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Contents 1 May 2009 1.1 WT:ELE reversion 1.2 template:he-noun 1.3 greenland wolf spider 1.4 Cleaning up RFD 1.5 hobo 1.6 ־ה 1.7 Context labels in ELE 1.8 cuesport 1.9 RFV of PK / PKK 1.10 lex dubia non obligat 1.11 nif'al 1.12 breasticle 1.13 Template:rfv-archived 1.14 חילל 1.15 {{mnk-noun}} 2 June 2009 2.1 IP block exempt 2.2 Mandinka alphabet 2.3 Archiving RfVs 2.4 ...and RfDs 2.5 you - more work 2.6 Ashkenazim 2.7 pa'al 2.8 WT:GP#Hebrew:_Old_and_New 2.9 sack 2.10 Wiktionary:Requests for deletion?diff=6784805 2.11 אחוז 2.12 Displaying Wikipedia images on Wiktionary 2.13 Improvements 2.14 {{he-form-verb}} 3 July 2009 3.1 + plcons stuff to {{he-noun}}, please? 3.2 For the weak verbs 3.3 nitpael 3.4 Invitation to visit 3.5 Hebrew 3.6 Xyzy and HTML XML etc 3.7 fmt=? 3.8 one-finger salute 3.9 Rostov-na-Donu and Rostov-on-Don 3.10 birther 4 August 2009 4.1 Index:Hebrew 4.2 minor repair to {{quote-book}} 4.3 comment on the SC vote 4.4 Deleted revision 4.5 hanzi 4.6 Template:grc-cite 4.7 WT:VOTE 5 September 2009 5.1 closing a vote 5.2 -latry related terms 5.3 Ruben 5.4 Actarus 5.5 Sysops deleted 5.6 secretes 5.7 Talk:onomatopoeia#RFV discussion 6 October 2009 6.1 User:Ruakh/quotations 6.2 "tough economic times|climate" 6.3 Testing Opera's non-breaking space behavior. 6.4 theater/homonyms 6.5 Replied at WOTD Nominations 6.6 Stop errasing 6.7 Hebrew translations 6.8 No usable content given 6.9 Hebrew/Yiddish root of caraïte 7 November 2009 7.1 AWB Edit rate question 7.2 Non-babel userboxes 7.3 Main Page 7.4 I was in a bad mood in early october... 7.5 African American Vernacular English 7.6 Chinese snooker 7.7 Subera 7.8 coup de maitre 7.9 gẃraidd 7.10 Reply: ARML 7.11 "tosh" 7.12 RFV archiving

[edit] May 2009

[edit] WT:ELE reversion

Was there any reason you reverted Ullmann's edit? I thought it was correct. [1]. Conrad.Irwin 21:47, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I also think it's correct, but see Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2009-03/Removing vote requirements for policy changes. Any modification, even if unsubstantial and uncontested, requires a VOTE; and Ullmann actually strongly supports that requirement. (Technically speaking, I suppose a revert is also a modification, but I think the spirit of the rule requires reversion of un-VOTE-d upon edits.) —Ruakh 22:00, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Alright, I disagree strongly with your interpretation of the failed VOTE, but I suppose it's an issue that will need wider discussion. (And 60% is a pass anyway ;) Conrad.Irwin 22:12, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

My interpretation displeases me, and I'm very open to hearing a different one. Please speak up. :-)   —Ruakh 22:58, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] template:he-noun

Any particular reason you used div rather than span? Other inflection templates don't add linebreaks afterward, which allows for the use of, e.g., {{plurale tantum}} or {{uncountable}} afterward on the same line.—msh210℠ 23:28, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks. —Ruakh 23:37, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks much.—msh210℠ 23:38, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] greenland wolf spider

Hi, thanks for taking the time out for me. I have moved the definition to the Latin scientific name, as it looks like it will fail to obtain a consensus to "keep". WritersCramp 22:56, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Cleaning up RFD

Hooray! Thanks for looking at those; there really is an incredible backlog. I should probably look into the policy and procedures properly so I can pick them off myself in future. P.S. If you have any soul left after that lot, RFV awaits ;) Equinox ◑ 23:12, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Variety is the spice of life. I'll take a stab at it. :-)   Of course, I'm only going to handle a drop in the bucket, but hopefully it will inspire other people to chip in as well. —Ruakh 00:16, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. DCDuring TALK 00:19, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I've now zapped a load of last year's hopeless RFVs. Isn't there a bot or something that automatically moves "struckthrough" sections to the appropriate talk page? I hope so, as this will make the page noticeably quicker to load. Equinox ◑ 22:56, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Nice! Re: bot: There was for a while, but it looks like it's in its dormant phase or something. We'll have to do it the old-fashioned way. —Ruakh 00:59, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] hobo

I've been deleting adjective sections for attributive-use-of-noun-without-grading/comparison/predicative use unilaterally lately. Should I go back to RfVing? There seems little risk of harm in deletion. I usually move usage examples and notes, if any, to the noun. DCDuring TALK 23:37, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

