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Google stats again

Another example of how counting google hit counts can be misleading given the natural US bias of the Internet

  • "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" - 2,150,000
  • "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" - 501,000
What does that prove? Jooler 18:48, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
That "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" is the more common form of the name on the internet. I fail to see how that's misleading at all. It may not be the original name, anymore than Robinson Crusoe is that book's original title, but it is the most common on the internet. --Prosfilaes 10:58, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Precisely the point I was making. Jooler 11:41, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
BTW I don't think the comparison to Robinson Crusoe is entirely relevant. At one time many books frequently had over long titles like The Book of Household Management Comprising information for the Mistress, Housekeeper, Cook, Kitchen-Maid, Butler, Footman, Coachman, Valet, Upper and Under House-Maids, Lady’s-Maid, Maid-of-all-Work, Laundry-Maid, Nurse and Nurse-Maid, Monthly Wet and Sick Nurses, etc. etc. – also Sanitary, Medical, & Legal Memoranda: with a History of the Origin, Properties, and Uses of all Things Connected with Home Life and Comfort that were commonly abbreviated. And sometimes films like Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb still do. Jooler 11:52, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
You claimed it was misleading; it wasn't at all. The only reason you think it's misleading is because you would judge it as the wrong answer. It's entirely possible that people who write on Harry Potter refer to it, when they do so in the long form, as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". I think that abbreviated names are a most relevant example; there is no right way to abbreviate a title, and hence popular consensus, as can be indicated by a Google search, is the only guide to correctness, just like for the spelling of aluminum.--Prosfilaes 12:03, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Erm... I think you are confused. Firstly we are not talking about abbreviations. The book and film are ONLY known as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States. In every other country in the world (including Canada) it is known as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as the authour intended, even when translated (e.g. Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal in Spanish) it is the former. - However what we find when we do a raw Google hit count is that the former outnumbers the latter by 5:1. You are correct this ONLY proves these specific words, in this order are more common on the Internet. Nothing else can be determined from the hit count because the context cannot be judged. For instance how many times do authors write about the book say something like "... Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (also known as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States ...". Now the point is that the context of the use of these words cannot be judged from merely doing a hit count. Some naive observers may conclude because the former occurs more frequently than the latter on the Internet that it is more common genrrally throughout the world, and indeed this is what some people were trying to prove with the Google hit counts for aluminium/aluminum. Jooler 12:41, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
It's not known as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in Spain; it's known as Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal. Whatever that translates to is irrelevant to the normal English name. If it says "... Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (also known as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States ...", then both hits should show up, but there are at least 1.5 million pages that say Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and never Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This is even less ambiguous in the aluminum situation. There are serious context issues in saying that there are 300 million speakers of English in India; why are you so quick to toss that number out (and assume they all support Aluminium over Aluminum), but unwilling to let a citied provable fact into the article; put a caveat on it, but let the readers decide for themselves. (I seriously doubt context is much of an issue for words like Aluminum; 95% of the hits are going to be for actual uses of the word.)--Prosfilaes 13:03, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
The Google test applied to Harry Potter doesn't go far to prove whether or how far the Google test is biased in favour of American spellings without evidence of the books sales under different names. If we knew under what English title the book was actually sold in India etc and had some idea of the sales figures, you could then compare the sales ratio to the Google ratio and this comparison would provide some evidence of the Google bias (or lack thereof). --Danward 18:38, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
Google "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" 67,500 hits, for those using both names.
Subtract them out, and you have about a 4.8:1 ratio of only Sorcerer's to only Philosophers, rather than only 4.3:1.
That name wasn't changed without the "authour's" acquiescence. It is every bit as "correct" as the other, and obviously more common. Gene Nygaard 14:31, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Correctness is neither here nor there. I never claimed in anyway that one was correct and one wasn't. Just that one is used exclusively in the USA and has a higher Google hit count the other. You says "obviously more common" - yes obviously more common on the Internet. Jooler 15:52, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Those stats have nothing to do with usage, only a momentary Google take on the web pages it catalogs which have one or more instances of the given text. Google is a search engine, not a tool for identifying and describing linguistic usage metrics. Wyss 14:37, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Google "author" 828,000,000 hits
Google "authour: 103,000 hits
I'd bet that even Wyss and Jooler could confidently draw some conclusions from the 8040:1 ratio of those searches. Gene Nygaard 14:54, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
You've got my point arse about face. I'm trying to argue that Google hit counst DON'T prove anything. Jooler 15:58, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
BTW I'm not sure what point you're trying to make by illustrating your point with my typo. Jooler 17:08, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Yep. Extremes like that are useful but that's still not acceptable for an article citation in WP, since any inference one might draw from it would be original research. Wyss 16:37, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
We don't need to draw an inference; we simply state the fact. We let the readers draw the inferences.--Prosfilaes 18:34, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
That could give readers the very misleading impression raw Google keyword search numbers mean anything having to do with usage metrics. Besides, WP is not a data dump, it's an encyclopedia. Wyss 19:02, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
We're already giving readers a very misleading impression. Judging by the way this article reads, I'd expect Google search results for aluminium:aluminum something like the 8,000:1 ratio I found for author:authour, not the piddly 0.4:1 we actually find. Gene Nygaard 20:43, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Why on earth would you expect that?!? 21:14, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
With all due respect, that's not the issue. Google is neither designed nor marketed as a tool for describing linquistic usage metrics and citing it as such requires original research. However, if an editor can find a published author (which could include a linguist with a web site for all I care) who cites a Google keyword search of the two spellings and expresses a conclusion about it I'd welcome such a citation in this article. Wyss 20:57, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Yes you are definitely confused. Again - it is ONLY known as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the USA and so when people who are not from the USA use those words they are either appealing to an American audience in some way or making a point about the American usage (as per the Wikipedia article at Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for instance). This Google stat is an even clearer demonstration of the very points I was making. Firstly that contextually ambiguous hit counts of themselves have no value and secondly that the American dominance of the Internet skews the figures. Of the 300 million or so converstational English speakers in India few of them produce websites that you might read, but they learn British English (Indian_English#Influences:_British_and_American) which uses aluminium exclusively, despite what the 1 million google hit count for ["aluminum" site:uk] might suggest. Can you explain 1 million hit counts for a word we don't normally use? I have explained it above and can't be bothered to repeat myself. This argument is dead and buried please do not resurect it. Jooler 13:26, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
No, India does not speak British English. India speaks Indian English, which is the whole point of the article you link to. In fact, that article says "American English spellings are also widely prevalent in scientific and technical publications [...] American spellings such as fiber, meter, skillful, and program are considered to be acceptable in the science streams." Which leaves the question of how aluminum is spelled in India up in the air.--Prosfilaes 00:49, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
Stop telling me I'm confused. We can disagree without me being confused. Harry Potter books are not known by any English name in most of the world. And people could use "Sorcerer's Stone" because they find it helps them communicate better to a large audience. Everything is contextually ambiguous; there's no particular reason to disregard these stats because they are contextually ambiguous.--Prosfilaes 14:10, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Lol just found this http://www.therockalltimes.co.uk/2003/04/28/archaeologists-find.html which illustrates the point nicely. Jooler
It illustrates the point that you know you're "right" and don't care about the facts. The discoverer of an element names it aluminum and it's so hilarious that American spell it that way. Hardy hardy har.--Prosfilaes 14:10, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
And the discoverer of Oxygen called it dephlogisticated air. Jooler 15:52, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Touché! Gene Nygaard 15:01, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
That's totally beside the point that the article blames the Americans for losing a letter that the British added. And if the British still called oxygen that, you would fighting tooth and nail for that spelling, no matter how absurd.--Prosfilaes 00:49, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
Get a grip. The article is a joke. Never let the truth get in the way of a good joke, my old Dad used to say. That's called "Humour" on this side of the pond. Yes it is beside the point, quite right. As for Oxygen - if that other term was still in common usage throught most of the world and if that term was the offical term used by IUPAC and if the original author of the article has used the British term, then yes I would be resisiting any change. And quite rightly. Jooler 21:53, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I fail to see how that was a good joke. Generally, simply making fun of the way someone else speaks is considered racist and rude. Making fun of Americans for how they spell things isn't funny, especially when blames Americans for losing a letter they didn't lose. Bringing it up here was just tactless; I wouldn't bring up Chris Rock's famous monologue in a heated discussion of the word "nigger". --Prosfilaes 20:50, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
...Fine. Screw it. I'm sorry I ever brought this up. -Litefantastic 22:09, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
User:Prosfilaes == User:Litefantastic - ?
No. --Prosfilaes 00:49, 26 September 2005 (UTC)


Try this:

  • Harry Potter aluminum - 535,000 (in quotes, 72)
  • Harry Potter aluminium - 829,000 (in quotes, 73)
  • "Harry Potter and the aluminum" - 1 hit
  • "Harry Potter and the aluminium" - 1 hit

Wyss 19:08, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Hairy Aluminum - 567,000
Hairy Aluminium - 143,000
Hairy Alumium - 627
Hairy Butts - 2,500,000

My google search says Butts wins. From now on Element number 13 is called Butts, by Imperial decree...


A bit more useless googling:

  • "Aluminium sucks" - 208
  • "Aluminium rules" - 1090
  • "Aluminum sucks" - 911
  • "Aluminum rules" - 663

So Almighty Google says that aluminum sucks, but aluminium rules.

-) CP/M comm |Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 20
43, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposed move

By the way, this straw poll is a remnant of a dubious, already closed WP:RM request. Can't hurt though to let it collect a few more opinions, I guess. Femto 15:14, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Google gives more results for "aluminum" than "aluminium". Voozz45 17:06, 28 June 2006 (UTC) [suspected sockpuppet of Helicoptor]

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation and sign your vote with ~~~~
  • Oppose. Fascinating. I am familiar with most differences in English dialects, but I wasn't aware of this one, until now. (was I supposed to have a reason here? ;-) ) Sxeptomaniac 21:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Support change and support banning the sockpuppet if it is one. The US, former US dependencies, and Canada do make up the majority of first-language speakers in English. Also the "aluminum" spelling even if rarer is far from unknown in India.[1] Somewhat confusingly, both the "num" and "nium" spelling is used by the same Iranian company.[2] Ethnologue states there are 508 million English speakers including second language speakers. Of those 270 million spell it aluminum as second-language speakers in the Philippines use the American variant as they are a former territory.[3] This is the majority of speakers. In first-language speakers American-English is much more clearly predominant. That said the change is not going to happen though. Anymore than Humour or Grey will become Humor or Gray. (Although Color use American spelling) It's likely more useful to just take "aluminium" out of any article concerning Americans or American companies and taking "aluminum" out of British articles.--T. Anthony 14:18, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Standard Wikipedia policy is to leave things how the first author had them, if there are acceptable alternatives. The redirect and discussion of the spelling in the article are sufficient. eaolson 21:24, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. It was settled to use the IUPAC spellings for article names. At the present time, I see no compelling reason to reopen this consensus. Shimmin 14:01, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. IUPAC makes sense. Notice how there's been little fighting on the spelling of Sulfur, as people who use the alternate spelling can accept IUPAC's judgement --Angry Lawyer 08:48, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
That's because it's a spelling and pronounciation issue for aluminium/aluminum, not just spelling. Notice how there's been little fighting on the spelling of caesium/cesium, as people who use the alternate spelling can accept IUPAC's judgement.  :) --Ed (Edgar181) 11:11, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The common spelling is Aluminum so why does this article spell it with an extra “i”?

