User talk:Paulhiphop

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[edit] English spelling variants (color/colour)

Hi there. Please stop changing color → colour. Wikipedia is an international project, and has decided to value consistency of spelling within articles over project-wide consistency. See WP:ENGVAR for details. Thanks! --jacobolus (t) 01:11, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your message, OK, I'll leave the colour pages alone for now. I expected some reaction to my adjustments.

When a user visits www.wikipedia.org they are presented with a choice of languages. The 'English' option is simply presented as that, not 'International English' or even 'American English' so every article comes under the banner of the language of England. The concept of 'British English' to English people is utterly absurd.

While every international variation is legitimate to those who use them, they are still variants of English. In England, to spell colour without a 'u' is incorrect. While people are free to spell it 'color', 'kolour' or 'klhjr' , none of these conform to what is regarded by English people to be a correct English spelling. Who is the authority on a language? Could an Italian tell a German how to spell 'achtung'?

You mentioned 'project wide consistency', well until Wikipedia changes the front page option to 'International English' or similar, then it is a major inconsistency with many elements of it's content, or to put it bluntly, as long as the front page of Wikipedia presents the English language option as that, then in most cases the international variations are essentially spelling mistakes.

Regards

PH

Well, this isn't my decision, but rather long-standing English Wikipedia policy. It was argued over for months, I'm sure, and if you go looking, I imagine you can find pages of arguments for and against the policy as it stands, which was a compromise. In any case, unless the policy is changed, we should all abide by it, which means leaving the spelling of each article consistent with the original author's chosen dialect, unless the article has some strong regional connection. --jacobolus (t) 20:01, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

For examples of discussions, see the following pages: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and I'm probably missing several. You're welcome to start up a new discussion on WP:MOS if you feel that this policy should be revisited. But specific articles, user talk pages, and private discussions aren't the place for it. :) --jacobolus (t) 20:01, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your considered response, I took a look at some of the pages you referenced and it all seems a bit long winded. While it still doesn't make sense to me I don't care enough to devote that much time and effort to it! Much of the argument incorporates the concept of 'British English', the recognition of which I feel intrinsically flaws the whole discussion.

Regards

PH