If you've determined that the "adjective" use is just an attributive use of the noun, then you're not deleting, you're correcting. By removing. I give it a thumbs up. :-)   —Ruakh 00:13, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. We certainly don't need unnecessary RfV/D clutter. DCDuring TALK 00:21, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] ־ה

Would you mind checking out this new creation? It seems correct, but another pair of eyes (yours in particular) would be helpful.—msh210℠ 23:04, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks good. I've expanded it a bit. —Ruakh 02:03, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks much. Concerning your edit summary here, would you say that it's {{no longer productive}}?—msh210℠ 14:58, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. :-)   —Ruakh 15:05, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Context labels in ELE

Hi. I've made an abbreviated version of this proposal at Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2009-03/Context labels in ELE v2. Please have a look. —Michael Z. 2009-05-17 18:08 z

Looks good! My only comment would be that "must not be used merely for categorization" should be "must not be used merely for categorization"; putting the stress on "must not" seems a bit rude or something. (I realize that RFCs actually capitalize MUST NOT and so on, but that's largely because those terms have specific meanings in the RFCs.) —Ruakh 19:11, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

You're right. I just removed the stress altogether. The statement is clear, and there's no need for the guidelines to yell and make faces at our editors. —Michael Z. 2009-05-22 20:03 z

[edit] cuesport

LOL, are you turning to Usenet as a last resort? Do you think we should mark it "rare"? Equinox ◑ 02:17, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

For me, Usenet isn't a last resort: I prefer Google Books, but Scholar and News Archive are both fraught with questions of durability (in that a lot of their hits are Web-only, and it's not always easy to distinguish the ones that are from the ones that aren't), whereas there seems to be consensus that Usenet is durably archived.

Judging from google news archive:"cuesport", cuesport is not actually all that rare, though it (like cue sport) seems to be predominantly, even overwhelmingly, Indian English. But given the lack of Google Books hits, {{rare}} is probably warranted, yes, and I'd definitely support a usage note stating that cue sport is much more common.

—Ruakh 02:31, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] RFV of PK / PKK

Well, PK should absolutely not have been reverted, it has been cited. As for PKK, it is used widely in more ephemeral mediums (in and out of game chats mostly) and is therefore harder to cite, but I found it pretty easily in a brief search. Wikipedia includes the term in their article on PvP, there are some video games which use the term in their scripts (.hack//GU) and I even found it on some t-shirts (link). Also I grew up playing online video games and know the term to be in wide use, across many communities. - TheDaveRoss 21:00, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] lex dubia non obligat

This is a phrase from English law, not from Latin law. I have cleaned up the entry accordingly. --EncycloPetey 17:14, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, neither English nor Latin has law, and it's a Latin sentence. But seeing as it's overwhelmingly used in English contexts, I suppose this is fine. Thanks for looking over it. :-)   —Ruakh 17:23, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] nif'al

Could you check out the dagesh/niqqud placements in נגמר? I spent a while making the template earlier, but I've already seen a few vowels I missed, so my confidence with it is faded slightly :D — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 18:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

The niqqud are all right (though I haven't looked at the template to see if it calls {{he-dagesh-kal}} in exactly the right places). There are a few forms missing, which makes the 1=, 2=, etc. call structure unfortunate, but obviously I'm not going to convince you to slow down, so I guess I won't bother trying. There's also the question of how to handle the additional yuds in some of the forms' k'tiv male spellings, which I don't have a good solution for. (The ייגמר \ יִגָּמֵר seems a bit unwieldy in an all-out conjugation template, but leaving out the usual spellings seems decidedly worse.) Lastly, the blanket "These forms are uncommon in modern Hebrew" isn't totally true; the -na futures and imperative are indeed uncommon, but the -ten past is still common in writing and formal speech. (I realize that these problems aren't specific to your new template, but now that you've gone ahead and created the new template, you should be aware of them. They're the reason that I, at least, have not gone out and created a slew of templates, nor started using the existing ones on loads of pages. Personally, I preferred to fix these problems in the existing templates before copying them to new ones.) —Ruakh 18:26, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

So we can have a temporarily incomplete template that uses the admittedly unfortunate but not difficult, only tedious, to fix 1=, 2= - or one that says inf=, ms.pres=, fp.pres= to fully accomodate the imperatives later. I may be an accomodating person, but I prefer simplicity.

Notice that I haven't done or tried to do anything about pi'el or extra yud. I don't edit things I'm not mostly confident in.

"copying" the problems of existing templates to new ones is highly mitigated by the use of head templates like {{lt-conj}}, {{es-conj}}. Change the issues in the head template, and voila, there's a neat little wave of fixes in all the subtemplates.

