On Sun, 19 Jun 2005, David Gerard wrote:
I've noted that the proposed FoF 6 is trivially factually incorrect - it
only applies to US academia, and even then only a certain portion thereof.
It notably does not apply to e.g. UK academia. I've written a proposed FoF
6.01. Comments welcomed. (The sentence construction could almost certainly
do with improvement, for instance.)
FoF 6:
6) "CE" or Common Era has recently come to be preferred among scholars and
those who seek to avoid offense in inter-cultural dialog. "AD" spelled out
in its full original form is Anno Domini Nostri Iesu Christi ("in the year
of our Lord Jesus Christ) and thus potentially offensive, see research by
El_C.
FoF 6.01:
6.01) "CE" or Common Era has recently come to be preferred among certain
portions of US academia and those who claim to seek to avoid offense in
inter-cultural dialog. "AD" spelled out in its full original form is Anno
Domini Nostri Iesu Christi ("in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ) and thus
regarded by them as potentially offensive, see research by El_C. This does
not necessarily hold elsewhere, e.g. in UK academia.
This sort of thing is why I am profoundly sceptical that content
arbitration will not be an utter, utter disaster and just another hammer to
use in pushing a POV.
I have no objections to the ArbCom's Findings until I reached section 6;
what I found written there yesterday disturbs me greatly, for it appears
that they are embracing one side in a POV dispute.
I, for one, would be far happier if the Committee simply dropped all
comment about the AD/BC - CE/BCE controversy; I think it is clear to all
but a few that there is no consensus either on Wikipedia or in the
larger world about which style is preferred.
But if the members feel compelled to make a statement, I would hope
they limit it to the observation that both styles are widely used in the
English-spekaing world, & that there many arguments for & against each --
acknowledging that for Wikipedia to embrace either exclusively would
be to violate our core value of NPOV.
Geoff