Diaphonemic transcription

Meanwhile, the argument rages on about Wikipedia's use of a special "diaphonemic" transcription that is supposed to cover all accents of English in a single representation. The argument can be seen (until someone decides that it's all gone on too long and makes it disappear) on the Talk section of Help:IPA for English in a section headed simply "Bad", and is essentially between one or two people who don't like the transcription or can't see the point of it, and one or two people who support it. I have already mentioned that I have serious misgivings about the idea myself. I think it was James Sledd who pointed out that "diaphonemics" and "dire phonemics" are homophonous in many accents of English.