I wouldn't say I have created, or plan on creating, a plethora of templates. I'm just setting up the more simple ones in which I have more confidence. I don't plan on doing pa'al with gutturals or hollow roots or anything like that any time soon. I would just rather have something than nothing, and I think that with you being one of our more knowledgable Hebrew editors - if you aren't going to do it, who is? Most if not all of the issues you mention are pretty minor and will require such small amounts of imagination that it's almost no fun to try and even them out on my own. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 19:05, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, some of the problems (such as the footnote issue) are mitigated by head templates, but some of them (such as the fixed support for a limited number of forms) are exacerbated by them. But if you're not planning on creating large numbers of templates, then don't worry about it; further use of the existing ones will likely help us address any problems before we start unleashing bots to handle inflected forms and such. Those {{he-dagesh-kal}} bugs are hard! :-P   —Ruakh 19:12, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] breasticle

i'm sorry, but i have to ask: how is adding this word to wiktionary going to help the infrastructure of hebrew words? —This unsigned comment was added by Pickledawg (talk • contribs) 03:56, 26 May 2009 (UTC).

It's not; rather, it falls under "fulfilling requests at Wiktionary:Requested articles:English". (Yes, believe it or not, someone asked about breasticle!) And there's no need to apologize. :-)   —Ruakh 04:10, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:rfv-archived

Seems very good idea to me. Only a tiny bit of nit-picking: shouldn't it say "The discussion ended in such a way that neither {{rfv-passed}} nor {{rfv-failed}} is appropriate."? --Duncan 00:06, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Er, yes, yes it should. Fixed now, thanks! —Ruakh 00:25, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] חילל

Hey Ruakh :) I couldn't find a correct translation to the word חילל (ב). Is there such a verb in English which I, unfortunately, am not aware of? LightBringer 14:10, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

We just say play the flute. According to the OED, flute itself can be used as a verb with this sense, but personally I'd never heard it used that way, and I'm not sure I'd understand it. —Ruakh 14:58, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I see. Thanks for the help :) LightBringer 17:16, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] {{mnk-noun}}

Mate – are you any good with templates? I want to create the one above for Mandinka nouns.....it should take two optional parameters, one for pl=plural and one for the stemstem-form, and the whole thing should probably be Latinx. Have a look at kuluŋo for what the end result should look like. Can you help with this? Or shall I throw it out to the Grease Pit? Ƿidsiþ 15:08, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Done. If pl= and/or stem= is missing, should the template add the page any sort of attention category? Should it support any special values, like -, to indicate that there simply is no plural and/or no stem?

Per GP discussions a while back, I've also updated {{Latinx}} to support the face= parameter, though it'll probably be a while before that propagates to all pages that currently use it.

—Ruakh 15:24, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

You're a legend, thanks. All nouns will have a stem form, but I don't know enough about Mandinka yet to know whether uncountables should be an option....probably.. I'll try and work that out. And I don't even know what "face" is, so I'd better go study the GP a bit! Ƿidsiþ 15:28, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I've added a sort= parameter, so that entries starting with ñ and such can be made to appear properly in the category order; but I don't have a good grasp on the order, so I can't devise a system to be used. The Peace Corps dictionary linked from here seems to use this ordering:

a b c e f h i j k l m n ñ [ŋ/o] p r s t u ü w y

, with "ñ" and the unexplained "ü" having their own sort positions and "ŋ" sharing a sort position with "o", but that just seems so unlikely … do you know how this is supposed to work? —Ruakh 17:44, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] June 2009

[edit] IP block exempt

Re [2], just fyi, admins are automatically IP-block exempt (according to Special:ListGroUprights).—msh210℠ 18:36, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, thanks. I actually remembered that afterward (your original comment at GP/BP/wherever had mentioned that), but I decided it wasn't worth restoring-and-re-removing just to add a clarifying comment. :-P   —Ruakh 19:11, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Mandinka alphabet

• Oh wait, I forgot the n. There's a normal n as well, between m and ñ! Ƿidsiþ 22:46, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

• Yeah, I guessed as much. :-)   BTW, you might want to change your signature to <span class="latinx">[[User:Widsith|Ƿidsiþ]]</span>, rather than explicitly calling {{Latinx}}. As of my change to it the other day, it's no longer very subst:-friendly. :-/   —Ruakh 23:37, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Archiving RfVs

The policy that I generally try to stick to while cleaning up the old stuff is this: declare in the comment of the RfV page edit removing the section what the result was. This links the title of the discussion (almost always the entry in question) with the result. I also archive any substantive discussions on the talk page with the result listed as well. If I make a non-obvious decision (if I go and find cites myself, for instance) I make a note at the end of the discussion as I archive it, I try not to do this when the term is overly contentious but usually do it when it just seems like a straight forward term was overlooked. The last thing I like to try to do is make sure that every edit regarding the term shows the result. The edit to WT:RFV, the edit to the actual page when the rfv tag is removed or the deletion summary for deleted pages, and the edit to the talk page when the archiving takes place. Each of these generally state the outcome of the RfV.

