Talk:Sahle-Work Zewde

US or non-US English?
I apologise for starting this discussion page with a triviality.

However, my experience of the English Wikipedia is that a great deal of editor time can be wasted on "correcting" spelling "mistakes" that are actually not mistakes but differences between the various flavours of English.

That is one reason that we have the MOS:ENGVAR guidance, which begins: "The English Wikipedia prefers no national variety of the language over any other. These varieties (for example American English or British English) differ in vocabulary (elevator vs. lift), spelling (center vs. centre), date formatting ("April 13, 2018" vs. "13 April 2018")..."

The first non-trivial version of this article used the principle of commonality (for an international encyclopaedia, using vocabulary common to all varieties of English is preferable) and did not use any words with a specifically US English or non-US English spelling (the first deviation from this principle was not until six years and many edits later with the US spelling of center being erroneously introduced).

However the original author of this article could not be neutral with regards to date formatting and used the non-US format of "She was appointed to this position by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 11 March 2011 and is the first person to hold the post at the level of Under-Secretary-General. " (my emphasis added and a usage opposed to the US or "American" English usage of March 11, 2011).

Consequently, spellings should not be "corrected" from non-US spelling to US spelling in this article and I have placed a reminder template at the top of this discussion page.--BushelCandle (talk) 22:58, 25 March 2019 (UTC)


 * There's a well-established principle that editors should not change from one variety of English to another without good reason or talk page consensus. I don't believe that the presence of a date in the format "11 March 2011" establishes British English for the purposes of MOS:RETAIN (see this discussion), and so isn't a valid reason to change from "center" to "centre", nor is it a valid reason to disregard WP:BRD. Therefore I've again reverted to the previous status quo. Please don't make this edit for a third time without first establishing consensus to do so, thanks. --IamNotU (talk) 09:04, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Fourth president since... when?
There is a quote from Reuters, saying "Sahle-Work becomes the fourth president since the ruling EPRDF coalition came to power". This has been widely distributed and repeated by numerous other sources. However, it is unclear and could be misleading. The EPRDF came to power in Ethiopia with President Meles Zenawi in 1991. Her predecessor, President Mulatu Teshome, has been described by some sources (and apparently by himself) as the "the fourth president of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia"..

The Reuters quote is either intended to mean she is the fourth president since EPRDF President Negasso Gidada was elected after the establishment of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and its constitution in 1995, or else the quote is saying she is the fourth since 1991. Some sources have reported it as the latter interpretation, for example:. I have tried to re-write it to indicate the former interpretation: the fourth president since the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition was elected in the newly-established Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia in 1995. and I've added a new reference that supports that. I wanted to note it here though, as the Reuters source doesn't exactly say that. --IamNotU (talk) 12:27, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 08:51, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Sahle-Work Zewde portrait.jpg