
we are?
This is not any kind of extremism, it's asking for the same service that
everyone else gets - the same treatment for our language as the Norwegians
get for theirs. It's not wrong, it's not daft, it's not unreasonable.
It's
fair.
That rant over, I would characterise it more as you coming and saying
"I'm against all of you" than us saying
"we're all against you" - you
and this is more "logical examination of proposals"?!
I'm not "against all of you", I'm against unfairness, which is
fundamentally
what this is about. Inaccuracy is also the other major issue, on top of
that, there's a lack of consistency.
I've included evidence in this response, because there are too many
irrational, unreasonable, and unsubstantiated rebuttles to my proposal.
There are double standards present, and it's against what I believe
Wikipedia is all about.
"back up your articles" it says... and so I am.
have yet to prove that there is even an issue to solve (except
inasmuch as it is stopping you from contributing; and
the more I hear
of your biases, the less of a problem that seems).
I'm biased towards fairness; you appear to be biased towards something
else.
--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]
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