Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Regional English dialects

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Starting up this project

This project was inspired by issues related to an RfC. Regional variants of the English language have different spellings, different terms might be common in one part of the world and quaint in another, etc. Edit wars occaisionally result, possibly caused by the vague nature of the issue's treatment in the manual of style.

Goals of this project (or at least my goals in starting it) are (1) to shore up consensus in how wikipedians approach these differences, and (2) to build a community of users that can watch for large-scale changes that might be made by a particular user or a group of users that run contrary to this consensus.

(1) Finding consensus is really just a matter of discussion and (probably endless) debate, which currently takes place on several different pages. There have been straw polls over the past 5 years, but these too are hard to find (these should probably be linked from here, and perhaps repeated). Bringing this all to one place for a more readable debate is the first goal of this project.

(2) "Enforcement" can be done through methods similar to those used by WP:WPSPAM, or WP:CVU, including templates for userpage warnings, community watchlists, reversion bots, etc. None of this should be done before considerable conversation and consensus-building, and early versions should be kept "toothless" until even stronger consensus is reached.

I'm hoping to track down users on both "sides" of the issue (personally, I'm not bothered by the variants existing side-by side, though I am bothered by edit wars). SB Johnny 11:12, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Userboxes?

Should we have one? I'm thinking of one having a little picture of a tomato and a potato, invoking the George Gershwin song. But then I thought, would only USAians get the joke? SB_Johnny | talk 18:33, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Good idea! I think most would get the joke, but we don't want people thinking the reference is too "US-centric." Perhaps something somehow alluding to the two meanings of the verb "table"? --Cultural Freedom 2006-07-24 22:00 (UTC)
Didn't even know there were 2 meanings. I had thought of "rubber" as a good example (pic of a condom and an eraser), but that might be too racy? SB_Johnny | talk 09:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I guess "fanny" probably wouldn't be a good alternative, then. I think the tomato/potato song is sufficiently well known outside of the US for it to be a decent image choice. --Daduzi talk 07:05, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] needs more info

Wikipedia needs more info on western american english and eastern american english. Gringo300 05:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

There's probably a lot to be written dealing with American regional dialects in general, though as far as I know the written forms don't look different (with obvious exceptions such as Cajun and Pennsylvania Dutch, etc.). SB_Johnny | talk 11:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Speaking of American regional dialects, anybody wanna help me out with Regional vocabularies of American English? Needs repair, renovation, remodeling, and cleanup... JackLumber. 12:42, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Misc. comment

This has a potential. We have too many disputes over spelling and other regional matters. Maybe what we need is an "International Relations Team." Maurreen 06:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree completely! Some sort of International Relations Team can perhaps be "folded into" this project. --Cultural Freedom 2006-07-26 11:25 (UTC)

[edit] Nature of this project -- too broad?

I wonder whether we might alter the opening description of the project to capture the "meta" aspect of the project, or, perhaps, even split this into two projects. I am interested in a project that would "better organize information in articles related to Regional English dialects," but I'm much more interested in the "meta" issue of how to solve dialect conflicts, avoid orthographic/dialect edit wars, etc. As SB Johnny rightly pointed out, these two issues are related. But one effort involves organizing Wikipedia articles about dialects of English, the other is about dealing with Policy and Guidelines about the use of these dialects in all Wikipedia articles (not just those articles directly about English).

Thoughts? --Cultural Freedom 2006-07-26 11:32 (UTC)

I'm not sure. Actually, when I named it, I had more of the policy edge in mind, but I'm thinking that having both here might actually be a good idea, because if we can get a sub-community together that's interested in the differences and works on clarifying them (both through articles and policy), we'll have more informed (and possibly cooler) heads involved when it comes to the application of the rules. You see what I'm getting at? SB_Johnny | talk 17:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Got it. Makes sense. But we might want to alter the opening description a bit nonetheless. By the way, apologies for being somewhat absent right now. I will be participating actively in this effort, it's just that I am utterly swamped with work right now. (See my user page for some details.) --Cultural Freedom 2006-07-27 13:50 (UTC)

[edit] Notice of AfD

See Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_28#List_of_British_words_not_widely_used_in_the_United_States. SB_Johnny | talk 09:42, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help: Europeans ganging up on me

Hi. I'm new here. I'll probably not stay much longer, since this place seems to be filled with so many childish Europeans who invoke rules that don't exist in order to get their way. But perhaps I just haven't met/seen the right people? Anyway, look at this [1]. Is there any way to get protection from people who violate wikipedia's rules? And this jtdirl seems to be an administrator!! Can't there be a police of some sort that puts a stop to this sort of thing? --Samuel Webster 16:27, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Though I'm sure your attentions were good Wikipedia guidelines go against you on this one. Here's the relevant text from the Manual of Style:
Disputes over style issues
In June 2005, the Arbitration Committee ruled that, when either of two styles is acceptable, it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change. For example, with respect to British spelling as opposed to American spelling, it would only be acceptable to change from American spelling to British spelling if the article concerned a British topic. Revert warring over optional styles is unacceptable; if the article uses colour rather than color, it would be wrong to switch simply to change styles, although editors should ensure that articles are internally consistent. If in doubt, defer to the style used by the first major contributor. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jguk
Unfortunately you're caught out on at least one, possibly two factors here. Firstly, it could be argued that as the British monarchy are members of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family then British spelling is more appropriate (this is debatable, though, and the weaker of the two issues). Secondly, and more importantly, if you look in the article history you'll see that jtdirl was the first major contributer to the article, and as such his or her preferences trump other considerations (unless the article is clearly about an American/British/Canadian/whatever topic). Also for future reference if you make a change and someone else objects to it it's better to take the issue to the talk page than edit warring. --Daduzi talk 17:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Looks like I may have screwed up big time here! But then why didn't jtdirl just say "First major contributor, ME, used British/Irish English?" Instead he said "Germans when using English use International English (a variant of British English with BE spellings), never American English" -- which, by the way, contains two gross errors. In any event, false alarm. Sorry! --Samuel Webster 19:52, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
By the way, you needn't be fooled about claims of international English. Some people act as if it's the same as British English, not so. Maurreen 06:26, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)