For recent discussions (less than a few months old) I don't follow that route, I use the regular comment and strike out, then leave it for a week, but for the extremely old (I don't think I have gotten into anything less than a year old) I would rather not simply strike them out, as my purpose is both to clean up and reduce the size of the RfV page, which is excessive. Because the discussions have been stale for so long I just have to assume people have said their piece and those which were not clearly resolved I try to make the best judgment call I can and leave the evidence archived for anyone who would like to to second guess or overturn as they please.

I certainly am not looking to hide the results of any discussion, or make changes which contradict the consensus of the discussions which take place. Unless no discussion really took place the discussions are always archived on the pertinent talk page, the only discussions which are deleted outright are ones which either have nothing to do with the topic (and I generally keep those too, if they have any content) or where no discussion took place and the term was merely listed and never cited. - TheDaveRoss 20:11, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

"Done" and other non- pass/fail notes are usually regarding discussions which for one reason or another were not really pass/fail conclusions. Sometimes an entry merely needed cleanup or other similar, not a true RfV. It isn't so much the extra work of striking and then archiving later, it is more that I consider these so long concluded that they don't need to spend any more time on the page. I understand your desire to know how these discussions are concluded, but I like to think that the way I am doing it now is a somewhat happy medium which reports the outcome and retains discussion while still cleaning up the page in the most expeditious manner. - TheDaveRoss 21:04, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] ...and RfDs

Would you mind taking a {{look}} at Wiktionary:Requests for deletion#semisweet_chocolate?—msh210℠ 21:29, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks.—msh210℠ 16:50, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] you - more work

Exactly why I didn't start any work before getting feedback! My thought was to revise all the core English pronouns this summer, but I'm not sure I have the stamina. --EncycloPetey 17:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Perfectly understandable. That's why I only did the one merge that I did: everyone seems to agree that we don't want the subject/object distinction, and I'm taking it for granted that no one would want to merge the one sense with any other senses. —Ruakh 17:50, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Ashkenazim

Hi Ruakh. Could you please add the proper Hebrew terms and transliterations to this etymology section please? Thanks. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 13:13, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 14:46, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome! —Ruakh 14:51, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] pa'al

I've put in what I can think to put in and pointed out what I can think to point out, but I have a feeling you could add to it before other entries for habinyanim get started. I would like to have the format be more-or-less standardized before adding the rest of them. Cheers! — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 18:38, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is definitely going to be deleted as is, if anyone who's in a deleting mood catches wind of it. If it's Hebrew, it's [[פעל]]; if it's a "transliterated form... used in English" then it's ==English==. If it's a transliterated form found only in italics, or otherwise definitely foreign, then we've time and again deleted those out of hand as not within our scope.​—msh210℠ 18:45, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

That's the thing. The word is not English, but (as demonstrated by Mglovesfun, we need to have something for people who don't read Hebrew but can very clearly see the words pa'al, nif'al, pi'el, etc. written all over Wiktionary and any other place that talks about Hebrew verbs. This isn't just a random choice of "I'm going to add this transliteration". Not only is it common, but it's necessary, especially in the absence of a detailed explanatory appendix. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 18:52, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

If it's only so people seeing the word as we use it will have a definition, then we can link every time it appears to appendix:Hebrew verbs.​—msh210℠ 19:13, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

(....And add a definition to Appendix:Glossary.)​—msh210℠ 20:12, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

"as we use it"? Here I was under the impression that it was a pretty basic term with a pretty basic function that "we" wouldn't need to alter. As for Appendix:Hebrew verbs and Appendix:Glossary, the former in its present state is next to useless and the latter... I can't imagine it gets a vast number of hits. I for one almost never use it. I think it's also worth noting that a vast majority of the words in the glossary have their own entries, which are generally more detailed than the little tidbits the glossary gives. Appendix:Hebrew verbs needs more detail to be of real use, but I was thinking of starting at the ground (with entries giving a few details about each binyan) before making detailed appendices. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 20:29, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, this is a toughie. People definitely refer to the various binyanim when speaking (or writing) English, but they use the Hebrew names, and typically italicize them (at least in edited works). They also often capitalize or even uppercase them, setting them off even further. It seems unreasonable to exclude romanizations of these names, seeing as they're genuinely used, but since they're not used in Hebrew, and English-speakers don't seem to have accepted them as native, neither ==Hebrew== nor ==English== seems terribly appropriate. Overall, I think my preference would be to label them as ==English==, with abundant quotations of use, and a usage note explaining the situation. —Ruakh 20:41, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] WT:GP#Hebrew:_Old_and_New

Thought you might be interested; don't know whether you keep an eye on the GP.​—msh210℠ 18:48, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I saw it, thanks. —Ruakh 20:41, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] sack

hey just wondering how you were able to judge an ambiguous RFV discussion 'failed', and how you justified removing a sense and its three cites. What else do you think you need for a clearly widespread low-brow slang term? -- Thisis0 06:58, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

First off: No durably archived cites were presented; I looked for some myself, and failed to find any; and it doesn't seem to be in clearly widespread use. Ergo, it failed. I don't think there was anything ambiguous about it.

