86. National spelling variation: Retaining the existing variety

I completely disagree with the Retaining the existing variety policy of the manual. In short, it says that the spelling of the "first major contributor" will stand as the Wikipedia spelling unless a specific reason to change it comes up. This is ridiculous. If a fringe spelling used by the "first major contributor" does not cross dialects, the more common one will naturally replace it. Why then would a spelling that does cross this boundary be exempt from this common sense rule?

For the purposes of this argument, we can ignore smaller English variations to focus on the two largest ones, American English and British English. According to Alex.., Wikipedia has more than five times as many American users (23.1%) than British users (4.1%). If India (5.4%) is added to British users, Americans still more than double the number. More over, approximately two thirds of native speakers of English live in the United States, and therefore speak American English.

American English is by far the most common English variant both on Wikipedia and in the world, therefore unless contradicted by the other three guidelines, American English should be standard on Wikipedia.--Marcus Brute (talk) 06:35, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

British English is not just used in the United Kingdom and India, but throughout the Commonwealth as well. The present guideline is a good compromise that avoids fruitless warring over the variety of English to be used in articles, and I, for one, see no reason for it to be changed. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 06:49, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the existing procedures work reasonably well, which is about the best that can be hoped for. There is no way that either American or Commonwealth speakers are going to accept the other dialect being privileged. The remaining imaginable possibility is to have separate wikis for the two dialects, which would be a massive waste of talent on both sides and a win for no one. The coexistence will lead to occasional annoyances (for me in particular it's aluminium that sets my teeth on edge) but it's a good opportunity to practice serenity of mind, and as a practical matter is very much preferable to any available alternative. --Trovatore (talk) 08:20, 24 January 2009 (UTC)