If you were reading about the primary exports of a small region of an obscure country and in the list was "rocket", is it possible you could have come away from the article believing that the obscure country is a mjor exporter of rockets? Under ideal conditions, yes, these kinds of dialectical differences can be illuminating, but under equally likely non-ideal conditions, the differences can be confusing and misleading.
You can't provide technical measures against poorly-written articles. An article that listed "rocket" as an export without further definition needs editing, not some fancy technical solution.
While I admire the pluck of characterizing inconsistency as richness, I think that "down in the trenches" the reality of the differences in dialect (mostly between en-us and en-gb, but also, for example between pt-pt and pt-br) is a continuous stream of conflict, debate, confusion, and frustration that policy has failed to allieviate.
And you think that there wouldn't be massive bunfights as to which word was most appropriate for each of the dozens of English locales - given that many people within a locale will use different words for the same object or concept?
There exists a technical solution that would alleviate the problem and not significantly burden editors. Should we reject this solution on the wishful notion that our differences can unite rather than divide us?
No, only a tiny fraction of the many subtle and usually inconsequential differences between British and American English (not to mention the many other variations of English, some that don't fit neatly on national boundaries) are amenable to technical solutions.
Is any technological measure going to make the following (fictional) passage accessible to the average American?
Brian Lara scored a double ton at the WACA in the 1997-98 season in a tour match against the PM's 11. This was a Bradmanesque effort, the feat even more impressive considering Jo Angel's reverse swing and Michael Bevan's Chinamen, both aided by the Fremantle Doctor.
On the *specific* issue of number names, it might be feasible to provide a fix there. Beyond that, however, technical fixes are more trouble than they're worth.
-- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Merkel robert.merkel@benambra.org http://benambra.org
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. -- Albert Einstein They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- Carl Sagan --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Graham Merkel wrote:
While I admire the pluck of characterizing inconsistency as richness, I think that "down in the trenches" the reality of the differences in dialect (mostly between en-us and en-gb, but also, for example between pt-pt and pt-br) is a continuous stream of conflict, debate, confusion, and frustration that policy has failed to allieviate.
And you think that there wouldn't be massive bunfights as to which word was most appropriate for each of the dozens of English locales - given that many people within a locale will use different words for the same object or concept?
No solution is perfect, but I think the debates among e.g. Brits and Americans about usage will be substantially less frequent and acrimonious, as written American English and written British English have something of a standard that is upheld by usage guides and the like. (I make no argument here about the legitamacy of such usage guides, merely an argument about their significance, which is unequivocal.)
There exists a technical solution that would alleviate the problem and not significantly burden editors. Should we reject this solution on the wishful notion that our differences can unite rather than divide us?
No, only a tiny fraction of the many subtle and usually inconsequential differences between British and American English (not to mention the many other variations of English, some that don't fit neatly on national boundaries) are amenable to technical solutions.
And so, because we can only fix some of the differences, we should therefore fix none at all? I recognize that spoken British English and spoken American English are very different in many subtle and usually inconsequential ways, as you say, but _written_ British English and American English, which are much more standardized, tend to differ in certain specific ways which mostly are amenable to a technical solution to translating between them. The vast majority of dialectical differences are in the everyday, informal, spoken register that is not the style that Wikipedia is written in. In fact it is the relatively formal style of Wikipedia articles that makes me support a method to make dialectical differences consistent. The occasional dialectical spelling or words that differs from that encountered on other pages comes across as frankly sloppy and contrasts negatively IMHO with the otherwise consistently formal yet accessible style of the articles. There is a vision to make all the articles consistent in terms of being factualn, well-written, and well-researched, but there is no such vision for making the articles dialectically consistent. The policy that articles should be individually consistent based on either their subject or the dialect used by the original author (!) doesn't really seem to fit in with the goal of making Wikipedia a world-class reference work. Instead it seems to just make it inconsistent, unprofessional, and dialectically fragmented.
Is any technological measure going to make the following (fictional) passage accessible to the average American?
Brian Lara scored a double ton at the WACA in the 1997-98 season in a tour match against the PM's 11. This was a Bradmanesque effort, the feat even more impressive considering Jo Angel's reverse swing and Michael Bevan's Chinamen, both aided by the Fremantle Doctor.