Second off: You'll notice that I left the discussion in place. This is standard practice: it gives people a chance to voice their disagreement. If you wish to do so, you should do so there, not here.

—Ruakh 13:14, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wiktionary:Requests for deletion?diff=6784805

I'm sorry, but this edit was completely inappropriate. It totally changed the meaning of my comment. If you're not willing to fix the template — totally understandable, not everyone wants to mess with template code — you should have removed the template, or commented it out, or something, not change my comment to say something completely different. —Ruakh_TALK 20:41, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

You needn't be sorry. I'm sorry that I didn't accomplish what I was trying to. The RfD page had been added to a category and I couldn't imagine that to be what you wanted to do. I also thought that the discussion was basically complete. I simply didn't want to bother you about something as trivial as what I thought it to be. I was trying to take the RfD page out of the category without changing your comment and without troubling you. I'm sorry that I failed and offended you. DCDuring TALK 20:53, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

No worries, I'm over it now. It was just a bit of a shock to see my comment changed in such a major way — especially since I almost didn't notice it (I haven't been following RFD very closely lately) — but obviously you weren't trying to change the meaning of my comment. Sorry if I overreacted. (What happened was, I was working my way through this huge diff, and saw multiple changes to comments of mine, and started to get really annoyed. But obviously that's not your fault: only one change was by you, and you had a good reason for it.) —Ruakh 00:59, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't exactly blameless. As I recollect, I was rushing and didn't proofread my change. I'll try to avoid that kind of thing, but it's all too easy to slip up that way. I can understand your getting upset about such a thing. I would have been saddened if your anger had lasted. If you get angry once in a while, it proves you human. Anyway, thanks for the response.

You seem to have been busy lately. I've missed your participation in some of the discussions. You often add a good balance of knowledge and judgment to discussions, which many discussions would otherwise lack. DCDuring TALK 01:52, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] אחוז

Aren't the first two senses identical (and merely require a usage note that sometimes the plural is normal and sometimes invariant)?​—msh210℠ 19:43, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

If you prefer. Meaning-wise, they're the same; and you see the same behavior with other fractions (e.g., "שני שליש" vs. "שני שלישים") and other sorts of units (e.g., "שני דולר" vs. "שני דולרים"). Really, the current entry doesn't do justice to the variety of usage, because I wasn't (and am not) equipped to write an entry that does. —Ruakh 22:29, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I do. I've combined. Thanks.​—msh210℠ 20:21, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Displaying Wikipedia images on Wiktionary

Hi Ruakh. Can you tell me how to display images held on Wikipedia here on Wiktionary? I can’t get the link to work in this entry… † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 13:08, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

That can't be done; we can only display images from the English Wiktionary and those from Commons. However, since this image is in the public domain, you can upload it to Commons yourself, using commons:Commons:Upload. —Ruakh 14:05, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, done. :-) BTW, See also sections go at L4 in entries with only one POS IIRC. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 15:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Commonshelper is a quick way to upload WP images to the Commons, by the way.​—msh210℠ 20:23, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Noted. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 21:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Good to know! —Ruakh 22:26, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Huh, interesting. ELE seems to imply that "see also"-s, being a semantic relationship, should be at L4 and split by sense (using {{sense}}). I would never have guessed that. I suppose that means I have to {{projectlink}} in "external link"-s, then (which many editors already do, but I'd always taken it as a matter of personal preference). —Ruakh 22:26, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Improvements

Thanks for improving my entries, you may like this Liberapedia Article. Proxima Centauri 19:01, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] {{he-form-verb}}

How about an all-in-one template so we won't need the extra stuff like {{he-present of}} and {{he-past of}}? I should be able to make something simple that only needs a few unnamed parameters and one or two named ones. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 16:36, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Why? Given that each tense has unique properties (e.g., only the future-tense/imperfect-aspect/prefix-conjugation distinguishes third-person masculine plural from third-person feminine plural), the only reasonable way to create a {{he-form-verb}} without sacrificing functionality would be to have it test on the tense identifier and factor everything out into tense-specific subtemplates; and personally, as a user, I don't find {{he-form-verb|pres|…|cap=uc}} any more convenient than {{he-Present of|…}}. —Ruakh 18:07, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I forgot how pessimistic you are :p — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 20:31, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not pessimism; it's that I'm quite happy with the current approach. The approach you describe is one I've taken before (e.g. with {{es-verb form of}}), and I originally considered it for Hebrew, but ended up deciding that this approach would work better. Now, if you give me a reason to be unhappy with the current approach, then maybe I'll be pessimistic about our chances of creating a better one. :-P   —Ruakh 20:51, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] July 2009

[edit] + plcons stuff to {{he-noun}}, please?

