Requests for new languages/Wikipedia British English

British English Wikipedia

submitted verification final decision
  This proposal has been rejected.
This decision was taken by the language committee in accordance with the Language proposal policy based on the discussion on this page.

The closing committee member provided the following comment:

British English fails the uniqueness criterion for eligibility, namely that it be sufficiently unique that it could not coexist on a more general wiki. British English also does not have the required ISO 639-3 code except as a subset of English, which is covered by the current English Wikipedia. —{admin} Pathoschild 22:11:11, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Proposal summary
  • Language details: w:British English
  • Editing community: Zalgt (N) (blocked on main wikipedia if that is relevant User:Z (P) User:2004-12-29T22:45Z(NP) (Proposed American English
    List your user name if you're interested in editing the wiki. Add "N" next to your
    name if you are a native speaker of this language.
  • Relevant pages:
  • External links:
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There are a number of important differences between American English and British English. The current English Wikipedia is said to be all types of English. To create a British English Wikipedia would be very useful. There are other projects that different versions of the language have a different wiki. I also suggest creating a Canadian English, Australian English, South African English, New Zealand English, and a Irish English Wikipedia

Arguments in favor

Arguments against

  • I don't see any need for another English Wikipedia. There is already this superfluous project "Simple English", why another fork? The differences between BE and AE are so small that an own project for these is not at all justifiable. It's just a variety of the same language. BE and AE are fully inherently intelligible. --Thogo (talk) 18:51, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Everything has been said already, however, if that makes you feel better, you could gain consensus about adding a transliteration system BE <-> AE to the English Wikipedia. -- Prince Kassad 21:12, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • It takes a lot of work to maintain a Wikipedia. Already there are pages with false, misleading or badly organized information, and we try to avoid having two pages on a similar topic so that there will not be two pages written from different points of view. Making a separate Wikipedia requires a significant benefit. The small degree of difference between the two versions of English doesn't suggest a large enough benefit. --Coppertwig 00:52, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I find such British English Project redundant. --Edmund the King of the Woods! 19:41, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • If we have Wikipedias for every possible variance of a language the WMF will become very unwieldy with a great deal of duplication with only minor changes, it's not worth the hassle. This can't be justified. Adambro 19:46, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • We really don't need another English wikipedia. I can understand the smiple English on, but have a British English would be pointless because you would have articles there that would not be in the regular English. That causes confusion.
  • It causes confusion and it's useless. --Olando 18:15, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • IT'll make it difficult to find an article as two different englishes would have to browsed
  • Comment: The divergencies within the British are as wide as the Atlantic.Hillgentleman 13:55, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ow, should we create a w:nl:Heerlens Nederlands Wikipedia too? --Ooswesthoesbes 14:42, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

General discussion