From what I have read, they are both common spellings. "Aluminium" seems to be used more in the sciences while "aluminum" seems to be used more in general/overall use. "Aluminum" seems to be used by American science associations such as NASA and the AAAS and turns up 89.6 million sites on Google, "aluminium" turns up 72 million. American Heritage dictionary says "aluminium" is 'chiefly' a 'British' term [4], but McGraw Hill, Houghton Mifflin, and some other publications [5] seem to call it "aluminum". Overall, aluminium seems to be the more British spelling used by some American English companies/orginizations/people/publications, while "aluminum" seems to be the American spelling that has become more widespread especially as the spelling for the element ([6] v. [7] in site numbers). Considering even some British organizations seem to use "aluminum", this is one of the few cases that I personally think that we should use the non-British English spelling. ~ clearthought 01:53, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

IUPAC, the internationally recognized authority on chemical nomenclature, accepts Aluminium over Aluminum. -- --Villahj Ideeut 20:33, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
This is wikipedia not some journal. The common name should be used. IUPAC accepts and uses both spellings so that should not be an argument for an extra “i”.--208.252.171.67 00:01, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Aluminium is the spelling preferred in other languages. As this is English-language Wikipedia that shouldn't matter, but we get a fair amount of "English as a second language" editors. Also the "ium" spelling is accepted by the British and when controversy arises on spelling Wikipedia usually goes by British spelling, in my experience, as a way to "make up" for the fact it most often uses American spelling. Color and Skepticism being notable exceptions as there has been debate, but no switching to the British Commonwealth standard at present.--T. Anthony 06:26, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't get it... Why do some people have to make it a US English vs. UK English issue (by the way, it's not exlusively UK's English, but also "Queen's English" or "Commonwealth English" or "Oxford English". It's not as if it "belonged" only to the British), or even a "spelling" issue??? The original word (regardless of geography, long before there was English, and waaaaaaaay longer before there were any USA with people to change spellings) is Aluminium, from the Latin name of the same element. So, there is NO "extra i", because it is supposed to BE there. Period. Also, the correctness of any one spelling is not determined by something as trivial and nonsensical as the number of occurences of it that a Google search returns. Say, if suddenly we were to find that "cuz" appears in more websites than "because" (or "Gawd" over "God", for that matter), does that mean we should change the way we spell these words? I believe the English Wikipedia should reflect English spelling (as in "World's English") and not be determined only in terms of exclusively US cosiderations, spelling or otherwise. Thank you.

You must not have read the actual article "By 1812, Davy had settled on aluminum, which, as other sources note, matches its Latin root." Although another source says "Sir Humphry made a bit of a mess of naming this new element, at first spelling it alumium (this was in 1807) then changing it to aluminum, and finally settling on aluminium in 1812." An "aluminium" company agrees stating "Davy called the metal alumium which has the -ium ending adopted for most metallic elements. But later he decided to change the name to aluminum, and this name was picked up by Americans."[8] Either way your statement "the original is Aluminium" is incorrect. Just as molybdenum was not originally molybdenium, etc. In addition IUPAC has a history of which was preferred when. From 1903-1910 and 1920-1961 period the "aluminum" spelling seems to have been preferred. From 1993 to present the "um" spelling is just seen as optional.--T. Anthony 00:06, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

The reason why the page is at aluminium, not aluminum, is due to the element naming conventions, which states that names of elements should follow the IUPAC international spelling, so the page is at aluminium, not aluminum. Watch37264 01:37, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

How about AL (element)?

That way everyone wins.Cameron Nedland 17:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks more like everyone loses to me. Femto 15:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
ALready mentioned before, bad idea. Look at AL for reason. --Steven 01:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Other misspellings

Maybe this shouldn't go here, but I've noticed a huge number of erroneous pages. I'm staying out of the debate, but since wikipedia for the moment has decided on -ium, shouldn't all pages with aluminium alloys and alluminium based products be corrected? eg [9] Triangl 13:35, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Not necessarily. American corporations use the word "aluminum" and there was even an American car called Aluminum. It is not a misspelling, I'm maybe willing to accept that it is merely an optional spelling used in North America and former US dependencies. To switch to "ium" in articles of US/US-dependency concerns would be a mistake and I feel a form of cultural imperialism. However I see many articles there where the "aluminum" spelling is being used inappropriately so good call. I used to try to change to the "ium" spelling in all articles where it was appropriate. Feel free to continue that.--T. Anthony 18:49, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Bear in mind that a decision on the title of this article/spelling in this article does not dictate how the word should be spelled throughout Wikipedia. If the article is primarily about an American subject, it should be spelled the American way. Likewise for British or other country focuses. Where the article is neutral, go for consistency and in line with the original author.
Example - an article about Hershey's chocolate might say "The bars are wrapped in aluminum foil", whereas one about Cadbury's chocolate might say "The bars are wrapped in aluminium foil" - both are the correct spelling for that particular article, regardless of how this article is spelled. An article about alumin(i)um cans might have either spelling, depending on the prevalent style and/or the original major contributor's preference - and that's ok too.
All in all, though, it might be easier to call it tin foil and tin cans ;)
Srpnor 09:18, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes yes, quite right all! Just checking! Oh but you couldn't call them tin. Tin is an element in itself. therefor calling them tin cans when theyre made of aluminium would be like saying "magnesium bars" instead of "iron bars"! Triangl 16:16, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
That part was a joke, he had a smiley even.--T. Anthony 15:53, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Protection

This is a fine mess. The discussion above appears deadlocked and the participants have resorted to a revert war leading to this. By my count two editors feel the Google statistics on spelling are important and deserve a spot in the page. Another seven or eight editors feel the info is either irrelevant or original research (that count includes me) and inapropriate for the page. Perhaps the matter needs to be referred to an RFC concerning the original research bit, or concerning the rudeness and name-calling indulged in by one of the editors involved. Refering to those who disagree with you as vandals is against wiki policy. Can we resolve this amicably here please. Vsmith 01:23, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

While it may seem like a silly edit war, there are valid points being discussed here that could serve to the betterment of Wikipedia. Let me give some credit to Jooler and the others for bringing up some (but not all) valid criticisms of the Google test. I think they may be valuable additions to Google and Wikipedia:Google test (which I suggest be linked from this article once a compromise is reached). However, I strongly disagree it is completely 'bollox' (to use the word Jooler once wrote) or that it is original research. Google, in practice, falls something between a reference work (albeit vast) and a search tool. Further, I don't think rules of thumb like comparing Google-supplied page counts should be considered original research, just as patents are not granted to obvious methods. Note there are many, many references of this method here in Wikipedia and elsewhere on the Internet, some of which reference this exact comparison. Also, let me say I disagree with the vandalism accusations; as I personally think Jooler was acting in good faith, though I do take offense at his (and others') jabs on Americans. But I can take them in good humo(u)r so long as we can come to a suitable compromise. Dforest 05:21, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
I think "bollox" must have been used in some other debate. I can't see it here. What jabs do you mean? The reference to Internet porn? That's not a jab at Americans it's a jab (and even a joke) at the expense of Internet itself and what the majority of people use it for, but I'm not suprised that you take offence. On Wikipedia I consistently see accustations of "Anti-Americanism" been thrust at editors who expresses apoint of view that disagrees with an American one. Jooler 16:01, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
What the @#%@^! is wrong with these people? Just put a re-direct at the "American" version, keep the article under the International version and NOTE THE DUAL SPELLING AT THE TOP OF THE ARTICLE. Yeesh. And I thought the US Congress was bad... Zotel - the Stub Maker 00:47, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
It's not bad anymore since the Republicans left office.--75.31.203.112 20:51, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. The world recognises Aluminium and America recognises Aluminium and Aluminum. Seems like a pretty obvious conclusion to me. Garglebutt / (talk) 06:16, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
And that's what the article says. This seems to me to be one of the most pointless debates on the whole of Wikipedia, way worse than the naming of Polish cities. What we have is good - let's leave it and move on. DJ Clayworth 18:32, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
It has been about including raw Google keyword search data in articles. Pointless, I agree, but maybe a learning experience for someone? Wyss 18:58, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Put down the I P2

Where's the policy that says that the only information that can be included on Wikipedia has to be from "published science"? WP:NOR says "... research that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources is strongly encouraged. " Google is a primary source. Collecting and organizing information from primary sources is "strongly encouraged". Where does it say that this policy doesn't apply to this article? Nohat 01:08, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Google is not a primary source, it's a search engine. Anything you infer statistically from a keyword search of Google is your own original research, never mind the raw comparison you've discussed above is unscientific, for the reasons outlined above. As for scientific publications, because they're peer reviewed their reliability tends to be rather high. Since we're dealing with a basic article about an elemental metal whose definition depends wholly on peer reviewed science, I'd suggest that peer reviewed scientific publications can be reasonably asserted as the only acceptable sources for this article. Wyss 01:51, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Google most certainly is a primary source. I ask it how many internet pages that it has indexed have a particular word, and it tells me. I can't imagine a more prototypical primary source of usage information than Google. There's no original research going on when directly comparing two numbers. 16 million is a larger number than 6 million. That's not original research; that's a fact. If doing a comparison using these methods were some idea that I just dreamed up, then I could understand calling it original research. But the method itself does not constitute original research; it has long been established by linguists and also on Wikipedia:Google test. Neither does the particular data constitute original research—it's just collected information from a primary source. Of course, other information has to be taken into account when making decisions about usage, but there is no reason not to report the data as collected in the article.
Secondly, we're not talking about the element per se; we're talking about English usage of the name of the element. The criteria for information about English usage is not the same as the criteria for the information about the element itself, for the obvious reason that linguists are the experts on usage, not chemists. When discussing English usage, the methods used by usage commentators are appropriate, which in this case means consulting large corpora for statistical information. Seeing as how Google is the largest corpus of English text available for general searching, it necessarily is the most precise source of such information. Accusations that Google is somehow biased are unsubstantiated and irrelevant, as the proposed information specifically indicates that this is information from Google searches. The idea that this information could only be included if it were part of some scientific study is laughable. It would be like saying that you have to cite a scientific study that says broccoli is green. You look at broccoli—you see it's green. You consult the largest corpus in the world of English text, and you see that "aluminum" is more common. There is no scientific study that will say that aluminum is more commonly used on the internet and there never will be, because scientists don't fill their publications with such trivialities—it's just a given that the information is trivial to glean from the corpus if it is desired. The fact that the people here have been unwilling to accept statistical information from Google is just an example of the masses being slow to catch up with the paradigm that professionals have already been using for years. Nohat 02:47, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Hmm ... the professionals use the transient, unreliable and essentially meaningless Google search stats. Wow! Professioanl what? To use it as you would want to do is original research and quite meaningless at that. If only we could replace all the wasted blather here with some real editing, think what we might accomplish. Get over it so the page can be unlocked. Vsmith 03:27, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
I've already explained how it's not original research and how the policy on WP:NOR explicitly encourages information of this sort. It's not original research and excluding the information on the grounds that it is is completely bogus. Nohat 20:13, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Yep... and there is a difference between use and misuse. Wyss 03:42, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry, what? Please explain what is being used and misused. Nohat 20:13, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Google. Wyss 20:47, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
I just want to state my viewpoint on this mess. Aluminium is the official IUPAC spelling. I am British and I feel a certain pride in seeing it spelled that way. I also find the spelling of sulfur vulgar but i'm not going to go changing that. When or If the IUPAC ever decides that Aluminum is the correct spelling, I'm sure every sensible Brit (and other fighting for the IUPAC spelling) will happily drop the i. i also found this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_%28chemistry%29 that i havent seen listed in theis discussion. I hope this doesnt fuel an edit war on that page too :p 213.48.15.234 09:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

