User talk:Johnolbrich

Welcome!

Hello, Johnolbrich, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Unfortunately, one of your contributions does not conform to Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy (NPOV). Wikipedia articles should refer only to facts and interpretations that have been stated in print or on reputable websites or other forms of media.

There's a page about the NPOV policy that has tips on how to effectively write about disparate points of view without compromising the NPOV status of the article as a whole. If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the New contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type   on your user page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Here are a few other good links for newcomers: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, check out Where to ask a question or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome! Dougweller (talk) 08:39, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
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Violation of WP:ENGVAR and misleading edit summary7
You weren't making spelling corrections, in one case you were just reversing the order of American and British spellings and changing "British" to "American", in the other you were changing from American to British spelling, despite the fact that the linked article uses American (although the difference is no where near as great as say "honor" and "honour". Please don't do that again - but there is a lot of work to be done involving actually correcting spelling and grammar if you are interested. That would be very helpful. Dougweller (talk) 08:42, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

I must take issue with you on this. The excellent article on "Civilisation" points out the provenance of the word, from the Latin "civis, civitas" and later the French civilisé, and the spelling "Civilisation" is almost universally used, other than in the USA. The word has a continuous lineage, and there is no reason to use the variant American spelling in this case.

Wikipedia's guidelines state that no one variant of English should take precedence. Johnolbrich (talk) 03:00, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

In a recent edit, you changed one or more words or styles from one national variety of English to another. Because Wikipedia has readers from all over the world, our policy is to respect national varieties of English in Wikipedia articles.

For a subject exclusively related to the United Kingdom (for example, a famous British person), use British English. For something related to the United States in the same way, use American English. For something related to another English-speaking country, such as Canada, Australia, or New Zealand, use the variety of English used there. For an international topic, use the form of English that the original author used.

In view of that, please don't change articles from one version of English to another, even if you don't normally use the version in which the article is written. Respect other people's versions of English. They, in turn, should respect yours. Other general guidelines on how Wikipedia articles are written can be found in the Manual of Style. If you have any questions about this, you can ask me on my talk page or visit the help desk. Thank you.

Note that the article is not called "Civilisation" but "Civilization", and MOS:RETAIN says "When an English variety's consistent usage has been established in an article, maintain it in the absence of consensus to the contrary. With few exceptions (e.g. when a topic has strong national ties or a term/spelling carries less ambiguity), there is no valid reason for such a change.

When no English variety has been established and discussion cannot resolve the issue, the variety used in the first non-stub revision is considered the default. If no English variety was used consistently, the tie is broken by the first post-stub contributor to introduce text written in a particular English variety. The variety established for use in a given article can be documented by placing the appropriate Varieties of English template on its talk page.

An article should not be edited or renamed simply to switch from one variety of English to another" I also note that the OED says "Civilization (or civilisation) - note that it does not say one is American and the other British, and that it gives the 'z' spelling priority, just as it does with "civilize". Oxford is quite explicit about this. Read Oxford spelling which makes this clear and states that "Apart from OUP, British dictionary publishers that use Oxford spelling include Cassell, Collins and Longman.[3] It is also used by the London-based scientific journal Nature, The Times Literary Supplement, and by the style guides of international organizations belonging to the United Nations System." Dougweller (talk) 06:48, 21 November 2014 (UTC)