[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wikitech-l] Hyperlink convention

[Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales]

David Friedland wrote:
> Rather than trying to live in the fiction that en-us and en-gb are 
> equally understandable and mutually compatible, we should admit that 
> they are different, that those differences can and empirically do cause 
> problems, and that we should create a solution to solve it.

Why do you say it is a fiction?  I don't see any real problems with it
at all.  There must be some examples that would tend to persuade me,
but color/colour and the like are not very compelling.

I discovered the last time I was in London that what we Americans call
'arugula' is called 'rocket'.  This is a rather preposterous name for
a lettuce, in my opinion, but nonetheless, that's what they say.  And
I was pleased to have learned about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arugula

would have informed me of this quite well.  Would it be better to have
used fancy wiki markup to deny me this learning opportunity?

Where the languages are similar enough to be mutually intelligible, we
don't need to do anything.  Where the languages are different enough
to cause trouble, we have a delightful teaching opportunity which adds
considerable richness to our work.

--Jimbo