This new google tool has even the history view, so we can trace the usage in time. Very handy.
http://www.google.com/trends?q=aluminium,+aluminum

If you'll check the reverse you'll see "aluminum" predominates in the following languages
  • English
  • Tagalog
  • Korean
  • Hebrew
Not that that matters the decision was made and is irreversible. Still thanks for the link.--T. Anthony 13:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Not largely unknown

The article reads:
In the United States, the spelling aluminium is largely unknown, and the spelling aluminum predominates.
As an American, I can tell you that the spelling of "aluminium" is well know, just not well liked. Like "centre." It grates on the nerves, but everyone knows what it means, and doesn't interpret it as a misspelling, just the way the discoverer wanted to call it in the end.

72.226.231.249 14:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)Casey D

Well I'd never heard or seen the "ium" spelling except on British TV. I might have been able to figure it out as an alternate spelling, but if I saw "Molybdenium" anywhere I'd figure it out the same. I did take courses on chemistry and physics of course, but it never came up.--T. Anthony 13:18, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
I hadn't heard -ium until I downloaded early episodes of How It's Made narrated by Tony Hirst, myself. The US broadcasts use -um.

Edit wars over Alluminum

I read the discussion regarding the AfD, and the decision to re-direct the above article to Aluminium, and I would like to request someone take care of the ongoing redirect/revert wars that are developing, and resulting in duplicate articles here, and at Alluminum. Technically, according to Webster's, there are two valid spellings: Aluminum (American) and Aluminium (British), but with two "L"s, it is mis-spelled from what I understand (fully admitting I'm not a chem major). I have attempted to ask those who continue to remove the redirect to discuss it here, and I'd like to have someone who has more experience with these continued spelling issues take a look at it and intervene, if possible. Thanks so much! Ariel♥Gold 23:59, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Present-day spelling - is this really necessary ?

Greetings, although I understand the role played by the "present day spelling" section in keeping the both "Aluminium" and "Aluminum" camps happy, is this section really needed ? I find it a bit lengthly compared to its very little encyclopedic interest. I mean, there is (hopefully) no spelling section on articles such as "color" or "behavior". Likewise, English speaking people regularly use the word Connoisseur whereas the original French word is Connaisseur. Here again, it is an interesting divergence but this hardly requires an article section about it. Could not we just put a link to American_and_British_English_spelling_differences, and settle for this ? Cochonfou 15:31, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

What The Heck Is Wrong with You people?

What the heck has Hitler got to do with aluminium? It's just not right! Please in future can you keep all frenzy-driven, phsycotic comments etc, to your self? It has nothing to do with aluminium!

Godwin's law. Does that mean I win?--82.152.248.87 (talk) 01:46, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Relief

Gosh, I am so glad that the Aluminium Wiki page must be so perfect- if all people can do is waffle and argue for a whole page over spelling!

It is pathetic- I have just read this page, and got bored halfway down. There are also stupid comments about Hitler.

CONCENTRATE YOURSELVES ON IMPROVING THE ARTICLE, NOT DISCUSSING WHETHER WE SHOULD USE THE CORRECT (-IUM) OR INCORRECT (-UM) SPELLING!

Admins- I think that this page should be shut down immediately.

I'm American. I call it aluminum. I don't care if you use aluminium in the article. It's nice that the article notes there is a spelling difference. Stop arguing; it's pointless. Soyseñorsnibbles (talk) 18:27, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

The facts

  • Aluminium= correct- international and in use in English (this is English Wikipedia, not American etc.)
  • Aluminum = incorrect - only used in American (and Canadian), originated from a corruption of the English language.

Argument over and out. Stop arguing. It is -ium and it is forever. Get over it!! Full stop.

The INVENTOR used the word "aluminum". How DARE you sit there and insult Americans/Canadians as idiots corrupting the language??? WE are following the inventor's wishes and honoring his intenet. File:The-inventor-honor-his-intenet.png YOU are the one who is not using the correct word & corrupting it by adding as "i" where none belongs. Stupid british. No wonder the Irish hate you. - Theaveng (talk) 16:06, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Your ignorance is pathetic. NEWS FLASH! Nobody "invented" aluminium and the earliest spelling is "alumium". Yes that's right. The element originally had the "-ium" suffix. So the "i" was not added originally but removed by Americans. Please also note that America was founded by the British and that if the Irish hate us so much, we would have so much diaspora that we do now. Parable1991 19:50, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Did you even read the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.195.91.67 (talk) 15:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
The inventor actually wanted to call it "Alumahnamahna, but an odd quirk of temporal physics led to him getting a copyright infringement suit threat, so he shortened it... True story... ArakunemTalk 01:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I say we call it "beercanium". It's descriptive, it tells one of the many uses of the element, and is all around awesome. Aluminum.. Pfft, that was so five minutes ago. Sneakernets (talk) 22:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Fantastic idea, but :-0 think of the poor people who speak Jamaican English, who may start eating beercanium! then we really would be in a muddle... :p --Woodgreener (talk) 00:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

although we can't say it was invented it was first isolated by Hans Christian Ørsted a danish scientist who called it Aluminium and that is the version used by most english speaking countries and most other languages have two i's —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.0.104.177 (talk) 13:41, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

This talk page is the saddest thing I've ever seen. How many man-hours of effort do you think went into all these circuitous spelling-and-Google arguments? If the same gusto had been applied to something useful, we'd all be living on the Moon by now. 90.201.136.137 (talk) 01:48, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

We can at least take solace in the fact that the balls in soccer aren't made out of aluminum. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.85.244.108 (talk) 03:42, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Move to AllumiNUM

While it may be true that more english speaking COUNTRIES use the "British" spelling, A greater number of the world's overall english speakers use the "American" spelling. More people equals "more common", and thus should be the spelling used on Wikipedia. "Alluminum" is the most commonly used spelling, regardless of the preferences of the inhabitants of some tiny island. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.233.73.251 (talk) 23:01, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

When last have you looked up the population of India, just ONE of the "tiny islands" you mention? Roger 16:15, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
There is only one ' l ', not two. 1.) Aluminum. 2.) Aluminium. Two Ls is a mis-spelling of the word, either in American or British English. Aluminum is the more "common" perhaps, but the consensus was to use Aluminium. Either way, the anon editor's spelling with the double-ls is incorrect. Ariel♥Gold 16:22, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
A tiny island with 1/5th of the population of the US despite only 1/40th of the land area. SpaceLem (talk) 11:27, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

The following doesn't appear to have been considered/mentioned...

From http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/06/27/seven_foot_frakkin_cylon/comments/...

"Rutherford (or whoever invented Aluminium in the first place) called it Alumium, from the stem Alum with the -ium ending to follow the metal naming standards at the time.

Then, for some reason, he renamed it and bizarrely chose Aluminum which after he sobered up realised didn't fit the naming scheme he was trying to follow so he renamed it Aluminium.

To be fair he prolly selected Aluminum because compounds sounded stupid otherwise, try saying sodium aluminate and then try sodium aluminiate. This is probably why Americans call it aluminum (although we all use aluminate pronounced alooominaate)

So Aluminium it should be.

However try getting the Brits to use Sulfur, even though that is now the IUPAC spelling.

Platinium FTW."

Also from the same page...

"When I was studying chemistry a few years ago, one of my tutors informed us that Aluminium was now the internationally accepted form of the word, in exchange for the american Sulfur being used in place of Sulphur. However, since in general the americans were ignoring this, he said he was going to continue using Sulphur in protest :)"

Surely, if the above two comments are true, then there should be no argument as to what the spelling should be? However, I forget, this is Wikipedia, and logic and reason is not always what it should be... 

-Andreas Toth (talk) 01:32, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Thoughts On This Subject

Short Version:

If you are thinking about joining this argument, don't. This isn't an argment that can be resolved, because both sides are basically right. Spend your time more productively elsewhere.

Long Version:

I have to admit I quite enjoyed reading this page. There were times it was funny. Then there were times it was stupid. Then there were times it was insanely hilarious. Then there were times it was simply insane. In many ways, it's a textbook example of how and why people argue. Has it not occured to everyone yet that both sides are right and trying to convince the other that they are wrong? Both spellings are correct. Both sides are right. And the arguments that each side uses to convince the other get wilder and wilder as time passes. That a Hitler example popped up is telling, folks. ;-)

And yes, before someone objects, I read the example. And yes, I understood what the original author was saying - specifically, he was saying that using Google to verify usage and commonality of a word is meaningless, since Google doesn't tabulate usage of words, it tabluates web page content, which isn't the same thing. As the old saying goes, The World Is Not The Web, and The Web Is Not The World. Even citing the number of American versus Commonwealth spellers on the web (which has been done before) isn't valid, because The World Is Not The Web, and The Web Is Not The World.

I know, this isn't going to end the arguments. People are people, after all, and in all my years of life, I have never seen anyone ever suddenly stop in the middle of a heated exchange and go "Gosh, I was wrong. Sorry!" No, it's been my experience that when two sides are right and are fighting to convince the other side they're wrong, nothing short of death will end it.

