Appropedia should be comfortable using the term "developing countries" in preference to "Majority world"
- "developing countries" on Google - about 16,800,000 - http://www.google.com/search?q=%22developing+countries%22
- "Majority world" on Google - about 286,000 hits. - http://www.google.com/search?q=%22majority+world%22
- a ratio of more than 50:1
- Google hits for "developing countries" on un.org - 71,100
- Google hits for "Majority world" on un.org - 332.
- a ratio of more than 200:1
(Weak proposal): Although Appropedia should feel comfortable using the term "majority world" as long as have a definition of the term on the site, the term "developing countries" is not prohibitively "inaccurate, out-of-date, or non-descriptive", and is much better known, and we also should not hesitate to use it.
(Strong proposal): In fact, 50:1 is a pretty strong ratio, and Appropedia should prefer the term "developing countries".
Discussion? :-)
-- Writtenonsand 16:03, 22 February 2008 (PST)
- Thanks for picking up on this! It's good to think through these issues.
- "Developing world" and developing countries are without doubt far more notable terms. However, my belief about Appropedia's role is that we take a stand for accuracy and truth, and this counts more than notability in the Wikipedia sense. (We are still learning how this works, but that's the general aim.) So the question is, which is more accurate and true? I side strongly with majority world.
- The more accurate contrast to developed country is undeveloped country, but that's too blunt for most people. Developing world is a euphemism and doesn't highlight the characteristic feature of these countries at all. As for "developing": Australia and the USA, have been developing more quickly in recent years than quite a few so-called "developing countries", some of which weren't developing at all. But we don't call Australia and the USA developing countries because that term has become codeW for something else.
- I would not want to force the use of particular terminology, but I would certainly favor the use of the most accurate and helpful terms, as a general guideline. --Chriswaterguy · talk 07:09, 23 February 2008 (PST)