I'd do it myself, but at the moment I'm on one of those tiny Acer laptops and your style of coding is different than mine, so it'd be a combination of a lot of rather awkward stuff for me. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 16:46, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] For the weak verbs

Do you think it would be worth having subcategories like Category:Hebrew ל״ה pi'el verbs? It'd be useful for someone looking for similarly conjugated verbs, I think. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 21:38, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

If you think it would be useful, then sure. It's not like categories cost money. :-)   —Ruakh 14:43, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Well yeah, that's true :) I was just worried the category trees would start getting complicated. Then again, Hebrew verbs tend to make my brain hurt some, so the tree of the tree would only really reflect the verb system :| heh — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 15:07, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

As long as they're all in the Category:Hebrew verbs top-level, I don't think it matters how complicated the category trees are, since they'll only be used by people who want them. —Ruakh 15:24, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Alright, I think I've got it all set up. So to get the entries categorized, all you have to do is specify the פ, =ע= or ל= in the he-verb template. Enjoy :) — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 15:57, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] nitpael

Hi. First off, I hope you took no offense by any of my recent remarks at About Hebrew. I certainly meant no offense.

ז־מ־ן lists both נִזְדַּמֵּן and הִזְדַּמֵּן as derived terms (because I added them there  :-) ). These are synonymous — both mean roughly "was happened upon" — but both seem to exist (using the usual RFV methods of ascertaining that), with nizdamen seemingly more common. There are other "nitpael" verbs also, particularly in older Hebrew. Is this another binyan, differing from hitpael only in past tense? Is it just hitpael, but an {{alternative form of}} it? I'd appreciate your views, or what you know to be traditional grammarians' or linguists' views.​—msh210℠ 22:39, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

No, why would I be offended?

I don't know much about these verbs. I don't think they existed in the Torah or earlier books of the Bible (?), and they're not very common nowadays. None of my grammar-books (all of which are for Modern Hebrew) seems to mention them. Of my dictionaries:

• the הַמִּלּוֹן הֶחָדָשׁ (my only monolingual Hebrew dictionary) gives נִזְדַּמֵּן, without comment, as the hitpael of זמן, and doesn't mention הִזְדַּמֵּן (though if it gave full conjugation tables, instead of just the primary forms from which the rest can be divined, I imagine it would give הִזְדַּמֵּן as the gerund/bare infinitive).
• Sivan and Levenston lists no nitpael verbs. (At least, I looked through all the נת־, נזד־, נסת־, נשת־, and נצט־ words — there aren't very many — and didn't see any.) It does list הִזְדַּמֵּן.
• Likewise Zilberman.
• Scharfstein doesn't list נִזְדַּמֵּן, only הִזְדַּמֵּן. Since it's organized by root, I can't tell whether it includes any other nitpael verbs. (I checked for נִזְדָּרֵז, נִסְתָּחֵף, and נִתְחַבֵּב, since they're in Ben-Yehuda and Weinstein — see next — and none of them are listed, though הִזְדָּרֵז and הִתְחַבֵּב are.)
• Ben-Yehuda and Weinstein doesn't list נִזְדַּמֵּן, only הִזְדַּמֵּן; however, it does include various other nitpael verbs, including נִזְדָּרֵז, נִסְתָּחֵף, and נִתְחַבֵּב. (It also lists הִזְדָּרֵז and הִתְחַבֵּב, with almost the same definitions.) It doesn't explicitly state the binyan of any of these. However, it does have entries for הִתְפָּעֵל and נִתְפָּעֵל themselves, giving the former as “hithpa’el, the reflexive form of the intensive stem of the Hebrew verb” and the latter as “Nithpa‘el, a passive and reflexive form of the intensive stem of the Hebrew verb”. (I don't know what to make of all the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between those two translations.)
• Gesenius (which I don't own a copy of, but is fully viewable on Google Books) can be filed under "ditto Scharfstein", except that it doesn't even have הִזְדָּרֵז and הִתְחַבֵּב.

So, make of that what you will.

—Ruakh 01:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Bother. So Ben-Yehuda and Weinstein list almost the same definitions — but not, I gather, the same — for הִזְדָּרֵז as for נִזְדָּרֵז, and define nitpael and hitpael differently. Seems, then, like a separate binyan, no? (I, too, think vaguely of nitpael as somehow more of a passive than hitpael.) Do you know of a decent Rabbinic-Hebrew grammar? If so, I'll see if I can ILL it. I, too, am unfamiliar with these words from Tanach, certainly from the Pentateuch. Thanks for checking your books.​—msh210℠ 16:12, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Re: Ben-Yehuda and Weinstein defining הִזְדָּרֵז and נִזְדָּרֵז differently: Let me recheck that, and give you the exact differences. I remember that it defined נִתְחַבֵּב and הִתְחַבֵּב slightly differently, but in a way that I couldn't interpret: I think the former was "be liked, loved" and the latter was "be liked, beloved", or something like that.

