Talk:Australian resort manager faces possible 10-year prison sentence in Indonesia

Gaol

It's not a spelling mistake - don't make edits to the word in the headline or body claiming so.

It's a chiefly British usage which the original author chose - don't make headline changes inconsistent with body text without discussion here.

If it were a spelling error in the headline and body text, don't only change the headline text. If making changes to both, check all body text. Do not make edits which leave inconsistent word or spelling usage between the body and headline.

It might be wise to defer word usage choices to the original author or locality of the story event. Karen 02:42, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Well I did take that into consideration. If it's a jail/gaol in Australia that's one thing, but it's in Indonesia. And they don't call jail there a gaol.

Search Google News for Jakarta Post (most prominent English language newspaper in Indonesia) and jail [1] or gaol [2]. Jail gets 59 hits, and Gaol gets one, and it's about "slang language like Bahasa Gaol". -- Fuzheado 03:04, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

How about a compromise away from using the world jail/gaol, and going with prison? -- Fuzheado 03:11, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how the word usage in Indonesia is relevant, as English is not one of their official languages, and this is an article about an Australian that will be of greatest interest to Australians rather than Indonesians. - Borofkin 03:15, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

That is why gaol was used, the article was about yet another Australian getting busted for drugs in Indonesia. I am sure it happens that often (drug busts) in Indonesia that it isn't reported in the news, but when it affects another Australian (especially given the number of Australians which have been arrested for drugs offences) it is notable. Australian English uses the term gaol over jail. Prison isnt something we use widely here - Cartman02au (Talk)(AU Portal) 04:08, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Prison (headline), prison (first mention of "gaol"), and custody (second mention) are fine by me - it's not prison in one place, jail in another, and gaol in the third; consistency was my main complaint, and my second was incompletely replacing gaol with jail on the basis that it was a spelling error. I'd prefer to avoid slang terms, so I'd tend to just replace the whole thing. I would have not reverted any of it if the changes were done to the complete article, and the original author hadn't chose local usage. I think the author's local usage or the event location's usage can decide - no point in trying to internationalize every story. Just make each story's usage consistent with itself, and keep the original author happy if possible. Thanks! Karen 04:16, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I generally concur. Thanks very much for your input Karen. - Borofkin 04:25, 22 February 2006 (UTC)