Here, we see individuals who are now deeply immersed in this argument. They eat, sleep and breathe the "-ium/-um" debate. They will never let it go, ever. They grit their teeth in red-eyed fury as they read the arguments of their opponents, knowing that only they are correct. Their blood pressure skyrockets at the thought of the impudent fools on the other side who cannot see the righteous justice of the presence or absence of an 'I'. It is, literally, an 'I for an I' battle (if one can pardon the pun), and I'm quite sure that several editors here have already instructed in their wills that the "correct" spelling be engraved on their tombstones as a last fillip, literally their final word on the matter.

Still, it's my hope that perhaps someone else perusing this little chat will read what I have written, pause, and think "he's right - there's really no point in fighting, it's not an issue that can be resolved," and instead move on with their merry little life, editing another article instead. Don't join in! It is the Endless War, fought by the Eternal Champions of Correct Spelling! Don't join in, for God's sake! It will suck you in and destroy your sanity, perhaps even your very soul! STOP! THINK OF THE CHILDREN! MY GOD, WHAT ARE WE DOING TO THE CHILDREN?!

Oh, wait - I don't have children.

Nevermind, carry on, then!

Xaa 02:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

This should go at the top of the page, in a big box. 90.211.134.7 (talk) 08:03, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Put down the I, and step away from the word

The extra I fails the Google test and the population test. Let's please just be reasonable, and move this to 'aluminum'. -Litefantastic 17:07, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Yawn. Do we have to keep putting up with ignorant comments like this? Jooler 21:07, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
I've taken it up with the manual of style. I'm not trying to give you a hard time (I briefed myself on some previous complains akin to my own for reference), but the fact remains that the manual of style disagrees with popular opinion... Aside from the fact that you're sick of hearing dissenters, what are your thoughts? -Litefantastic 23:59, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
What are you claiming to be popular opinion? The spelling of aluminium? For the love of Mike, that spelling is almost exclusively used by Americans. It is popular in America. The Internet is mostly American. The world mostly isn't. Jooler 00:04, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Yes. If the Internet is mostly American, it will be mostly Americans viewing the 'Aluminium' page. Correct me if I'm wrong - please - but I think I'm just reconfirming what you said. On a side note, I'd like to apollogise for the hubris I took when I started this thread; it was the wrong way to approach this. -Litefantastic 00:10, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Well. No I think most American internet users are too busy downloading porn. The IUPAC use Aluminium, so that is why this page is at Aluminium. That is an end of it. But I imagine you would want to use US spelling throughout Wikipedia for the reasons you state. Using your argument we should only use Chinese. The fact that most of the Internet is written by American speakers is because America is rich and rich American corporations and rich American universatives put together most of the content. Most readers are not American. This has been argued countless times. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Guerilla_UK_spelling_campaign for a lighter take on it. Jooler 00:30, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Bland Marxism and anti-Americanism. Please stop embarassing yourself and comment on the actual content of the actual page, not things about which you obviously have no idea. 208.111.222.96 22:15, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

OK. I'm an American and I teach chemistry in the good old USA. My textbooks spell it aluminum and with my students I use it as aluminum (although I point out the IUPAC spelling). Aluminium is the IUPAC reccommended spelling just as sulfur is - and wikipedia chemistry project made the decision to go with IUPAC. It's been bashed about too many times, give it up - on wikipedia it is spelled aluminium. When I find aluminum on wiki, I change it to aluminium - just as I change sulphur to sulfur (Historical/archaic usage and place names aside). So cut the google/American snobism and accept it. And note, please refrain from using the stupid porn slur. Thanks, Vsmith 01:15, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Nonsense. Total, utter nonsense. Wikipedia has no "official spellings". Each article is spelled according to the national spelling style used for that article. If an article otherwise uses American spellings, then there is no reason why it should use the non-American spelling aluminum. AFAIK there is no policy which supports changing all instances of the word aluminum to aluminium, so I suggest you stop that. Furthermore, the fact that IUPAC chooses some particular spelling should have no bearing at all on how Wikipedia chooses to spell an ordinary word like aluminum. I accept that community consensus supports spelling it aluminium at the moment, but I definitely do not support Wikipedia's acceding to some foreign spelling authority. We decide our own spellings around here based on our own policies which are decided using the NPOV. To do otherwise would be a flagrant violation of NPOV. Nohat 02:35, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
"Foreign" to whom exactly? Bad attitude. "We" do not decide our own spellings - that's nonsense. This is an encyclopedia and it is supposed to reflect the world, not shape it. In this case the article explains the etymology and adequately covers the fact that in the American branch of English sub-dialects there is a slight deviation from the normal spelling. The view of the international body simply reflects the status quo. Wiki-Ed 12:32, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
IUPAC is foreign to Wikipedia and they have no authority to legislate how we use the English language, nor is there any policy that says we should obey IUPAC's preferences. A majority of native English speakers are speakers of American English. Calling American English a "branch of sub-dialects" makes it seem at though American English is some uninfluential minority dialect. It is not. And furthermore, if you want to accurately "reflect the world", the reality is that a giant fraction of English speakers, if not a majority, spell and pronounce this word "aluminum", and I see no Wikipedia policy that says valid American spellings should be dispreferred. Nohat 06:00, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree that the IUPAC has no authority to *legislate* over linguistic usage. But the suggestion that its approach "should have no bearing at all" is completely lunatic. Again, I agree that since langauge is a matter of convention, the *primary* consideration should be working out what that convention is: ie do a greater total of English speakers say Aluminum or Alumimium? But if this long debate has proved anything, it's that none of us has any particularly good evidence of this - especially on the issue of which form English-as-a-second-language people tend to use. Given that the evidence as to the global convention is so hopeless inconclusive, then the fact that the international body that chemists (the professionals in the field) rely on to set standards has adopted a particular approach to spelling is surely a very good tie-breaker in the circumstances. The people above seem to mistakenly believe that Wikipedia must either treat an IUPAC policy as conclusive or ignore it entirely. --Danward 18:18, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
I am American, but let me share a small anecdote. One time on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire", the questions was "What is the capital of Australia?" The choices were Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, and some other city. The contestant decided to use his ask-the-audience lifeline and I knew immediately he would lose. Sure enough, they picked Syndey and he went with them. The moral is: the majority is not always right and Americans are bad in geogrpahy. Nelson Ricardo 03:18, September 2, 2005 (UTC) (edited: Nelson Ricardo 11:34, September 2, 2005 (UTC))
Sophistry. The point of this anecdote is to impeach Americans' intelligence, and then by implication impeach their authority to decide how to spell words. Spellings of words are not "facts"; they are conventions. Conventions are established by usage or custom. If a large fraction (or even a majority) of users of a word spell it a particular way, then that spelling is by definition conventional. This story has nothing to support the theory that "aluminium" is somehow "more correct" than "aluminum". Nohat 06:00, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Nohat; Vsmith's comments are nonsense. Note that even the French Wikipedia featured article (see notice at top of page) sometimes uses "aluminum" spelling, as do several other French Wikipedia articles, mixed in with aluminium spellings.
IUPAC accepts both spellings; their choice of one of them in their "house rules" for in-house publications isn't particularly relevant to anything, and even the IUPAC website has a great many articles using the "aluminum" spelling. Gene Nygaard 06:16, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Probably wirtten by French Canadians - put "aluminum site:fr" into Google. How many pages do you have to go through till you find an article written in French? What does the point about French Wikipedia prove anyway? Jooler 06:41, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
It is worth noting some usage statistics in the article. I added a mention of the Google test. If others find this biased, I suggest you find another source and add it as a rebuttal. --Dforest 06:49, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
The Internet is inherently biased as I have pointed out before and Google reflects that as well as emphasizing it. Saying that aluminum is more popular on the Internet is like saying aluminum is more popular in the New York Times. Jooler 06:52, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
The internet may be inherently biased, but it is sophistry to compare the results from an unregulated global medium to a heavily regulated and nationally-oriented newspaper whose style is mandated from above. The two are not comparable at all, and the suggestion that statistical results on usage of the two are in any way comparable is symptomatic of what I perceive to be a desperate attempt to cover up interesting facts. Indeed, I'd say that the fact that IUPAC's official style guide prefers aluminium is less relevant to the topic of aluminum in general than the results from Google. The statistical results from the web's largest search are perfectly reasonable to mention on this page. Nohat 07:26, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees!? The NYT is an American newspaper, butI would imagine, like all newspapers around the world it carries syndicated stories written by international news organizations like Agence France-Presse and Reuters. Likewise the Internet is predominantly an American entity, the rest follows. Statistics without context are meaningless. The context is that Google both reflects and and enhances the American English bias of the Internet (which is a no-brainer). With this in mind the fact that Google prefers aluminum over aluminium is no more interesting or relevant to this page than the fact that Google prefers humor to humour. Jooler 08:07, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Newspaper that carry stories from international news organizations copyedit them to adhere to their house styles. All articles published in the NYT follow NYT house style rules. If you didn't know that, fine, but the analogy remains totally inept and unapt. Second, it does not go without saying that the internet is inherently biased in favor of the U.S. It has been a long time now that the U.S. does not constitute a majority of the internet. Information about relative sizes of usage groups is not necessarily a given, and we mustn't lose sight of Wikipedia:State the obvious. It may be obvious to you that a Google search will show more hits for aluminum than for aluminium, but that's not true of everyone else. I don't have any problem with tempering the information with caveats about potential biases and so forth, but I don't really see a reasonable argument for completely suppressing it. Furthermore, the interesting fact is that even though "aluminium" is the "official" spelling of IUPAC and is the supposed "international standard", Google still has more hits for aluminum than aluminium, but that the number of Google hits for aluminum is about 13.5 million and the number of Google hits for aluminium is about 5 million; that ratio on the internet is about 2.7 to 1 in favor of "aluminum", which indicates that yes, "aluminum" has a majority of usage on the internet, but that "aluminium" also constitutes a significant minority usage, not a marginal spelling. The statistics serve as a counterbalance to the other descriptions of usage, which seem to "favor" the spelling "aluminium". Nohat 08:33, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
I want to add that the comparison with "humour" is also an incredibly unapt analogy. That spelling is simply a regular difference in spelling only between the BrE and AmE. Aluminum/Aluminium, on the other hand, is a completely unpredictable and idiosyncratic difference that is represented in both spelling and pronunciation. The two are not even remotely comparable. Nohat 08:58, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
The Internet is not "predominantly an American entity"; read this excerpt from the Internet article. Note "a majority of the population".
"Countries where Internet access is a commodity used by a majority of the population include Germany, Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Australia, Denmark, the United States, Canada, the UK, The Netherlands, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Norway." Dforest 08:29, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Re NYT - try looking at [10] - what happened there!? - did the spellchecker break, or was the copyeditor having a coffee break!? - But this, along with the pointless bashing of the humor/humour analogy, (unapt?) is irrelevant. The notable thing about a commodity' is that there are producers and there are consumers. The majority of producers of websites on the Internet and the software products that are used to produce them are American. In this sense it IS without question a predominantly American entity (certainly from the perspective of the English language). The reason for this imbalance is primarily the economic power of American IT corporations. If you load up Microsoft Word using the default installation for English, what do you get? You get English (U.S.), how many non-native English speakers in Germany, Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Norway change this to English (British)? No-one - that is no-one - in the UK pronounces the word as aluminum, and consequently no-one - that is - no-one - in the UK spells it as aluminum, and yet we find that a huge number of web-pages sited within the .uk domain use the American spelling!? What is your explanation for this ? Is it that suddenly we have decided to adopt the US spelling? No. The reason is that these web-pages are almost mostly written by Americans and have been cut/and pasted to .uk sites. It is thus a prime example of the pro-American bias of the Internet and displays that Google hit-counts are entirely meaningless in the real world. Jooler 13:50, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
All of those .uk websites are not written by Americans or copied from them.
Of people whose mother tongue is English, 69% are in the United States and 5% in Canada;[11] North Americans outnumber the rest of the world by 3 to 1 when looked at this way. Gene Nygaard 14:22, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
That's funny. The Wikipedia article on English language says there might be up to 2000m people speaking English worldwide. I make the total population of the US and Canada to be about 330m (according to Wikipedia) which equates to about 16.5% of people speaking English. Of course I don't think any of those articles are completely accurate, nor do I think that all the other English speakers would necessarily use the non-American spelling, but hey, statistics are fun right? Wiki-Ed 18:42, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
And yet again we have the same rubbish trotted out. Is Wikipedia for native speakers only!? The majority rules and damn the rest? Is this what Wikipedia is about? 300 million people on the Indian sub-continent say no. You say "All of those .uk websites are not written by Americans or copied from them" - what percentage then? - I can tell you for sure that Britons do not pronounce or spell the word as aluminum - so why the hell would we write it? Jooler 16:54, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Regarding English speakers on the Indian sub-continent, if you include 'English as a lingua franca' in the above statistics, counting India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, you get 48.4 million, a far cry from the 300 million you state. Dforest 19:07, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
American English *is* a branch of English. It may not be uninflential but it is certainly a minority as the majority of people speaking English do not reside in the US (nor do they spell aluminium without an 'i'). Fact checking needs to be done... and not through use of American internet sources like Google. This is a fundamental stumbling point. I believe the point of Nelson Ricardo's anecdote was not to impugn the intelligence of Americans, but to illustrate that just because one group sets a convention does not mean that it is correct, either in absolute terms or in relation to the rest of the world. When perception is coloured then facts will be confused. This topic is a case in point. Wiki-Ed 09:45, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
If you disagree, then cite some counter-evidence. But you can't just delete valid information just because you think it may be biased. Show us some evidence. The Google results are a fact, and they have a caveat. Both the fact and the caveat are on the page. There is no valid reason to remove them. Nohat 17:36, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
The "evidence" is extraneous when the article already explains the etymology quite thoroughly. Google results are not factual because there is no way of telling whether they are accurate or representative. Also, you can tailor them to suit your argument. For example if I remove all US-sourced domains from the search criteria I end up with "aluminium" outnumbering "aluminum" 2:1. Bit contrived, but it seems to support Jooler's hypothesis. Try it. That's "counter-evidence" isn't it? Wiki-Ed 18:42, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
So, information on how a word is spelled on 18.5 million web pages is completely irrelevant to a discussion of how a word is spelled. Nohat 18:02, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
It is relevant to this discussion on this talk page, but it is not relevant to the encyclopaedia article, and frankly I'm staggered that you still think it is relevant. BTW I strongly object to the accusation of vandalism that you have used on the edit summary. The Google results are a 'fact and they do have a caveat, the caveat is that it is and entirely bogus statistic that proves precisely nothing. Jooler 18:16, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Why is it entirely bogus? Is how people spell things on the internet not relevant to the topic of spelling? What exactly is the harm in including this information? Are people in some way misled or lied to if they are informed about the Google results? I understand that you think that it's entirely bogus and that it proves nothing, but others here, including me, disagree that it's completley bogus and think it's informative and relevant. 18.5 million web pages is a significant data point, whether you like it or not.
What happened to the spirit of NPOV? We're perfectly willing to explain that the information comes with a caveat, but you appear to be totally unwilling to budge on the point that it be included in any form at all whatsoever. There is a disagreement; Wikipedia policy when there is a disagreement is to compromise by contextualizing disputed points, not to completely remove them. Where's your spirit of compromise? How can you completely discount 18.5 million web pages as not being relevant? That's approximately 18,499,999 more opinions than yours, and yet you would silence them. For shame. Nohat 18:36, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
BTW, when you remove information from an article when there is no consensus to do so, especially where there are a number of people on the talk page who disagree with that removal, then that's vandalism in my book. There is no consensus that this information should not be included, so removing it constitutes vandalism. If you don't want your actions described as vandalism, then I suggest you not vandalize articles. Nohat 18:41, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I think the best way to solve this is to follow the relevant authority where there is one. In the case of chemical names, go with the IUPAC primary spelling, as we have for the elements Caesium and Sulfur. I am from the United States, so that will mean using something other than what I was taught in grade school for this article, but so be it. Jonathunder 18:18, 2005 September 2 (UTC)

