Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
At 09:56 AM 4/9/02 +1000, Kakajit wrote:
I am Australian, and so I write my articles using Australian English, which is pretty much the same as British English... somebody just came along and re-edited one of my articles, changing most of the terms over to US English and removing the Australianisms. I know that most Americans wouldn't have a clue what a 'milk bar' was, but does that mean that I should NOT use the term in any of my writing? Australians use the internet too!
The policy is, basically, that any standard form of English is cool--US, Oz, UK, Canada, NZ, India, etc. If all the other person did was replace Australian usage with American, I'd say you're justified in reverting; if they also added information or otherwise improved the article, best to leave it, I think. (The second sentence here is one Wikipedian's opinion, not policy.)
Ok, thanks guys... I just figured out how to reincorporate 'my' information into the article. I'll just make a sentence that says that 'in Australia ice cream is sold in milk bars' etc and then I can cross-reference milk bar to an entry of its own.
Sorry to be pedantic... I'm not really that hung up about it!
PS. I just asked my American fiance if he knew what a milk bar was and he said he didn't know anything about Australian chocolate bars and could I send him a photo! [giggles] It's actually a kind of shop. :)