It includes hundreds of books, including those from a century ago, that use "respell" as a single unhyphenated word.
I don't not believe you. I think you meant " If you find the link on this page you will find a lots of old books, and I have gone throught them and that is how they spelled it back then."
And I take it you assert that is contemporary usage.
I am pretty sure I have seen it that way but have always detested that word and that spelling. It seems like the way they would spell things when they were still burning whiches.
We do not only document contemporary usage. We document all usage of English that is attestable from WT:CFI-acceptable sources, including ancient and obsolete words and words that "Geofferybard" doesn't like. Why the hell won't you read the policies before stamping in with your naive ideas?
Dude I made ONE mistake a hundred edits ago. Also, are you suggesting then that "respell" is no longer contemporary usage? Yeah of course archaic usage is included,and would be tagged as such. Why are you flying off the handle over that? What about the many terms which were not in here such as the Tibetan words and the Calvinist terminology? The Federal acronyms? Yeah, it is best to review the policies and procedures but on the other hand it would take a week to review every policy and procedure and by then all of that groovy Zen Mind Beginner's Mind enthusiasm is lost. You obviously seem to think that the inconvenience of performing that revert outweighs the contributions. You are entitled to your opinion.
Why don't you review WP:BITE? Yeesh.Geof Bard 01:36, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
I won't review "WP:BITE" because this is Wiktionary, not Wikipedia. If you haven't worked out the difference yet, please do so before you continue editing.
I think the pertinent adage is "Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good."
Ever considered doing your own research instead of just arguing about it?