Tardis:Spelling

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T:SPELL

Want to know how to make your computer check for British spellings? Go to Help:How can I get my computer to spell check in British English?

Our spelling policy derives from our manual of style's commitment to using British English. Put simply, it requires editors to use British spellings in most articles.

General guidelines

British spellings should always be employed in the main namespace — also called "namespace 0", or just "main". To give an exceptionally brief overview, this means using -our in a lot of words, such as colour and favour. It also means the general, but not universal, preference for the suffix
-ise over -ize. Of course, it goes a bit deeper than that. By most accounts, there are about 1800 differences between US and UK English, with other parts of the English-speaking world chipping in a few hundred other variations.

Rulings about specific words

From time to time, forum debates have raged as to the proper spelling of words. The following is a list of those rulings:

• Forum:Organization or Organisation?
• Forum:Artifacts or Artefacts of Rassilon?
• Forum:Alternate vs. alternative timelines

The following spellings are therefore deemed correct, by community consensus:

• artefact
• organisation

Redirects

If the title of an article includes a word that is spelled differently in American English than British English, the British form must be used in the title. However, a redirect should be created for the American spelling so as to allow readers to find the article by typing in the American spelling in the search bar. For example, you can find Target novelisation, by entering Target Novelization in the search bar.

Where applicable

This policy is applicable only in namespace 0 — that is, on a page whose name does not have a prefix like Tardis:, Category:, Forum:, Howling:, or Help:. It also applies where elements from other namespaces may appear in namespace 0. Thus, category names must use British spellings, because category names are visible in namespace 0. Also, the text of templates visible in the main namespace are subject to this policy.

It does not apply to your own user pages, the forums, talk pages, help pages, MediaWiki pages, template documentation, or even project pages like this one. As a rule of thumb, if the text can't be seen on a "normal" page, this policy doesn't apply to it. However, it does apply to the names of templates, because the bot will try to correct those names.

As an example, it applies to World Zones Organisation, the title of {{Infobox Organisation}}, any text that displays on a normal article page as a result of using the template, and the title of Category:Alien defence organisations.

But it does not apply to the text at category:Alien defence organisations, nor to the text at template:Infobox Organisation, nor in a forum thread called Forum:Organization or Organisation?, nor in template documentation.

This policy is also not applicable in namespace 0 if the topic in question is spelled in a non-British way within the narrative of a story, or, if merchandise, on its actual packaging. Thus, if a Doctor Who novel were to refer to the American movie, The Color of Money, the American spelling of "color" should stand. Or if a novel were to refer to a title that spelled a word differently than we have agreed to generally spell it, we go with the spelling provided in the DWU text. A good example of this is: Similarities in Proto-Cultural Artifacts of the Second Dynasty of the Zyrs. Despite the fact that we have, as a community, chosen to spell the word artefact, the spelling artifact must stand in the case of this particular fictional book title.

Bot enforcement

From time to time, a bot shall enforce this policy on every page in the main namespace. Errors in the category tree structure may mean that the bot occasionally strays into namespaces where the policy does not apply. Do not take the bot's activities as an absolutely accurate reflection of the policy. In general, the benefits of bot correction of tedious spelling differences are thought to outweigh its inability to stick strictly to the appropriate namespaces.

The details of what this bot is checking for can be seen at Tardis:Spelling policy/user-fixes.py.