Note: if anyone thinks this page/idea/committee is a bad idea in any way, don't hesitate to let me know on the Talk Page for this page! -CF.
Welcome to the Committee for WP Orthographic (and Dialectical) Justice. I will say a lot more later (might take a few weeks, I'm very busy, but I'll try to get to it soon). And I might remove this page if people end up taking it the wrong way! The creation of this page is an attempt to improve WP. If I am convinced that it won't improve WP, I'll remove it (or change it, as needed).
In the meantime, I'll briefly describe the principles by which this group should work:
- Look here for alerts, and divide up action-items, as needed.
- If you think I've made a mistake in any of my listings, please let me know!
- Go to the Talk Page to suggest changes in how we should work.
Current Orthographic/Dialect Alerts edit
Transportation -> Transport edit
Background. User:Darwinek has been changing article names and categories from "Transportation" to "Transport". (And he's been making other questionable changes as well, such as "soccer"-->"football" in articles not about soccer/football in countries where English is an official or primary language; but those would be much easier to justify than the change to "transport". We can worry about those later.)
Note: As Philip Fung noted on my talk page, many of the transportation articles were simply copied over from the CIA World Factbook, so, to begin with, they all used American English. Obviously, many of these did indeed need to be changed! All countries that use English as a primary or official language, and use "transport," not "transportation," should have an article called "Transport in X", of course!
Current Issue.
He has recently proposed a wholesale renaming of a bunch of categories. See:
Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_15#Transport_in_Asia
Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_14#Transport_in_Africa
Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_14#Transport_in_South_America
Level of seriousness: High.
If this vote passes, then the category names can be used to justify changes to all article names (aside from those of the U.S. "and its dependencies" -- note: the fact that Darwinek is talking about "The U.S. and its dependencies" in this context is, by the way, a sign of his confusion).
The idea that Japan, the Philippines, Israel, etc., should use British English is absurd. This move needs to be stopped. (And his changes to the article names, and past non-wholesale changes to category names, need to be reverted.)
Level of "unreasonableness" of Darwinek (i.e., will this person likely persist, once corrected): Low Medium. Why changed to medium: all attempts to communicate with Darwinek have failed.
Darwinek seems simply to have grossly misunderstood WP guidelines on national varieties of English. (Though I'm still looking into this.)
Status: He has been contacted about this, but has so far seemed unwilling to do what one would hope he would do: revert his own changes.
We did it!! -WF
Task Assignment edit
I'll revert the European ones. --WikiFair1 09:42, 18 July 2006 (UTC) Actually, I did a few others, as well. Hope that doesnt get too confusing. --WikiFair1 09:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC) note that Darwinaek said he's going away fora while. Unforunately, I also am going to be gone for quite a while starting today.
Motor neurone disease -> Motor neuron disease edit
Background. From a brief glance, it looks like the title should be "...neurone..." (one of the accepted British spellings), and not "...neuron..." (the other accepted British spelling, and the standard American spelling).
Note: I don't have time to go through the history of this article carefully, so I'm actually not sure which spelling should be considered the correct one, but it does seem Jooler is right about this.
Level of seriousness: Low. It's only one small article, after all!
Status: User:Jooler seems on top of this, and no one is screaming yet.
More large-scale issues we can address edit
- Refine WP's spelling guidelines/policies so that spelling wars cease, or happen less often.
- Consider developing a system for letting viewers view pages with whatever spelling system they want.
FAQ edit
Q: You, personally, obviously prefer American spelling. Is this really the "Pro-US Spelling Committee"?
A: Nope! (Assume good faith!). I do indeed prefer American spelling, but if someone tries to describe the "color" of the Queen of England's cheeks, I will change it to "colour"! I promise!
Q: Wait, do I have to engage actively in attempts to support a spelling system/dialect I don't like?
A: No, of course not! But being principled requires doing the Right Thing, even if it means "your side" won't win.