Re: separate binyan: I don't know. I checked most of the dictionaries' prefatory material, and in their descriptions of the binyanim, not one mentions nitpael (or even the more common polel and hitpolel). Even Ben-Yehuda and Weinstein, which contains several nitpael verbs, and devotes several pages to verb conjugations, doesn't include a single nitpael conjugation, so I don't know if they'd have treated it as an irregular hitpael verb, or as its own thing. The dictionary that's most explicit about it is Even-Shoshan, which has only seven binyan abbreviations, and marks נִזְדַּמֵּן as hitpael. If we're going to rely solely on external authority, I don't think we could go wrong with Even-Shoshan, as it's by probably the most respected lexicographer of Hebrew. (Though I should check to see if it defines הִתְפָּעֵל and נִתְפָּעֵל themselves, and if so what it has to say about them.)

Re: decent Rabbinic-Hebrew grammar: I believe Segal's A Grammar of Mishnaic Hebrew is well respected, though I can only hope the field has progressed a bit since 1927. :-P

—Ruakh 16:48, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Re Segal: No need for ILL, then! He writes (in part) about hitpael and nitpael: "There can be no doubt that they are really one and the same stem. The preformative הִ—‏ was in the course of time changed in popular speech into נִ—‏, on the analogy of Niph`al. In the popular mind ה became associated with the causative idea, through the influence of hiph`il, hoph`al, and נִ—‏ with the reflexive idea, through the influence of Niph`al. This change extended only to the perfect. […] In the participle the preformative מִ—‏ has maintained itself […] through its firmly established nominal force. Besides, it would be unreasonable to expect that an analogy-formation of this kind should be worked out to its full logical extreme.

"The preformative הִ—‏ survives only in a few cases […] . The Nithpa`el agrees with the B[iblical ]H[ebrew] Hithpa`el both as regards its meaning and its formation […] ."

Assuming Segal's right that the one binyan morphed into the other, perhaps any differences in meaning are completely analogous to differences in meaning between the identical word in Biblical and in Mishnaic Hebrew. The fact that he calls them by different names despite saying "they are really one and the same stem" is, I think, not to be relied upon by us: he also calls דִּקְדֵּק "pilpel", whereas I think you'll agree we should consider it piel. (Right?) Cf. Even-Shoshan, which you said lists only the seven standard binyanim.

Perhaps, then, we should do as follows: Have a full entry for whichever form is more common, and the other as an {{alternative spelling of}} it. If both are equally common, have both. And if the less common one has different meanings than the other, also have both. Thoughts?

Re polel and hitpolel: I've always thought of these as odd mishkalim of piel and hitpael respectively, but, as you know, I'm no grammarian. Segal lists them as poel and nitpoel, and includes the example נִתְרוֹקְנָה. But see my comment immediately above concerning his use of more binyanim than we need. A Modern Hebrew grammar would be as useful for this as Segal is, since these forms are common in Modern Hebrew also (histovev, e.g.).​—msh210℠ 18:29, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Re: "Perhaps, then, we should do as follows: […] ": Sounds good to me. I've never added much Rabbinic Hebrew, and am not about to start (I could see myself adding nishtaná around Pesakh-time, but that's it), so I'm very happy to follow your lead on this.

Re: pilpel: Yes, I definitely agree.

Re: polel and hitpolel: Right, I also consider them to be hollow/biliteral forms of piel and hitpael; but Strong's Concordance, for example, uses the labels "polel" and "hitpolel" instead of "piel" and "hitpael" where relevant. But that nitrokná example confuses me — it seems like a five-letter root, ר־ו־ק־נ־ה, but I've never heard of such a thing (discounting a few modernisms like טִלְגְּרֵף).

—Ruakh 19:17, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Fine, I'll codify the decision on nitpael at WT:AHE; thanks for the replies. Re nitrokna, the root seems to be r-k-n, in past tense 3-f-s, à la הִסְתּוֹבְבָה. Its existence argues against the inclusion of a binyan hitpolel: it would seem to be either odd-mishkal hitpael or hitpoel. That was my point in mentioning it.​—msh210℠ 19:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

But isn't histovev from the root ס־ב / ס־ו־ב? The paal is סב, not סבב … bah, this is confusing. —Ruakh 19:50, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

google books:"הוא סבב".​—msh210℠ 19:53, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh. Is there a difference between the two, or are they synonymous? —Ruakh 20:16, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Beats me.​—msh210℠ 20:29, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

You seem to have reached a decision (and it sounds like a good one), but for completeness' sake, I looked up the various things that came up:

