Talk:Christianisation of Scotland

Article title -ize vs. -ise
Other articles with Christianization in the title currently use the -ize spelling (see Category:Christianization). I think it would be good for the sake of consistency, to change this article title to conform with the others. I understand WP:ENGVAR may warrant the use of the other spelling. But, it is my understanding that the -ize spelling is often incorrectly seen as an Americanism in Britain. Either spelling (-ise or -ize) is considered by some style guides to be acceptable anywhere but the US (where only -ize is used). So, per MOS:COMMONALITY as the -ize spelling is acceptable everywhere (the ratio between -ise and -ize stands at 3:2 in the British National Corpus), it could be used. Those reasons combined push me to the rationale that this article should use the -ize spelling for conformity within the encyclopedia. If other articles on the same topic that are named in the same manner didn't use the -ize spelling, it wouldn't be so much of an issue. Articles such as History of England and Middle Ages use the -ise spelling for Christianization, which is fine there. However, for example if the history of other European countries all used the -ize spelling and the England article didn't, I would advocate the same thing. If most of the articles on Christianization used the -ise spelling (for the title etc.), I'd advocate the opposite perhaps (though MOS:COMMONALITY would make me ponder advocacy of that). — Godsy (TALK CONT ) 20:40, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi . The fact that creeping standardisation (or standardization) has led people to change titles on these articles is really not as significant as you seem to believe. The Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England has been back and forth as editors move it and (presumably British) editors move it back. The ENGVAR really trumps standardisation and in fact is designed specifically to do so. By changing all the spellings in this article to fit the -ize title you have tacitly admitted this. ENGVAR says that that local articles should follow local spellings in cases like this. Logically the spellings in the article should match the spelling in the title, but in order to do that the appropriate variety of English needs to be in the article as well as the title. The upshot is, please respect ENGVAR and stop worrying about standardisation.--  SabreBD  (talk ) 09:00, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
 * If I were to play the devil's advocate, I'd agree with you for two reasons. For the sake of internal consistency within this article, -ise or -ize should be used when the spelling can vary (not just on christianise specifically). So based on that I could see keeping the -ise spelling, as a few other words use it within the article. Secondly, as it concerns the British Isles, British English is the appropriate for the title per WP:TITLEVAR. Though "a form that represents only minority local usage is chosen because of its greater intelligibility to English-speaking readers worldwide" gives the basis for taking the -ize position, I doubt it would be an issue for readers, as the spellings are so similar. — Godsy (TALK CONT ) 15:57, 9 July 2015 (UTC)