[Wikipedia-l] Minority/majority question

Sat Jul 31 11:22:26 UTC 2004

--- Gutza <gutza at moongate.ro> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I hope I'm posting this on the right list, don't know where else to 
> turn. We have a minor dispute on the Romanian Wikipedia and I'd like to 
> ask for your advice. The dispute refers to the naming of an article 
> (would prefer not to specify which article, but it's a sensitive topic 
> with people). Now, there are two spellings proposed for the article 
> name: the one widely accepted in Romania and another one which is 
> preferred by a Romanian minority.

On the English Wikipedia we go with what most people who speak English (our
readers) would expect to find (with caveats for ambiguity and offensiveness).
So placing the article you talk about where most Romanian speakers would expect
to find it in the Romanian Wikipedia makes a great deal of sense to me. But
caveats for ambiguity and offensiveness may apply. 

An example from the English Wikipedia were common usage is overruled by
offensiveness: 'Eskimo' is a very common name for a people who live in the
North American Arctic. In fact it is probably the most common name for them (at
least in the U.S.). But they consider it to be highly offensive. Therefore our
article about them is at [[Inuit]] (a widely used alternate name - esp in
Canada). 

-- mav

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