Talk:friends

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Should this be a redirect to friend? Wouldn't it make sense to redirect plurals to their singular and make sure that the plural for is listed somewhere on the singular version page? In effect, that's all that this page really does right now, anyways, but it's a manual redirect... --Bill 16:22, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Since we're not on paper we don't have to worry about space. If people feel like adding entries for plurals I don't mind at all and wouldn't bother deleting them but I wouldn't expect them to be as useful as the singular defs. Perhaps the translations into other languages might be helpful. — Hippietrail 07:15, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
We may not have to worry about space, in the pixel sense, but people do print these definitions. Furthermore, I would love to reduce the number of clicks required to get the main definition, where appropriate, and make the definition articles as concise as possible. Hmmm, you've got me brainstorming about where we might be able to trim pages down and where we can lengthen them.... I wonder if it would make sense to split translations off onto a sub page (i.e., friends/translations or friends:translations (this fits in with an idea that I'm knocking around))...
  • use redirects from the plural form to the singular form
  • split translations off onto a sub-page
(/me ponders deeply) (oh, BTW, the positive tone that comes through in your response was/is much appreciated!!! :-) ) --Bill 07:56, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I also think about these things a lot. I think of Wiktionary in terms of being a database off how all the world's language are used and that it will always be a work in progress. I also think in terms of it currently living on a wiki but some time in the future having some kind of custom software which is more tailored to a dictionary. In the meantime I hate throwing away or blocking anything (except genuine rubbish) and I don't like what I consider "premature optimizing" though I accept that others will feel otherwise. So keeping all this in mind I try to think less about the on-page formatting and more about the structure of the data. One day in the future people will be able to choose what subset of the full data they see at any one time. Until then we should cram everything relevant in. — Hippietrail 12:32, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

to be friends with[edit]

'to be' is a copulative verb as is 'to become' --Backinstadiums (talk) 15:36, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]