The information about the official IUPAC spelling is already included in the article. The question now appears to be whether information about the number of Google results for the different spellings can be included in the article at all. Nohat 18:36, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
If I went out and wrote a virus which changed the spelling on all those pages would the "results" still be relevant? No. Are they now? No. Above you claim that IUPAC is a "foreign" entity which we should ignore because it has no authority over Wikipedia. However, it seems to me that instead you are trying to use the authority of a tiny number (relatively speaking) of non-recognised "foreign" website authors to justify how a word is spelt. Hypocrisy? Yes. Wiki-Ed 18:42, 2 September 2005 (UTC)


You misunderstand. There are two different issues here. The first is how Wikipedia articles in general should spell the word "aluminum". The second is whether or not the article about aluminum should include information from Google about the number of pages that use different results. Furthermore, there is a qualitative difference between making linguistic arguments based on some what self-appointed authority says is correct and making linguistic arguments based on preponderances of usage. The former is called "prescriptivism" and the latter is called "descriptivism". The former is not really accepted by professional linguists as a valid argument for pretty much anything, but the latter forms the basis for how all scientific study of language is undertaken. Nohat 19:15, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
So is that what you kept adding to the article--a "scientific study" of spelling? Looks like original research to me. By the way, you clearly broke the three revert rule in adding it back over and over. You can be blocked for that. CDThieme 20:13, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
The ban on original research does not mean that one can't present simple facts gleaned from a pair of Google searches. Trying to apply that policy here smacks of desperation. Saying that you can't include results from Google searches would mean that almost everything on Wikipedia would be "original research". As for the 3RR, it doesn't apply to vandalism, which is exactly what continually removing valid information from an article despite a lack of consensus is. Nohat 20:52, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Lol. I was just about to say that! I understood there are two elements to this, but the threads are a little confused. On the first point, as I have said, I think the article covers the fact that there are two spellings adequately. It even gives quite a detailed history. The second points seems like primary research to me too. I suspect you may disagree, but I haven't been able to find a policy line on the use of Google. Wiki-Ed 20:20, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

The article doesn't given any statistical information on distribution of usage, which, if you ask any linguist, is absolutely the most important information in any kind of linguistic analysis. Nohat 20:52, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Get over it you guys! The non-US contributors to Wikipedia have to put up with an enormous amount of US linguistic imperialism. Let's go with the internationally recognised standard and go on to something useful. DJ Clayworth 21:00, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, what? What does American linguistic imperialism have to do with presenting some simple facts about usage in the article? Are you suggesting that the fact that according to Google "aluminum" is 2.7 times more common on the internet than "aluminium" should be suppressed as some kind of "compensation" for alleged American linguistic imperialism? Nohat 21:13, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
I don't think this is a U.S. versus anyone else issue: opinions from American editors above have been on both sides. I really don't think the charge of "imperialism" is helpful in finding a solution. Please withdraw it. (This request is from an American who probably agrees with you otherwise.) Jonathunder 21:08, 2005 September 2 (UTC)

Nohat. I was in fact following the consensus that the Google statistics were not relevant and should not be included on this page that had been established quite some time ago, when Dforest last went about trying to include them back in July. So your alleged vandalism charge is unwarranted and disengenous. You were the one making continuous reversions against that consensus. Jooler 21:57, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

What consensus? I don't see any consensus. All I see is acrimonious debate, with one side logrolling their POV through without any attempt to compromise. Nohat 22:09, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
You say "what consensus?" - back in July along with myself, we had
  • "Hear hear. I fail to see the relevance of this original research." — OwenBlacker
  • "Agreed." James F.
  • It is original research -- Joolz
And the debate ended there until DForest re-ignited it, and you fanned the flames. Jooler 22:26, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Yes, and back in July neither Dforest nor I agreed but moved on temporarily to other issues while we let the issue sit. There wasn't a consensus then and there isn't a consensus now. Nohat 23:53, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
For the record, I was on holiday. Dforest 01:08, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Dforest. Those figures are well known to be hugely inaccurate for several reasons and were in fact the subject of some debate on the talk:English language page. See [Talk:English_language#Pie_Chart] and then see [Talk:English_language#Indian_English_Speakers] which states "a 1997 'India Today' survey suggested that about a third of the population has the ability to carry on a conversation in English you end up with around 350 million English language speakers in India" - I was being conservative. Jooler 21:57, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