This example is a red herring. I could make the same argument about the following nonfictional example, from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-theory], which is equally inaccessible to the average English speaker, British, American, or otherwise.
Open strings of the type I theory can have endpoints which satisfy the Neumann boundary condition. Under this condition, the endpoints of strings are free to move about but no momentum can flow into or out of the end of a string. The T duality infers the existence of open strings with positions fixed in the dimensions that are T-transformed. Generally, in type II theories, we can imagine open strings with specific positions for the end-points in some of the dimensions. This lends an inference that they must end on a preferred surface. Superficially, this notion seems to break the relativistic invariance of the theory, possibly leading to a paradox. The resolution of this paradox is that strings end on a p-dimensional dynamic object, the Dp-brane.
Admittedly, many of the terms used here are defined earlier in the article, but my point is that this debate is about dialectical differences, not jargon. Argot and dialect are not the same thing.
On the *specific* issue of number names, it might be feasible to provide a fix there. Beyond that, however, technical fixes are more trouble than they're worth.
If we provide _any_ dialect-specific code, who decides what gets fixed and what doesn't? Certainly you don't believe that the billion/milliard example is the only such difference that warrants a fix? What trouble do you envision other than "massive bunfights" among writers of a particular dialect about usage? What harm is there in letting people put brackets around {{colour}} so it appears with the correct spelling for American readers? For the vast majority of cases, my proposal would bring non-intrusive and more accessible dialectical consistency to Wikipedia. Certainly a solution the frequent and acrimonous debates about British versus American usage is at least worth a try.
In fact, the use of brackets in the wikitext to indicate regionalisms I think would be a far better tool for learning about the dialectical differences than encountering the occasional unfamiliar word or spelling that one might _guess_ is dialectical.
Finally, since no one seems interested in bringing dialectical consistency to Wikipedia in this area, might I propose an alternate policy for usage disputes?
Where a word has different spellings/usages, the spelling/usage that has the most number of Google hits shall be the spelling/usage used on Wikipedia. If the spelling/usage with the most number of Google hits changes, then so shall the spellings/usages on Wikipedia.
At least this way we can be sure that the spellings/usages we use will be ones used by a majority that is based on actual data. It's incontrovertible, democratic, neutral, and completely dialect-agnostic. Not to mention consistent.
- David
David Friedland wrote:
I recognize that spoken British English and spoken American English are very different in many subtle and usually ainconsequential ways, as you say, but _written_ British English and American English, which are much more standardized, tend to differ in certain specific ways...
Although I still disagree with the conclusion, I did want to acknowledge that this is certainly true.
Where a word has different spellings/usages, the spelling/usage that has the most number of Google hits shall be the spelling/usage used on Wikipedia. If the spelling/usage with the most number of Google hits changes, then so shall the spellings/usages on Wikipedia.
At least this way we can be sure that the spellings/usages we use will be ones used by a majority that is based on actual data. It's incontrovertible, democratic, neutral, and completely dialect-agnostic. Not to mention consistent.
This does have some merit, and of course "number of Google hits" is a traditional method of settling other disputes. But the problem as I see it is that American English is much more common on the Internet than other variants, so the rule would in practice amount to "always use American English" -- and this strikes me as deeply undesirable.
I suppose the biggest area where we differ is in our estimation of the magnitude of the problem. I view the differences as relatively minor, and as far as I have been able to determine, the number of edit wars and acrimonious arguments about this has been quite small overall. Are people really getting upset about this?
--Jimbo
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
I suppose the biggest area where we differ is in our estimation of the magnitude of the problem. I view the differences as relatively minor, and as far as I have been able to determine, the number of edit wars and acrimonious arguments about this has been quite small overall. Are people really getting upset about this?
Since it's been at least 24 hours since anybody has said anything inflammatory :-), here's my total-stereotype observation guaranteed to annoy the maximum number of people:
Empirically, the people most likely to complain about dialect are lesser-educated Americans and over-educated Brits. Americans with more education will have consumed vast quantities of British dialect in the process of getting educated, and it will usually feel pretty natural to them, with the occasional curveball (I knew "milliard" before this discussion, but not "courgette"). Conversely, our Brits (and to some extent Commonwealthers in general) with PhDs will sooner or later get fed up with reading American English, and start making remarks about "illiterate Americanisms", while regular Brits seem generally indifferent to the issue.
