User talk:92.40.144.193

Related terms

This header indicates etymological relationships, not semantic ones, and (deprecated template usage) wordy is not etymologically related to (deprecated template usage) sesquipedalian. --EncycloPetey 15:34, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, since other entries have the etymology under "etymology" and sometimes a section "Thesarus" etc I had assumed that "related terms" meant what it said.

I must admit I am getting fed up with Wiktionary; if we put "dictionary definitions" at Wikipedia they are sometimes moved to Wiktionary, but then information is lost (or completely garbled), I dunno if there's a transwiki bot that is just inadequate or that they were just clumsy transclusions where the editor did not properly check the result, but it is very annoying when, for example, references for reliable sources are then excluded. On one entry I had, they were called "anecdotes". Ha! So the OED in its quotations, they are all anecdotes then? And the dates given were the access dates of the articles, i.e. some time in the last month, not the dates of the quotes themselves. That kind of nonsense makes me lose faith in the transwiki process, and next time I get a stub article nominated for move to wiktionary I will oppose it on those grounds and quote the example (deliberately here I am not telling you which articles they were, I've nothing to hide but I don't want to queer my pitch.

It's that kind of thing that has made me give up on Wiktionary, one would do better with the Nonesuch Dictionary 99p from your favourite remaindered book store (or any of the other free online dictionaries). It seems to me simply a misguided project; whereas WP will get better, Wiktionary will never be as good as any of the published dictionaries; and whereas e.g. Britannica costs hundreds or thousands of pounds (admittedly OED does too) a good concise dictionary is available to everyone. It's a shame because as an enthusiastic Wikipedian I am not one simply to say "it's all a waste of time", but I do think that with Wiktionary-- tilting at windmills a bit.

I did get a unified login User:SimonTrew but it doesn't seem to be working quite as seamlessly as I imagined. I don't know how stable this IP is.

Thanks for your advice, any I am not really intending to contribute much to Wiktionary-- I have a hard enough time learning Wikipedia editing, to have to learn another set of syntax (to do the actual entries) and no doubt another set of polices, guidelines etc, don't think I could manage that right now. So any changes I make are gonna be pretty minor. Hope that's OK. 92.40.144.193 08:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

User:SimonTrew

I'm afraid that the problem is more a misunderstanding about the nature of supporting evidence on Wiktionary. The changes were made corretcly and deliberately, if they were the sort you describe. An encyclopedia or other topical work is interested in when the information was accessed, but for a dictionary, we rely on the original dates of publication because that is far more informative. It is the word and its usage that is relevant, not the date that information was looked up. You can see the direction this labor aims by looking at Citations:listen or Citations:parrot. We want to justify the definitions with data demonstrating directly that they are supportable, not rely on a secondary source's interpretation. Yes, this is completely different from the way Wikipedia relies foremost on secondary sources, and it is one of the key differences betwen the way an encyclopedia and a dictionary accomplish their goals.

It seems to me that you don't appreciate the real scope of Wiktionary. We already contain more information than any one dictionary. We define all words in all languages, so although you might have a decent print dictionary in one language cheaply, it will not caontain but one or perhaps two languages. For languages like Latin, it will only tell you the primary form of the word, and expect the reader to look up or construct mentally all the other possible forms. We include those forms explicitly and explain them. You may alos find that we include words and senses of words that do not appear in most print dictionaries, which have space limitations becasue of printing, and we intend to add more synonyms (which incorporates Thesaurus material), coordinate terms (which are seldom included in dictionaries), and have translation tables for words. All this is more than any printed dictionary has ever attempted to include.

Sorry to hear about your unified login problems. I had some trepidations when the idea was first realized, but it has worked for me. Have you asked on the IRC #wikimedia-tech for assistance? --EncycloPetey 13:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

OK I think we are singing the same song, perhaps in my grumble I expressed it badly. I totally agree the original date should be placed. My annoyance was I had sourced and found the original dates for quotes, but in the transwiki they were replaced by the accessdate i.e. the date I had looked up the quote, rather than the date of the original quote. So I totally agree with you but if that is happening either automatically or manually that is very frustrating.

You second point about what wiktionary is or is not, I think I better not say any more. The box that gives you different languages is actually pretty cool, that is quite a unique feature. What's kinda annoying (and this applies to Wikipedia too) is that so many entries are just nothings; I appreciate it's Not Finished Yet or however you put it here at Wiktionary but sometimes I tear my hair out when, usually as a stub as part of working on a larger article, I make a definition, it then gets copied to Wiktionary (though I didn't ask it to be) then becomes so mangled that it just makes me, Wikipedia and Wiktionary look like the three stooges. I'll happily prep Wiktionary entries (will need to learn how to, that's just technicality no problem there just a bit busy at the mo to learn) but it seems WP and Wiktionary are doing each other a disservice if copy is transwikid with no human intervention to see if it makes sense.

I've just stubbed "blue pencil" in WP bizarelly it went to a tedious law case; now Wiktionary has blue-pencil (I think, presume, as a verb of some kind) but not blue pencil as a noun. It's that kind of thing that is kinda easy to sort, but I am gonna leave "blue pencil" without the hyphen just to see what happens, I hope you don't think that's abuse.

Yeah I am not sure what is or was up with the unified login, but I was having occasional internet drops (I am using a mobile telephone internet connexion) and WP seemed to be playing up too and any combination of factors may have caused it. It don't bother me, just that I had to sign as anonymous IP when I do prefer to be open and give my name etc.

Very best wishes 92.40.144.193 02:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC) User:SimonTrew

It appears from looking at the NCC whois info that I have essentially a static IP address so this should be stable. I will try to get it fixed why it doesn't log on properly. French, Latin and Simple wikipedias all log on OK with the unified logon. 92.40.144.193 03:11, 4 May 2009 (UTC) User:SimonTrew