Talk:Regrexit

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RFD discussion: June–August 2016[edit]

The following information passed a request for deletion (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

I don't think this can be considered a hot word. I don't see any reason to believe people won't forget about this word within a year. --WikiTiki89 19:58, 27 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why not? It's no more unpredictable than any other hot word. DTLHS (talk) 20:09, 27 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hot words are supposed to be things that are almost certain. Like official new names for species or chemical elements, or perhaps the nicknames given to an event itself (Brexit could have been a hot word if it weren't already attestable for several years), but a feeling about an event does not have any momentum behind it. --WikiTiki89 20:15, 27 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think Brexit has a lot of momentum behind it, and people are certainly going to keep talking about their feelings and regrets about it for many years. DTLHS (talk) 20:17, 27 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Of course Brexit itself is going to be talked about, but people aren't necessarily going to use the word regrexit for their feeling of regret. Brexit itself has become the accepted name of the event, so whenever people talk about it, they are likely to use this name, but the feeling of regrexit can easily just be called regret. Of course it's possible that regrexit could become a more politically significant feeling and phenomenon like, I don't know, glasnost or something (not an exact equivalent, but close enough), but I don't see any evidence of that yet. --WikiTiki89 20:24, 27 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
We adopted the "hot word" idea to allow Wiktionary to include topical terms that our "spanning one year" rule allowed. One benefit is that once we have three citations that demonstrate usage of a term in current use, we don't have to argue about whether its conditional inclusion will become permanent. We just wait and see. DCDuring TALK 20:41, 27 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Is it citable now? (3) from our usual sources, News and Usenet being the ones that are timely? DCDuring TALK 00:19, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No, since it was only invented last week. DTLHS (talk) 04:04, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • We adopted the hot word policy to allow premature inclusion of words that we agree are likely to remain in use for over a year since the first attestation. Not to allow any neologism that happens to have been used recently in durably archived sources. This isn't about censorship, this is about whether we are confident that we won't have to delete it in the future, and I am not confident. --WikiTiki89 16:49, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • On the other hand, from a technical standpoint, if we allow such terms as "hot words" and categorize them appropriately, it's very easy to find such "hot words" that are now one year old, and then systemically go through and see if they're still in use / still citable.
Put another way, if correctly categorized, we can fix any potential problems easily enough once the one-year time limit has come due. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 20:34, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
See Category:Hot words older than a year. DCDuring TALK 20:54, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
But that's not the point. That enables us to verify that we didn't make any mistakes, but that doesn't give us the right to be careless. --WikiTiki89 20:57, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • What is careless about adding these "hot words"? Do you mean that we shouldn't be careless as we gaze into our crystal balls, attempting to discern if a given term might still be in popular use one year from now? I'm more interested in lexicography than prophecy. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 22:38, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    If you're not interested, then why are you discussing this? We're not attempting to predict the future, we're attempting to evaluate whether there are any objective criteria that would make the term likely to survive. Not every neologism can be added as a hot word. I nominated it for deletion because I don't think there is anything about this term that makes it more likely to survive than any random neologism. If you disagree, you can state your reasons and vote keep, but there's no need to scream about censorship and crystal balls. --WikiTiki89 18:19, 29 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Suppose we establish some baseline of sources that make it reasonable to proceed with a hot word for some set period? bd2412 T 19:50, 29 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not about sources, it's about reasoning. Hot words started with the word olinguito, which was announced as the new of a newly discovered species. It was almost certain that the word would survive, because it was officially announced. There is nothing (yet) about the word regrexit that guarantees its survival. I'd appreciate it if we would go back to talking specifically about the word regrexit and not about the process in general. I have seen no one explaining why it is likely to survive. --WikiTiki89 20:05, 29 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • after edit conflict: @WikiTiki89, it seems my tone did not come across as I intended. I'm more puzzled and querying than screaming. And I haven't said anything about censorship...? Re: regrexit specifically, I counter that I see no reason for it to completely disappear -- it's a useful enough portmanteau of regret + exit that I can more easily imagine that it will find some use, perhaps sporadic, than that it will fall into complete oblivion. Beyond our respective opinions, however, we have nothing to go on -- we are attempting to divine the future, which I believe to be both not lexicography, and not particularly fruitful.
That aside, @bd2412, that proposal sounds good to me. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 20:12, 29 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well it was DCDuring who was screaming about censorship. And I'm sorry, but I couldn't hear your tone through the all those cyberwaves. --WikiTiki89 20:24, 29 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't understand the motivation for singling out this particular term or, for that matter, any particular term. I often wonder about my own visceral, usually negative, reaction to new terms. Eg, I hate almost all blends, unless they are funny. DCDuring TALK 22:48, 29 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would suggest that it is likely to survive for at least a year since the subject is of such broad significance and since the press will be talking about the process of Britain leaving the EU for at least the next two years. It is certainly not a foregone conclusion that this will be around for more than a year, but I would put money on it surviving our CFI after a year has elapsed. - TheDaveRoss 20:27, 29 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Our normal standards for attestation seem adequate for this purpose. So, relaxing only the "spanning one year" requirement should give us attestation in durably archived sources, probably mostly newspapers, UseNet, and scholarly journals. I see no reason to limit sources. DCDuring TALK 22:48, 29 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I would prefer a limitation to higher-level sources (professional, peer-reviewed) for "hot" words. I do think regrexit is covered in those, so a imposition like that would be of no moment to this particular discussion. bd2412 T 10:21, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This suggestion is an excellent bit of evidence supporting my intuition that there is an academic/intellectual-elitist bias among many here. Such a requirement would cut us off from the vital living edge