[WikiEN-l] Re: Do we really want to confuse every American who reads the Wikipedia?

[Daniel Mayer]

On Sunday 02 March 2003 09:08 pm, Sean Barrett wrote:
> I still don't understand what, exactly, is confusing about 2 March 2003.

Yes, I would like to know the answer to this too. It should also be noted that 
a majority of English speakers in the world use the International format and 
that even American style guides say that the International format is best. 

I thought we were an International encyclopedia that accepted all English 
speakers... There is nothing confusing about [[2 March]] [[2033]] - in fact, 
there is no need to type the blasted comma. This is the format I, as an 
American, would expect to find in any publication whose audience is all 
English speakers. 

So who are we writing for anyway? I thought our audience was larger than just 
American readers. It was a mistake to use the American style to begin with. 
And no, this isn't the same thing as American vs British spelling because 
this is a style, not a spelling issue (and there is no such thing as 
"International English spelling"). 

Even though most Americans will not know that "artefact" is correct British 
spelling and will "correct" it to "artifact", they will recognize [[2 March]] 
as a valid date format. American's are a smart group of people. [[2 March]]  
looks a little odd at first to American eyes but [[March 2]] looks really odd 
to non-American English speakers. That format simply is not widely used 
anywhere but the states.

--Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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