Overleg gebruiker:Melsaran/Archief/mei 2008

Orthography reform at the Portuguese WP

Hello Melsaran, I'm sysop at the Portuguese WP and I would appreciate if you could share with me your experience in managing the adoption of the 2006 orthography changes of the Dutch language at Wikipedia.

As you may know, Portuguese language is spoken in various countries, with some spelling differences between Brazil and Portugal (apart from Brazil, all other Portuguese-speaking nations follow the Portuguese writing rules). In 1990 an orthography agreement was signed by all Lusophone countries to unify the spelling of about 98% of all words. Due to various constrains, this reform just recently received all legal requirements to be enforced in Portugal and Brazil. There will now be a transition period: 3 years in Brazil and 6 years in Portugal. In both countries orthography is law and the new spelling rules will be compulsory at schools and in all government and official documents, although (of course!) no private company or individual citizen can be persecuted for not following the new rules... As usual, there is some opposition to this reform, especially from some Portuguese intellectuals, arguing, among other things, that Portuguese people will be asked to spell the words in the Brazilian way. This is partly true, as Portugal ended up making more concessions to Brazil, then the other way round. About 1.6% of all words in Portugal will change its spelling, when compared to just 0.5% in Brazil.

Anyway, at the Portuguese WP community (probably because we are so tired of Portuguese versus Brazilian clashes over spelling details), there seems to be more consensus on how this will be beneficial to WP as a whole. As we are now in the process of planning the adoption of this reform at WP, we are very much interested in knowing how others managed similar actions.

So, I would appreciate if you could drop me a few lines on how you coped with the transition to the new spelling rules on the Dutch language WP community. Thank you so much. Best regards from wp-PT, Manuel de Sousa 24 mei 2008 03:31 (CEST)

I replied at your talk page on pt. Melsaran (overleg) 24 mei 2008 23:29 (CEST)

-Thanks for your answer, Melsaran. I don't want to bother you a lot with this subject, but it is really important for us at WP-pt to know more about your experience on this subject. A couple questions more: I've red that some people (especially the media) decided to create another set of spelling rules, apart from the Green Book, and named it the "White Book". What is the situation on this now? Are there any government laws about the "official spelling" in the Netherlands and Belgium? What spelling is being taught at schools? To what extent are the White Book's rules used in the Netherlands? Was the decision to use the Green Book at WP-nl approved by the community? Best regards, Manuel de Sousa 27 mei 2008 16:26 (CEST)

You said: "Just out of curiosity, how did you end up at my talk page when you wanted to inquire about the Dutch orthography?" Well I went to the Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse spelling article and saw you made some relevant contributions recently, at the history page. So, I figured you should be someone interested in this subject. Moreover, at your user's page I saw you could speak English very well. That's how. Well thanks a lot for all your help. It will help in this project: pt:Wikipedia:Projetos/Acordo ortográfico. Manuel de Sousa 28 mei 2008 23:24 (CEST)

Just one more thing: You said "The nl Wikipedia community has agreed to adopt the "green" rules for all articles, to avoid endless discussions; this is now policy." Is there a writen policy on that issue? And, if so, could you please tell me where it is? This could help us doing a similar policy. Onde again, thanks a lot, Manuel de Sousa 29 mei 2008 14:59 (CEST)