of language, while it was in its earliest, but popular and visible, stages. DCDuring TALK 10:46, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Such a requirement would also cut us off from the vital living edge of people abusing the process and literally making up words that will never see use by the public and throwing them on internet forums in order to get them in Wiktionary. bd2412 T 11:18, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Do any two people want to WP:GAME and collude with me in a Usenet thread where the three of us use the same word? Equinox ◑ 11:45, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I regrexit to inform you that I will not be able to participate in such deceit. Did I do that right? - TheDaveRoss 11:59, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have noted above that I don't think this objection would apply to regrexit; however, precisely because the word has been used in professional publications. Don't put it past people to try to manufacture words into the language, particularly where there is some political or commercial angle to exploit. We have seen a share of those come through here. bd2412 T 17:34, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • But, @BD2412 words get "manufactured" all the time, by corporate entities or by people. Just because a word is "manufactured" doesn't mean we shouldn't have it. It does mean it will eventually have to pass RfV, though. Purplebackpack89 14:57, 9 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Right now, however, we are talking about the special case of "hot words", which need to offer some exceptional reason to believe that they will be used for years into the future. bd2412 T 21:15, 10 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: This is another one of those RfVs that's pretending to be an RfD. Nominator has provided no reason why this violates SOP (which it clearly doesn't) or anything else we address at RfD. We can mark it as a hot word now, and if it really dies out, we can delete it in a year. Purplebackpack89 13:17, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am inclined to Keep, agreeing with PBP although I don't feel super strongly. Regrexit is all over the news, to such an extent that it seems likely it will still exist in a year, and if not we can always delete it. My one beef is that most uses of the word appear to capitalize it so we should probably do so too. Benwing2 (talk) 20:12, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It does seem that this word is catching on and I no longer feel as strongly about it as when I nominated it. However, I do think think that at the time it was added, it was a bit too early. --WikiTiki89 20:27, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. It seems to me that this word is likely to catch on enough to make it past the one-year mark, and even if it doesn't, there's no harm done. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 17:55, 1 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Abstain: I am not too happy about the whole hot word concept, but many seem to like it, and it does not seem really harmful, merely an avoidable increase of complexity. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:19, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    […] in pursuit of increased relevance of Wiktionary to new, ordinary users, which may be a vain pursuit, given the greater attentiveness to such users by commercial dictionaries, like Collins and UD. We could be more inclusive and responsive that Collins and more discriminating than UD, but only at the price a avoidable complexity. DCDuring TALK 10:37, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, doesn't seem to qualify as a hot word to me either, especially as it still isn't clear whether this term or bregret/Bregret is going to be the dominant term. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:24, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    So now we're picking winners in a language chock full of "duplicate" words. Are we trying to be the English version of one of the language-protection organizations? We have a simple procedure for dropping "hot words" that don't keep their traction. DCDuring TALK 12:08, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    We're following our own rules: three attestations in permanently archived media over the course of more than a year. "Hot words" are meant to be exceptions for blatantly obvious cases where it's clear that (1) people are still going to be talking about the concept in a year's time, and (2) people are still going to be calling it by this name in a year's time. It's not at all clear that either of those conditions are met for "regrexit". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:32, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is ever really crystal-clear that something is going to last a year? Is it clear this isn't? It seems to me that a lot of the arguments for deletion here boil down to either a) guessing about something you can't know for a year, but WILL know then, or b) disdain at the process of hot words altogether. Purplebackpack89 14:13, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • There are cases like olinguito that are a lot clearer than this one. For olinguito, there was little doubt that the animal would continue to be talked about and that olinguito would continue to be its name. It isn't clear that this isn't going to last a year, but that's not a high enough bar to break the rules over. The point is, it is entirely possible that no one will be talking about "regrexit" in 13 months' time, and even if they are, it is entirely possible that they won't be using the term "regrexit" for it. That possibility says to me that this isn't a "hot word" and needs to wait 13 months before being entered into the dictionary. In the meantime, citations for it can be added to Citations:regrexit. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:02, 5 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I think it makes perfect sense to create words as soon as they become "hot words" and keep them until people stop using them (assuming they fail to meet CFI), since that's when people are going to be encountering the word and looking up what it means. It doesn't always make sense to wait until we're fairly confident they're going to stay, since people are going to be looking them up before then. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:09, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    There you go again, bringing up points like utility to normal users. I suppose you think "A term should be included if it's likely that someone would run across it and want to know what it means."
It might be reasonable to exclude UseNet as sole source of attestation unless the "spanning one year" standard were met. That way we could remain elitist and yet include new terms that PLUs might be interested in. DCDuring TALK 12:10, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what Andrew's position on utility is, but what you've said in quotes sums up mine. Purplebackpack89 13:30, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I thought you'd recognize the quote as being from WT:CFI. DCDuring TALK 17:01, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. My crystal ball tells me that people - including academics - will be writing books about the whole Brexit event and who voted for it and against it and why and what the consequences were for a long time to come - and the regrexit part of the even will find a place in such texts - esp. as it will be interesting to see if regrexiters sustained their regret as the true outcomes of the vote eventually eventuated. - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 08:15, 27 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Kept - for now. Since the basis for keeping is inclusion as a hot word, this can be revisited if it seems like the word will die off without becoming CFI-worthy under normal circumstances. bd2412 T 01:42, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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