Now let the flames begin!
:-)
Stan
Stan Shebs wrote:
Empirically, the people most likely to complain about dialect are lesser-educated Americans and over-educated Brits. Americans with more education will have consumed vast quantities of British dialect in the process of getting educated, and it will usually feel pretty natural to them, with the occasional curveball (I knew "milliard" before this discussion, but not "courgette"). Conversely, our Brits (and to some extent Commonwealthers in general) with PhDs will sooner or later get fed up with reading American English, and start making remarks about "illiterate Americanisms", while regular Brits seem generally indifferent to the issue.
I'll have you know I'm Australian without a Ph.D and complain just as much!
- d.
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
Where a word has different spellings/usages, the spelling/usage that has the most number of Google hits shall be the spelling/usage used on Wikipedia. If the spelling/usage with the most number of Google hits changes, then so shall the spellings/usages on Wikipedia.
At least this way we can be sure that the spellings/usages we use will be ones used by a majority that is based on actual data. It's incontrovertible, democratic, neutral, and completely dialect-agnostic. Not to mention consistent.
This does have some merit, and of course "number of Google hits" is a traditional method of settling other disputes. But the problem as I see it is that American English is much more common on the Internet than other variants, so the rule would in practice amount to "always use American English" -- and this strikes me as deeply undesirable.
Well, all the data seems to be pointing towards Americans rapidly becoming an internet minority. Perhaps at first it will favor American usage, but eventually it will favor the most common usage, whether that usage is American, British, or whatever.
Of course, implementing this policy now would just be perceived by non-Americans as just another act of American linguistic hegemony, and as such is not really workable. I only suggested it to point out that sometimes the fairest and most neutral thing to do will be unpopular. Unfortunately, fairness and neutrality are often at odds with the equally laudable goals of inclusiveness and diversity. Is there an ideal way to reconcile these conflicting goals and does our current policy reflect that ideal?
I suppose the biggest area where we differ is in our estimation of the magnitude of the problem. I view the differences as relatively minor, and as far as I have been able to determine, the number of edit wars and acrimonious arguments about this has been quite small overall. Are people really getting upset about this?
I'm doing some searching and research and will post a summary of my findings later. I can, at the outset, say that from personal experience I have encountered invocation of the "original author's dialect" clause under dubious circumstances to support allegedly "British" usage.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Slovene_language]
- David
David Friedland wrote:
Finally, since no one seems interested in bringing dialectical consistency to Wikipedia in this area, might I propose an alternate policy for usage disputes? Where a word has different spellings/usages, the spelling/usage that has the most number of Google hits shall be the spelling/usage used on Wikipedia. If the spelling/usage with the most number of Google hits changes, then so shall the spellings/usages on Wikipedia. At least this way we can be sure that the spellings/usages we use will be ones used by a majority that is based on actual data. It's incontrovertible, democratic, neutral, and completely dialect-agnostic. Not to mention consistent.
"We must do something, this is something, therefore we must do this" is STILL not a syllogism, and even less so when the first statement is actually "I think we must do something, even if you lot think I'm wrong".
- d.
In message ck0buh$hev$1@sea.gmane.org, David Friedland david@nohat.net writes
Finally, since no one seems interested in bringing dialectical consistency to Wikipedia in this area, might I propose an alternate policy for usage disputes?
Where a word has different spellings/usages, the spelling/usage that has the most number of Google hits shall be the spelling/usage used on Wikipedia. If the spelling/usage with the most number of Google hits changes, then so shall the spellings/usages on Wikipedia.
At least this way we can be sure that the spellings/usages we use will be ones used by a majority that is based on actual data. It's incontrovertible, democratic, neutral, and completely dialect-agnostic. Not to mention consistent.
Argh! No, I strongly object to this proposal. The Google majority is _not_ always right, and in any case the preponderance of US websites would tend to bias Wikipedia towards US usage.
Just this morning, I noticed a discussion on the UK Wikipedians article about the [[IUPAC]] standardised spelling of the name of element 16, where it was noted that despite what IUPAC says, they have no standing for determining what British English usage is, where the element remains "sulphur".
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