But it's comparing apples and oranges. Certainly it is quite a lot different being able to carry on a conversation and using it as a lingua franca. Dforest 01:08, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
Apples and Oranges, yes Apples are native speakers and Oranges are people who read web pages. There are a lot more of the latter. Jooler 08:46, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
But it is the former which set the standards for the use of the language. The latter are followers only, not leaders, in this regard. Gene Nygaard 15:07, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
My goodness this must be where I must have got it all wrong. I didn't realise that I was a follower, an obedient servant who is humbled before his master and leader who is there to teach me the proper way to speak English. I live in the country that invented the language. Listen! Your standards are NOT my standards. This is not YOUR Wikipedia and you are not here to dictate how the rest of the world should speak English. This is our Wikipedia and it is pluralistic. There are no leaders and there are no followers. Jooler 16:08, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
My point was that you shouldn't discredit the data just because it doesn't fit your criteria. Dforest 11:05, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
This still doesn't address the issue of how statistics of usage on the internet are invalid. They don't represent all written English, sure, but the internet is a large and important subset of written usage, and has the added benefit of being measurable. Imperfect data shouldn't be suppressed; it should simply be presented with its imperfections. With the exception of cold, hard, data that directly contradicts the Google data, there is nothing you can say or do to convince me that it's invalid.
However, given that, I disagree that the data is as useless as you claim, and until anyone provides any kind of data or evidence; anything at all whatsoever that directly contradicts the Google data, I don't see any reason to discount it. All these theories and arguments about how Google may potentially be biased or unreliable are just that: theories and arguments. Unless hard facts can be shown that directly contradict the data, the data cannot be denied. Nohat 22:09, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Ok try to convince me - what exactly' do 18.5 million Google hits actually tell us? (BTW I get 13.5). What do 389,000 "aluminum site:uk" hits tells us? That's the clincher isn't it? 18.5 million hits for aluminum proves that a whole bunch of people wrote the word aluminum on the Internet, and Google counted 'em and added a whole bunch of other false positives (see above) and came out with a figure of 18.5 million. Nothing more nothing less. What do 822,000 hits for "Guiness"(sic) tell us?, What do 2,960,000 hits for "seperate" tells us? what do 4,910,000 hits for "millenium" tell us? It tells us that a lot of people don't use a spellchecker when they write stuff on the Internet (myself included, but my main problem is my inability to touch type). Jooler 22:20, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
What does 4,780 hits for "analogue disc record" tell us? It tells a that term invented on Wikipedia and now discarded has spread to 4,780 websites despite the fact that virtually no-one in the real world would ever use it. Ohh and before you start to bang on about the "unaptness" of these analogies - I would like to point out that all analogies are subject to failure if you attempt to take them too far. As it might say on a the cover of a TV dinner, they are for illustrative purposes only. Jooler 22:59, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Aluminium is not a misspelling. It's a variant spelling. So making comparisons to common misspellings is not a very illuminating analogy. Besides, none of your examples show anything interesting. All of the misspellings get significantly fewer hits than the correct spelling: "Guinness" gets 3,170,000 hits and Guiness gets 822,000, a ratio of 3.8 to 1. Same for seperate/separate: 40.8 to 1. And so forth. Google shows us that misspellings are not as popular as the correct spellings, and that's not a particularly interesting or unexpected fact. One would expect that correct spellings are more popular. On the other hand, the aluminum article says that IUPAC's official spelling is aluminium and that is the spelling used in most English-speaking countries except the U.S. and Canada. And yet, despite the official preference by IUPAC and the apparent popular preference by so many countries, the American spelling still has dominance on the internet. This is where the Google search shows evidence that is contrary to what someone might expect. That's an interesting fact, and that's something that should be included in the article. Nohat 23:03, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Nohat, your interpretation of selected data from Google could indeed make a most interesting article... but it is original research and has no place here. Wiki-Ed 23:20, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm not suggesting my interpretation should be included on the page, just the facts. But even just the facts are being censored because they're "irrelevant", which I dispute, and I explained here why I dispute it. We should let the readers decide for themselves whether or not it is relevant. Nohat 23:35, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
Right - so as far as I can see you have just proved my point. You say "And yet, despite the official preference by IUPAC and the apparent popular preference by so many countries, the American spelling still has dominance on the internet." - well what can be the explanation for that? What can be the explanation for 389,000 "aluminum site:uk" hits? If you don't accept my explanation, what is your explanation? Oh and again, the analogies are for illustrative purposes only, i.e. they illustrate that Google hit counts are generally not particulary interesting usefull or informative, which is precisely my point with regards to Aluminium. Maybe an article on it's own, but then we have Wikipedia:Google test and the caveats with its usage should be listed there. The number one caveat being that there is an inherent US bias on the Internet. Jooler 23:27, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
I think the data is relevant and you don't. Why don't we just include the facts and let the readers decide for themselves whether they think it is relevant instead of you deciding for them? Nohat 23:35, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
It these are facts you can cite a source for they may be relevant. If it is the original research of your own analysis of certain selected google searches you did, it is irrelevant and fattening. CDThieme 00:16, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but entering a URL and then reading information from the resulting page does not count as "original research". It's just "looking something up on the web", which is how the vast majority of information on Wikipedia gets here. Nohat 00:31, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
I note how you fail to answer the question. What are the facts? As far I can see the "fact" is that US spellings are generally more common on the Internet. What relevance to a light shiny metal is that? Jooler 23:37, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
I thought I explained this. The way the article reads without it makes it seems as though "aluminium" would be the most common spelling. The Google evidence counterbalances that. You know, NPOV and all that. Nohat 23:51, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
This was precisely the reason I added the Google comment to begin with. We are religiously following what we consider to be an international standard--but one set by scientists, not by linguists. (Not to imply they cannot be both, only that their choice is as arbitrary as anyone else's, especially considering they accept both spellings.) The article seems to imply that it is the correct or "preferred" spelling, and thus it seems relevant to me to show some contradicting evidence of how the language is actually used. Again, prescription and description. Neither spelling is more correct than the other. Dforest 01:08, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry I still don't get it. How does the Google "evidence" counter anything? All that can be judged from the "evidence" is that "aluminum" is used on the Internet more than "aluminium". So what? I don't find that in any way suprising. Jooler 00:23, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
Well I do. And besides, when did the criterion for relevance only include "surprising"? "Aluminum" is used on the Internet more than "aluminium"—why should that information be suppressed? A short sentence indicating that fact, with the Google results as evidence is all that is necessary. At least two people think it's relevant and interesting. I think most of the other facts in this article are unsurprising and uninteresting, but you don't see me suggesting that they be removed. Why is this fact, which clearly concerns the topic in question, being so vehemently suppressed? Nohat 00:31, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
It irrelevant, it doesn't prove anything. It is not unique and it can be easily be explained away. It doesn't enlighten the reader in any way shape or form. You say you find it suprising, I cannot fathom why? I've given you a clear explanation of the reason behind it, and you cannot refute it. I think you're just trolling now. Goodnight. Jooler 00:42, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
You're continuing to miss the point. The fact that you can explain the results does not mean that the results aren't true. It just means that there is an explanation for them. The fact that there is an explanation doesn't mean that the facts aren't true. I explained why I think it's surprising. I think it's perfectly valid for you to not find them surprising, but being surprising is not the criterion for inclusion or relevance. It's related to the topic in question and it's verifiable. There is no reason to suppress the information. Nohat 00:57, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
They are true in a very narrow context, a context which is not particularly interesting in this case, or indeed in any other case regarding US English usage. Why can't you see that? It seems perfectly obvious to me. If it is not obvious to you then fair enough, make your "interesting" point about usage, but make it somewhere else where the context is right. It has no relevance to this article. This really is the lamest article dispute I've ever come across. Jooler 08:42, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
This article has an extensive section on "spelling" of the word aluminum. It contains information about which organizations have an official spelling for the word. It contains information about which countries generally prefer which spelling. It even contains information about how the word is spelled in Finnish and Estonian! I don't see any reason why it shouldn't also contain information about which spelling is more popular on the internet. I don't understand how you can say that how the Estonians spell a word in Estonian is relevant to the English Wikipedia, but which English spelling is more common on the internet is irrelevant. That is blatant and POV preference for prescriptive information, while descriptive information is being suppressed by being called "biased" and "irrelevant" without any actual proof of it, just a lot of speculation and blubbering. This discrimination against valid linguistic information is unjustified and intolerable.
If you want this article dispute to go away, then you should stop being so incredibly obstinate and make a proposal for some kind of compromise that might appease everyone. I've tried to make suggestions for how the wording might be adjusted to be acceptable to everyone, but so far all the suggestions and proposals for including any kind of descriptive usage information have been rejected without any valid justification. Nohat 19:24, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps you could propose something other than your own analysis of one search engine's results, some independent work which could be cited. Just a suggestion. Jonathunder 19:32, 2005 September 3 (UTC)
I'm not proposing any analysis at all anymore. Just the simple facts that Google returns 13.5 million for "aluminum" and 5 million for "aluminium". All I propose is to just use Google as a primary source to give two facts, and let the reader decide for himself whether the facts are interesting or relevant. I note that WP:NOR says "... research that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources is strongly encouraged. In fact, all articles on Wikipedia should be based on information collected from primary and secondary sources. This is not "original research," it is "source-based research," and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia."
I recognize that not everyone is linguistically savvy and capable of comprehending the importance of descriptive linguistic data when discussing usage; however, linguistic naïveté should not motivate the suppression of valid and relevant information. Where else would be a better place to put descriptive linguistic information about the relative frequency of two spellings of the word "aluminium" than in a section called "spelling" of the article called "aluminium"? Nohat 20:16, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
"If you want this article dispute to go away, then you should stop being so incredibly obstinate" - I'm being obstinate? You are in a minority of two and I am being obstinate!? Get real. I agree with you the details regarding Estonian spelling etc should be trimmed. It's not useful or interesting to list these languages, some will inevitably be left out and some readers will inevitably feel aggreived that their language isn't included and add it to the list. Where would we be then if this page listed the speeling in "all known languages in the galaxy (including Welsh) [that's a reference to Red Dwarf in case you didn't get it]. You think Google hit counts are relevant, I don't think they are, I have explained why I think they are not relevant and all you have done is quote the hit count, and not tried to offer any kind of explanation defending the relevance of the hit count other than "it must be significant because it is so big" or words to that effect. I repeat - statistics (in this case the hit count) are meaningless without context and in this case the context is that the hit count reflects the nature of the Internet, nothing more. Put this information on a page about the Internet and spellings where the context is meaningful, otherwise you should set about initiating a campaign to add the same bogus statistical information to all of the Wikipedia articles that use an American spelling rather than a British spelling or vice versa. Jooler 22:02, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
More sophistry. You keep retreading the same tired arguments. Again you seem to be claiming that the Google statistics have no context, which if course is a statement that couldn't be further from the truth. The context is that this is a section "spelling" of an article called "aluminum". The context is that there is a heap of prescriptive information about English-language usage without any descriptive information to counterbalance it. I can't imagine a situation in which these statistics could have more context.
Your slippery-slope argument about adding statistical information is yet another inapt analogy that you seem to be so fond of. Obviously statistical information about frequency of usage would only be needed in articles that already have extensive linguistic usage information, such as this one. No one is proposing or suggesting that these types of statistics are needed on any page.
I recognize that you don't think this information is interesting or relevant. I think you're wrong; it is both interesting and relevant, and necessary to maintain balance and NPOV. You still have not given any compelling reason why readers should have it decided for them that this information is irrelevant rather than allowing them to decide for themselves. You do Wikipedia and its readers a great disservice by unilaterally removing information for which there is clearly no consensus to remove. Nohat 23:32, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
Quoting Google search results for the two terms would be both original research and misleadingly unscientific. For example, the Google results could be heavily skewed to North American Internet references in English. The internationally recognized name of this element, in English texts, is aluminium. The American spelling aluminum should be a re-direct. Wyss 22:04, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for your comments. However, I believe there is some misunderstanding. Wikipedia:No original research explicitly states "... research that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources is strongly encouraged. In fact, all articles on Wikipedia should be based on information collected from primary and secondary sources. This is not "original research," it is "source-based research," and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia." Google is a primary source and including statistics from Google is simply "collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources". Had I attempted to count the usage of the different spellings on the internet myself, then that would be original research. Simply consulting an established primary source for usage statistics does not constitute original research.
There is already a multiple-years-old tradition of using Google statistics for scientific inquiry among professional linguists. Your speculation that Google results are heavily skewed to American sources is unsubstantiated and likely false. Google indexes web sites from every country and every language and it has been a long time since American interests have held a majority on the internet.
Furthermore, the English language is not legislated by any body, and there is no such thing as an "internationally recognized name" for anything. However, if there were, such a name would be recognized by all countries. Seeing as how the United States is a nation in the international community like any other, and the spelling "aluminium" is not recognized in the United States, either popularly or officially, even if there were such a thing as an "internationally recognized name", it couldn't possibly be "aluminium", which is not used by a majority of native English speakers. The suggestion that the title of this article should be based on an "internationally recognized name", which doesn't exist, is not a particularly helpful or well-informed one.
Finally, if you had actually read this discussion, you would know that the title of the article is not currently under debate. What is being discussed is whether information from Google should be included in the article. Nohat 23:32, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

