Question: In a recent (otherwise quite solid) edit of [“Will changing an artifact sword to another weapon type impact game balance much?”](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/q/30616/4563), @okeefe changed the British spelling “artefact” to the American spelling “artifact.”

Searching our meta, I see no rule regarding whether a particular spelling is preferred, or whether someone editing a question *anyway* can or should change from one spelling to another.

Answer: 
You might be overthinking it. This might not be a case of which English is The Correct English.

D&D 4e has a thing called artifacts. I live in Australia, where we spell it "artefacts", but nevertheless, in the context of D&D 4e I will happily and consistently call them artifacts. They consistently call it that, and as far as I'm aware, they have no instances of calling them "artefacts".

It would probably be weird if some of the books called them "artefacts", just like it'd be weird if some of the books said "magick" instead of "magic." I see it as being a convention they have with a defined spelling, so I go with it.

We should probably ask okeefe though. Right?
As we are playing particular systems any terms that might have alternative spelling should first the same as the spelling used by that system. If it isn't referring to a specific term then leave as the author intended.

As for whether everyone should be aware of alternative spellings, well that's a hard one. I daresay most non-American English speakers are very aware of alternative spellings as they struggle through so many sites and programs that don't recognise the 'correct' spelling (such as recognise). If there were to be a policy then it should leave as the author intended except for those specific system terms, if it is edited then it is a simple matter to revert it once the actual situation is discovered. No harm, no foul.