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A comment on Twenty years after Pokémon launched, its impact on Wikipedia remains. Parent comment

Re:Twenty years after Pokémon launched, its impact on Wikipe... by JimDabell on Monday February 29, 2016 @01:27PM (#11197118)
That's a wiki, not Wikipedia. "Wiki" is a type of website/software, and "Wikipedia" is the name of one particular wiki. Wikipedia is a wiki, but only one wiki is Wikipedia.
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Re:Twenty years after Pokémon launched, its impact on Wikipe... by splawn on Monday February 29, 2016 @01:58PM (#11197350)
I just googled on bing that my band-aid is an adhesive bandage.
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Re:Twenty years after Pokémon launched, its impact on Wikipe... by timClicks on Monday February 29, 2016 @02:25PM (#11197597)
Language doesn't obey these kinds of arguments. The non-tech world thinks wiki means Wikipedia. You can lament that, but you can't ever turn things back.
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Re:Twenty years after Pokémon launched, its impact on Wikipe... by JimDabell on Monday February 29, 2016 @02:49PM (#11197853)
> The non-tech world thinks wiki means Wikipedia.

I'm talking about the opposite case, where somebody thinks "Wikipedia" means "wiki". I don't think I've ever heard anybody describe a wiki as a Wikipedia before. I don't think that's a widespread misunderstanding at all.

Regardless, language does work this way. The value of words is in their meanings. Sometimes those meanings drift, but that doesn't make that kind of drift valuable, and so it's important to resist that drift. If you make the word "wiki" ambiguous, it loses value.

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