First, I read the discussion and responded to it. Did you read my post? Second, if linguists have used Google searches for statistical research, It's highly likely their studies had strong controls and were peer reviewed. Your quick and dirty keyword search on Google doesn't compare. Third, I never said the English language was legislated by anyone. Please re-read my post if you have any questions about what I said. Fourth, I think you are being needlessly confrontational and certainly unscholarly about this whole discussion. I was amazed to find the article protected over something so trivial. So...

  • Your argument is unscientific
  • Your cite is original research either way
  • Your behavior on this page has been somewhat disruptive and unhelpful Wyss 23:54, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
Thank you again for your comments. However, your points are neither valid nor germane. The proposal is only to report the facts of how many results Google reports for two searches. There is nothing unscientific about reporting facts. Nevertheless, there is no reason to believe that conclusions about English usage on the internet drawn from Google search results, especially when those results number into the millions, are in any way unscientific or biased. Google indexes all of the internet. However, if there is substantial concern that Google may be biased, we can certainly collect and organize information from other search engines. Furthermore, it is not original research to report facts collected elsewhere. As Wikipedia:No original research says, "it is "source-based research," and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia." Finally, thank you for your observations about my behavior. You can rest assured that I will give them all the consideration they are due. Nohat 00:57, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
I've already explained why your approach is unscientific. Further, as an interpretation of a primary source you are citing your own original research. Your suggestions about collecting data from other search engines would raise further problemtic issues and also, would be more original research. Wyss 01:06, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
Reporting facts is not original research nor is it an unscientific approach. What could possibly be unscientific about reporting facts? You fail to explain what "further problemtic issues" there would be with collecting data from other search engines other than claiming that it would be original research, which, if you read WP:NOR, you will see it is plainly not. It clearly and unambiguously says "... research that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources is strongly encouraged.... This is not "original research," it is "source-based research," and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia." You can't just ignore this statement in the official policy page and claim that reporting facts constitutes original research. It is not original research, and the policy page on no original research makes this quite clear. Nohat 01:38, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
I already said it's your interpretation of them (by inference, presentation or otherwise) that makes it original research. Wyss 01:47, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I don't understand. How is including facts in articles original research? It seems to me that including the information about number of search results constitutes "collecting and organizing information from existing primary and/or secondary sources", which is not only not original research, it is "strongly encouraged". Nohat 19:10, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
The difference between interpreting data and collecting and organizing it is stark. Wyss 19:18, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
The difference is not stark. It's quite muddled, actually. Organizing data is a form of interpretation, is it not? And yet, organizing data is explicitly encouraged in the no original research policy. However, the proposal to include information about Google results is quite starkly on the "collecting and organizing" side of the line. Where's the interpretation of data in "As of September 2005, a Google search reports 13,200,000 results for aluminum and 6,320,000 for aluminium"? I don't see any interpretation; all I see is facts. Nohat 19:33, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
One indication showing how interpretive it is, in presentation and inference (and hence original research), is that such an unqualified statement could lead the reader into thinking such a Google search has any meaning or sway as to the scientifically, industrially and commercially recognized name for this element, which is aluminium. Google keyword searches in themselves are entirely unscientific, and any conclusion or inference drawn directly from them and cited or included in an article would be original research. This differs from the rough "Google tests" we might run to help reach consensus on an article's status on VfD or whatever. Wyss 19:50, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
Readers make all kinds of conclusions and beliefs based on things included in Wikipedia. If it is believed that the inclusion of some fact will mislead (and there is absolutely zero evidence at all whatsoever that Google results are in any way misleading), then a caveat can be included with the statement of fact. It is possible, sure, that the Google results are biased, but no one has shown even the tiniest scrap of evidence that they are, and what is known about how the Google search engine works strongly indicates that it is not. The mere possibility of being misleading is insufficient cause to not include a fact. At most, the fact should be noted with a caveat. Wouldn't it be better for readers to get all of the available evidence and allow them to draw their own conclusions, rather than withhold information because you think it might be misinterpreted? To do otherwise is simple censorship, and Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not censored.
Furthermore, being "scientific" is not a criterion for inclusion of information at Wikipdia, not only because only including so-called "scientific" information would be a blatant violation of NPOV, but for the simple reason that we would never be able to come to an agreement on what is and is not scientific. The argument that the Google searches are "unscientific" is inapplicable. However, the fact remains that Google searches are the only descriptive linguistic information we have concerning spelling of the word "aluminum", and including descriptive information is important for maintaining a NPOV balance from all the prescriptive information already included in the article.
If readers draw conclusions based on information presented to them on Wikipedia, then that is their business, and it's not our responsibility to withhold information from readers in the fear that if, God forbid, they find out a piece of factual, verifiable, and relevant information, they might draw a conclusion from it. The "no original research" policy only applies to editors, not to readers. Our duty as editors is to present all of the facts and let the readers decide for themselves. The exclusion and suppression of this valuable, factual, and verifiable information is a flagrant violation of the NPOV policy. The claim that Google keyword searches constitute original research is laughably false. The "no original research" policy does not apply here, and this is made clear by the explicit mention in the policy that it is highly encouraged to collect and organize facts for inclusion on Wikipedia. Your bizarrely twisted interpretation of the policy is plainly sophistry devised to suppress valid, verifiable, and relevant facts from the article.Nohat 20:49, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry you find my attempts to help you understand original research "laughably false... bizarrely twisted... sophistry." Wyss 20:53, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
It seems that it's you who needs help understanding original research. You could start by reading the actual policy. Nohat 21:22, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
I cannot believe that you are still banging on about this. Please accept that you have lost the argument and walk away. You are now demonstrating the behaviour of a troll, although you may not see yourself as one. Only you and Dforest wish this dubious information to be included, and given Dforest's edit histroy on the Breatharian article I have to wonder whther you are not both trolls. I see no point in continuing any further in this discussion. Jooler 21:37, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
This comment is completely uncalled for. I take strong offense at being alluded to as a troll, particularly after standing up for you against accusations of vandalism. If you have objections to my edits of Breatharian, I suggest you discuss them on that article's talk page. See Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks. Dforest 03:13, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for your comments on my behavior. You can rest assured that they will be given all the consideration they are due.
No one has :
  • Presented any evidence that the Google search results information is in any way biased or false, other than unsupported conjecture
  • Provided any reason why this information should be supressed from readers rather then letting them decide for themselves whether it is useful, interesting, or relevant
  • Presented any other counter-proposals for balancing the POV of the spelling section
  • Provided any other compelling argument for why information which is directly concerned with the topic in question should be deleted
Unless these points can be convincingly answered, in my estimation the argument has been lost by the censorious prescriptivists who hope to silence me by bringing up the same tired and fallacious arguments over and over until I submit. I will not. The truth must be told. Nohat 22:07, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
Help, I'm being oppressed by censorious prescriptivists! Get over yourself, please. Apparently, no one else agrees with you that your google searches are serious research that should be included in an encyclopedia. So, if you want the information included, find it in some published science and cite it. CDThieme 23:13, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree. Just keep everything as it is. And see this:Aluminum and Aluminium It doesn't matter what it's called, what is important is it's properties and the like.--Jetru 15:58, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps it doesn't matter to you what it's called. But some of us actually do care about English usage and actually do care to see that valid information about usage doesn't get suppressed. If you don't care about something, you are not likely to spread your apathy by claiming that things that people do care about don't matter. Nohat 20:37, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
The thing is that this is a Chemistry article, there is a link to North American English for anyone interested in the usage of English dialects (unless it's been "suppressed" too). It can be inferred from such pages that the majority of the English speaking world resides in North America, so if you're going to mention usage then mention that, not half-arsed original research using Google.
Inane usage ramblings just seem out of place in the article and are little more than trying to say "I can't get my way but I'm right anyway". A decision has been made to stick to IUPAC conventions, there is no need to complicate the issue. StuartH 01:17, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

A Compromise

I suggest that American users, who spell it aluminum, follow the example of the United States Government in arms control treaties. One of the categories of equipment subject to reporting in these treaties consists of fighting vehicles having a heavy protective covering. In the United States, they are known as "armored combat vehicles", except for treaty purposes. In the United Kingdom, they are known as "armoured combat vehicles". The English text of the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, which is ratified by the United Kingdom and the United States (as well as Canada), refers to "armoured combat vehicles". The reason is, simply that the United Kingdom is the mother country of the English language.

