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: 
> 
> Some common reasons to edit are:
> 
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> * **to fix grammatical or spelling mistakes**
> * to clarify the meaning of a post without changing it
> * to correct minor mistakes or add addendums / updates as the post ages
> * to add related resources or hyperlinks
> 
> 
> Try to make the post substantively better when you edit, not just change a single character. Tiny, trivial edits are discouraged.
> 
> 
> 

([source](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/edit); emphasis mine.)

We aren't language experts.
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> 
> Correct use of English spelling and grammar to the best of your ability. ([source](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/help/quality-standards-error))
> 
> 
> 

Although one of SE's meta goals is to improve communication skills, RPG.SE citizens are here for RPG expertise, not linguistic expertise. We want citizens to feel free to edit away typos (if they're major, or as part of a more significant edit--as described in the help section), and if we start coming on down people for fixing what they think are typos but turn out to be legitimate dialectic variants, we'll lose editors.

I haven't seen any pattern of behavior to indicate that anything more sinister is going on than good faith attempts to adhere to correct English spelling and grammar, so I don't think a more strict policy needs to be enacted.

There is no "correct use of English spelling and grammar" unless we choose a style manual.
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Every publisher has a stylebook, and they don't agree. Even in something like "American English," choices about the Oxford (serial) comma, whether to use "further" and "farther" or just "further," and whether to hyphenate "African American," create wide divides in style and grammar. Taken to its logical conclusion, we can't rule *any* style choice as right or wrong unless we adopt a specific style manual for the whole site.

That seems excessive and needless, but...

It's probably good to standardize usage within a single post.
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The edit in question was actually reverting a spelling change from a previous edit: the original post used "artifact," and the body text still did, but the title had been edited by an Australian who used his spelling "artefact." Okeefe reverted the spelling so it would be consistent throughout the post.

This seems like a reasonable rule of thumb.
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.