English Speakers
While I consider myself to be conservative in many ways, I should like to point that Conservapedia does not in any way reflect my views.
The site was created in reaction to perceived liberal/anti-christian/anti-American bias in Wikipedia and indeed the most popular article on Conservapedia is Examples of Bias in Wikipedia.
One particular "example" which caught my eye was this one:
Wikipedia often uses foreign spelling of words, even though most English-speaking users are American. Look up "Most Favored Nation" on Wikipedia and it automatically converts the spelling to the British spelling "Most Favoured Nation." Look up "Division of labor" on Wikipedia and it automatically converts to the British spelling "Division of labour," then insists on the British spelling for "specialization" also. [...] Conservapedia favors American spellings of words.
There are roughly 1.2 billion English-speakers in the world of which Americans account for less than a quarter. Of course we don't know how many of those use British spelling versus American, but I think it's a fairly safe bet that most of the more than 520 million English speakers in Britain and its former colonies use the former.
Conservapedia did limit their claim to just those English speakers who used Wikipedia, but as is typical of the site it provided no evidence whatsoever to back up that claim. Even if it were true, it would still make sense for Wikipedia to target spelling at their longer-term audience. Already Americans have dropped to less than half of the web-surfing population and that trend will only accelerate as more of the world goes online. So in the long run Wikipedia's users will almost certainly be weighted more heavily toward non-American English speakers.
Given Conservapedia's stance, I wonder. If, over time, the bulk of their users come to be non-Americans, will they go through all their articles and change them to British spelling? Not that that's likely to happen. Conservapedia's appeal is pretty much limited to the US's peculiar brand of religious conservatism.
The site was created in reaction to perceived liberal/anti-christian/anti-American bias in Wikipedia and indeed the most popular article on Conservapedia is Examples of Bias in Wikipedia.
One particular "example" which caught my eye was this one:
Wikipedia often uses foreign spelling of words, even though most English-speaking users are American. Look up "Most Favored Nation" on Wikipedia and it automatically converts the spelling to the British spelling "Most Favoured Nation." Look up "Division of labor" on Wikipedia and it automatically converts to the British spelling "Division of labour," then insists on the British spelling for "specialization" also. [...] Conservapedia favors American spellings of words.
There are roughly 1.2 billion English-speakers in the world of which Americans account for less than a quarter. Of course we don't know how many of those use British spelling versus American, but I think it's a fairly safe bet that most of the more than 520 million English speakers in Britain and its former colonies use the former.
Conservapedia did limit their claim to just those English speakers who used Wikipedia, but as is typical of the site it provided no evidence whatsoever to back up that claim. Even if it were true, it would still make sense for Wikipedia to target spelling at their longer-term audience. Already Americans have dropped to less than half of the web-surfing population and that trend will only accelerate as more of the world goes online. So in the long run Wikipedia's users will almost certainly be weighted more heavily toward non-American English speakers.
Given Conservapedia's stance, I wonder. If, over time, the bulk of their users come to be non-Americans, will they go through all their articles and change them to British spelling? Not that that's likely to happen. Conservapedia's appeal is pretty much limited to the US's peculiar brand of religious conservatism.