Wikipedia is international, and the English Wikipedia has editors from various English-speaking countries. Why can't Americans simply compromise by recognizing the British spelling on articles of international interest? Wikipedia guidelines say to use American spellings in articles about American places or people, and British spellings in articles about British places and people, and to be consistent within each article. Wikipedia guidelines also say to try to reach agreement by consensus and compromise. The compromise appears to this American editor to be either, first, to accept IUPAC, or, second, to recognize that the United Kingdom is the mother country of the English language. Robert McClenon 22:43, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't go quite that far; I don't think we need to go that far. But already in practice Wikipedia follows IUPAC for the names of all chemical elements in the article titles for those elements. Since that is already the practice, maybe we can agree it should be policy, just to end the arguments and move on. Jonathunder 22:55, 2005 September 4 (UTC)
You wrote: "Why can't Americans simply compromise by recognizing the British spelling on articles of international interest?" Your idea of a compromise asserts British hegemony of the English language. Why should British spelling be considered more international? As far as I'm concerned, we already came to a compromise, to use the IUPAC preferred spelling of "aluminium". The current discussion is about whether to include a mention of the Google results as a measure of popular usage that appears to contradict the IUPAC 'standard'. It is unfortunate this discussion is taking place in a section started under different intentions. Dforest 20:40, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
"Why should British spelling be considered more international? " - because for the most part - it is more international. Not only is British English used in nearly all of the countries of the Commonwealth, it is an official language of the European Commision - see [12]. It's as simple as that. Jooler 21:54, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
It is natural that British conventions of English usage tend to be dominant in its sphere of influence (chiefly, the EU and the Commonwealth) and likewise, U.S. conventions tend to be dominant in its sphere of influence (chiefly the Americas, its former colonies and protectorates, and countries with close economic or academic ties). This does not make one more international than the other. Dforest 07:06, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

the British sphere of influence covers a much larger area than that of America —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.0.104.177 (talk) 21:40, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Depends on if you include those 10 million square kilometers we call "Canada" in one or the other, but I don't see how it's relevant anyway :) 65.96.23.113 (talk) 16:44, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm impressed. This 'Put down the I' section and the immediately following one has rumbled on for quite a while. With this comment I should be able to push the total word count over the 10,000 word barrier. That's 10,000 words of effort arguing about whether the letter 'i' and associated Google tests should be included or not — over twice the number of words contained in the whole main article on aluminium.

I should think that is quite a bit more time and effort than I spent re-writing the history/etymology section. I should think it is far less likely to ever be read in full by anyone and almost certainly a lot less interesting to research.

It is important that these things get thrashed out on talk pages, but given that this has been discussed a couple of times before, I can't help think that all this effort is misplaced. Are we drawing to a conclusion now? -- Solipsist 19:13, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

IMO (and experience) this is what happens when users attempt to edit by attrition rather than by consensus. I'm still amazed one or two editors have been able get the article literally locked into such an unproductive discussion when the consensus so clearly goes the other way and worse, when it has been discussed before. Wyss 19:45, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
It's obviously a sticking point. Also, some recent visitors have got confused. I believe there is consensus over the article naming. The issue here now is that one editor believes we should have the results of his Google test on the page as it shows a prevalence of the use of the aluminum spelling on the internet. Other editors think the test is biased and constitutes original research. Although I agree that Google is not accurate and the test results are not representative, the test itself is not. A basic non-filtered search on any engine will confirm these proportions. The etymology is actually quite interesting and if we block the bit about the internet we would probably have to remove the material about the other languages too. As a compromise I propose we allow a single sentence that does not use figures (since they'll change daily) and does not attempt to infer anything from the "results". What would people say if we inserted something like this at the end of the paragraph?
Unfiltered internet search engine results show the "aluminum" variant is currently used more frequently on webpages.
It's doesn't take up masses of space, doesn't infer anything about the real world and is actually true. I think the use of Google shoud be discussed (again) more thoroughly elsewhere as this is clearly a policy issue. Wiki-Ed 20:01, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Consensus means agreement that all reasonable people can live with. I have made numerous compromise proposals and yet several perfectly reasonable points have yet to be addressed by those who would censor this information. I'm still waiting for compelling answers to these points:
No one has :
  • Presented any evidence that search engine results are in any way biased or false, other than unsupported speculation
  • Shown how any part of the WP:NOR policy applies to this information in any way other than its inclusion should be strongly encouraged
  • Provided any reason why this information should be supressed from readers rather then letting them decide for themselves whether it is useful, interesting, or relevant
  • Provided any other compelling argument for why information which is directly concerned with the topic in question should be deleted
I will not accept the censorship of this valid information unless substantially compelling argument for the points above can be presented. Unless these points can be convincingly answered, in my estimation the argument has been lost by those who wish to remove the information.
Answer my points in a compelling way, and then we can come to a consensus. Wiki-Ed has made a reasonable proposal that I accept. Nohat 20:37, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
- "suppression" and "censorship" are strong words which simply do not apply here. It is not suppression or censorship to omit irrelevant and flawed statistics. The inclusion of flawed statistics, even if they are qualified in some way, gives the impression that they are of some value. In this case they are not. I have already presented the evidence you request above, but you have chosen to ignore it. - Answer these points.
  • "Unfiltered internet search engine results show the "aluminum" variant is currently used more frequently on web pages"
    • So what? Why is that important to the study of aluminium? Who cares?
    • What value are unfiltered internet search engine results?
    • Does any official body consider that the use of such 'unfiltered' results have any real statistical value?
    • What is the actual context of the suggested 'unfiltered' search result?
    • It it influenced by the way that the search engine caches, or catalogues web pages?
    • Do web pages reflect usage in general or or is it skewed to those who possess the technology?
    • Is this technological advantage skewed in favour of particular nations?
    • Does the search engine in question favour pages generated by certain institutions?
    • Does the fact a high proportion of the English language pages on the Internet are written by Americans have any influence on this?
    • Does the fact that there are a very large number of academic and scientific establishments in the United States influence the number?
    • Does the fact that these institutions generally have a larger IT budget than institutions outside of the USA influence the results?
    • Does the fact the products used to produce electronic texts are mostly produced by companies from the United States influence the results?
    • Does the fact the product like Microsoft Word default to installing in English (U.S.) rather than English (British) affect the results?
    • Does the fact that Americans are less aware of non-American spellings, whilst Britons and others are generally more aware of American spellings mean that people who would naturally write using British spellings find that in order for their page to obtain a larger number of hits they must resort to using American spellings to attract American customers?
    • Why do we get 509,000 hit counts on pages with a .uk domain when aluminum is not used by Brits?
    • Why do we get 47,000 hits on pages with with a .fr domain?
    • Is it significant that when you filter those 47,000 hits on site:fr to restrict to English language pages, half of the hits go away?
    • Is it significant that of the remaining half (the French half) most of the pages still seem to be written in English? How many were written by Canadians?
    • How many pages are written by Chinese authors using their default MS Word installation, which the spellchecker corrected for them?
    • How many of the hits are pages saying things like "Americans spell it aluminum, but I prefer to spell it aluminium and so I won't use aluminum on the rest of this page"?
    • Are the results of a web search any more significant than going onto the street somewhere in California (where a large fraction of the websites on the Internet are actually produced) and randomly asking 100 people how they spell a word?
    • Would it be any more significant than looking at how a bunch of 12 year old kids would spell it?
      • If you have to answer "I don’t know" to any of these questions, (and a whole host of others I can't be bothered to list) then the Google statistics have no place in this article because the value and significance of the results cannot be judged. Jooler 21:43, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Even if I were to answer these inane questions (which I could, but won't because they're irrelevant and inane), they still fail to address my points above, and as I explained earlier, are all speculation based on not a shred of evidence. When you're talking about corpora in the billions of words, biases such as the ones you speculate aren't sufficient to change the results of simple searches. Also, you vastly underestimate the diversity of the internet. Even if it were true that a "large fraction" of web sites are produced in California (which is completely untrue), the reality is that the vast majority of content on the internet is not "produced", but is the result of people all over the world communicating with each other. Messaging boards and wikis and so forth contribute many orders of magnitude more content to the archived web than "produced content".
Secondly, even if any of your alleged biases are significant, that's still not a sufficient reason to exclude the information. If there were better information, we would use that. But we don't have better information, and it is better to provide some statistical information about usage, with any relevant caveats explained, than to provide no information at all. Do you really think that "aluminium" is actually the more commonly-used spelling on the internet and that Google is simply wrong? Or do you think that the search engine results are too affected by bias and that in some unmeasurable ideal consideration of the world, "aluminium" is in fact more commonly used? I think it's really actually the case that "aluminum" is more common on the internet, and I think that it fits in quite well with all the other vaguely-relevant pieces of information about usage. In general, more information is better than less, and since we can't agree that this information is valid and relevant, we should let our readers decide for themselves, rather than having you decide for them. Nohat 05:40, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

A quiet celebration to mark the occasion

I would hereby like to thank the community of Wikipedia for going an entire month without arguing over the spelling of Aluminium/Aluminum. May it forever rest in that dark corner of hell where it belongs :) Manning (talk) 14:19, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Let's change it to the original and neutral version

Alumium, Seriously, we can't agree on the second spelling or the anglophile one so why not go with one that we can both agree to disagree on? Klichka (talk) 03:53, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Ridiculous anglocentric view

'Aluminum' redirects to 'Aluminium'? Are you serious? Aluminium is not and has never been the primary spelling. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gustave Pennington (talk • contribs) 00:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Please blame IUPAC, and take your argument to them. Vsmith (talk) 02:58, 3 August 2008 (UTC) ... and see the note at the top of this page. Vsmith (talk) 03:01, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
'Aluminium' is the correct spelling in English, being as it's the spelling in England. The clue is in the name "English". I don't care if there are more Americans in the world; if there are more copies of a counterfeit than the genuine article the genuine article doesn't become the counterfeit. The only benefit to 'aluminum' is that it has more credibility than the truly cringe-worthy 'sulfur'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.113.111.248 (talk) 00:58, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Spelling

I found this trash in my inbox:

"Can I just add... I started this argument about Makety-Uppity-Americanese versus Her Majesty's-Correct-English, years ago (nyaaahh it was way back in the summer o' 200 n 1 if i remember)... glad to see the rebel alliance is finally rallying to the call of resistence against the Imperial Dark dialect of the language... (so it's all my fault!)

For Spawn man and the rest... my Argument goes like this:

If Norwegian's got Nynorsk and Bokmal, then English should have English and American... it turns out that there's Flemish and Dutch, and various other similarly verissimilitudinous latinate and slavic (and even Austronesian) dialects (like Bahasa Indonesia and Malay) also enjoy the benefits of the "True Way".

[waiting for the Righteous and Humourless Troll SWAT Team in my evil pedantic bunker!... go on block me now and I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine! (not really, I'm not trolling, I'm just saying, because like it or not, enough people care about this issue to keep it alive... if you don't like it, be a grown up and just delete it, I've probably got more degrees than you anyway ;P)]"

212.159.117.182 (talk) 13:55, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[MacDaddy] (kindly read my profile before attempting a vanity block)

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