[WikiEN-l] Why voting *is* evil

[Philip Welch]

On Apr 12, 2006, at 3:09 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:

>> Systematic bias is not at issue here. Systematic bias is the tendency
>> to fail at NPOV or comprehensiveness due to the knowledge set of our
>> contributors. This is not a content issue--this is an organizational
>> issue. Content should be organized for the greatest convenience  
>> for the
>> greatest number of consumers.
>
> Would you brook any exception to that? Would you go as far as putting
> an entry under a misspelling if most consumers thought that was the
> correct spelling?

If one spelling is preferred over another by a vast number of people,  
then that spelling is by definition correct according to a  
descriptivist theory of language.

If there's significant dispute over how a word is spelled, then the  
most common use should be under that spelling while the other  
spellings would be redirects. Actually, misspellings themselves are  
valid redirects.

I would say that even the name that an entry is under is an issue of  
organization, not content. The article on The Rock is located at  
[[The Rock (entertainer)]] but starts "Dwayne Douglas Johnson (born  
May 2, 1972 in Hayward, California), better known by his stage name  
The Rock..." Clearly "The Rock" is the better known name, while  
Dwayne Douglas Johnson is his actual name and the name that's bolded  
at the beginning of the article.

-- 
Philip L. Welch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Philwelch