• Ben-Yehuda and Weinstein translate הִזְדָּרֵז as "to be alert, be zealous", and נִזְדָּרֵז as "to be alert, zealous, conscientious"; נִתְחַבֵּב as "to be liked, beloved", and הִתְחַבֵּב as "to be liked, loved".
• Surprisingly, Even-Shoshan doesn't have an entry for נִתְפָעֵל, which seems like an oversight: even though the dictionary doesn't consider it a binyan, surely its name is used by other people and therefore merits inclusion? It defines הִתְפָעֵל as "[b'dikduk] shem habinyan mima'arekhet ha“binyanim hak'vedim” hamabia p'ula pasivit, ul'itim k'rovot p'ula khozeret (refleksivit)" ("(grammar) The name of a binyan, one of the set of “heavy binyanim”, expressing a passive action, and often a reflexive action"). Which is interesting, because I always think of hitpael as primarily reflexive and only secondarily passive (like the reflexives of European languages).
• I don't even know what to make of its coverage of histovev (etc.). It does list the root as סבב, with subentries for savav, nasav, sovev, sibev, sovav/subav, histovev, histabev, hesev, hisbiv, and husav (listing them as pa'al, nif'al, pi'el-1, pi'el-2, pu'al, hitpa'el-1, hitpa'el-2, hif'il-1, hif'il-2, and huf'al, respectively). Sav it gives only as an adjective+noun (related to saba, savta), so I guess I misunderstood that term. Though I note that the two bets do merge (haplologize?) in some of the sub-entries, so I wasn't just nuts.

—Ruakh 02:34, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks so much: yes, I was hoping for that info.​—msh210℠ 16:59, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Invitation to visit

Progress on Simple English Wikt is quite slow at the moment, and I was wondering if you and a few other thoughtful editors here would consider visiting for a few weeks. I know there's tons of stuff to do here, but it would be nice to have some interesting company at home for a spell.--Brett 01:46, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Hebrew

I prefer to answer you here. I don't speak any Hebrew, but I was convinced that modern Hebrew was Ancient Hebrew (with additional words, of course). It was a real surprise to me when somebody, in fr.wiktionary, began to create entries in Ancient Hebrew, and insisted that they should be under Ancient Hebrew. But there was a separate ISO code, and he used it. His work brought us almost 3000 new entries we might have lost by prohibiting Ancient Hebrew as a header. We should encourage contributions, not reserve them to those with some particular linguistic opinion, whatever this opinion. This is neutrality. Work and let work... Lmaltier 20:58, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

(Sorry, this reply is kind of long … I won't be offended if you don't actually read all of it, but since you brought this to my talk-page, I feel like I should fully explain myself.)

I think you and I define "neutrality" very differently. The "work and let work" ideal is not a bad one (and is also very wiki-ish), but is nothing like how I define NPOV — and nothing like how the English Wikipedia defines it, either, for that matter. You seem to define "NPOV" as "the cabal has no POV", but I define it as "our content has a neutral POV".

We never had a specific vote here to ban Ancient Hebrew. The Hebrew contributors discussed it, and while no one seemed to feel very strongly about it, we ended up deciding it was probably best to treat it under Hebrew, and everyone since has agreed to that. There had previously been one contributor (Dubaduba (talk • contribs) -slash- 8 (talk • contribs)) who added entries under the header "Biblical Hebrew", but since that contributor was long gone by this point, and anyway his/her entries were mostly unintelligible, we felt no compunctions converting those entries to "Hebrew".

For the record, I don't think SIL was wrong to distinguish "Hebrew" from "Ancient Hebrew". I mean, on the face of it, it's a silly distinction — SIL acknowledges that there's a lot of variety within what they call "Hebrew", and a lot of variety within what they call "Ancient Hebrew", and linguistically speaking, there's absolutely no dividing line. Heck, Modern Israeli Hebrew has actually revived some features of Biblical Hebrew that were absent in more recent forms of Ancient Hebrew. (Even non-linguistically speaking, there's no dividing line, since SIL doesn't give an explicit date, or other criterion, for when one ends and the other begins.) But for what SIL does, the distinction is pretty convenient; the great majority of Hebrew you'll find on the Web is clearly in the "Hebrew" category, and of the rest, the great majority is clearly in the "Ancient Hebrew" category, and I do think it's useful to distinguish those when you're talking about actual text. (Though the Hebrew Wikisource apparently disagrees with me: it includes both, without the least nod to SIL.) But our focus is individual words, not full texts, so for our purposes, the logic of uniting them seemed to outweigh the logic of dividing them.

If a knowledgeable contributor came in, wanting to add Hebrew entries under the header "Ancient Hebrew", and was otherwise willing to adopt Wiktionary norms (CFI, ELE, etc.), I for one would be quite happy to re-discuss it with him/her, and maybe we'd change our minds. I don't see that decision as set in stone. And I don't like that the Serbo-Croatian decision has come to a vote, because I don't think that decision should be set in stone, either, and votes tend to have a stony effect. But since it has come to a vote, the current contributors have my full support in their reasonable-sounding decision (even if one of those contributors is being a total jerk).

—Ruakh 00:03, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I share your understanding of NPOV. But NPOV also implies that we should not make a choice between different opinions in issues generally viewed as very controversial, whether political, scientific or linguistic (I would be surprised if you disagree). Wikipedia never takes such positions. There is a controversy about some languages, that's a fact. And I don't want the project to be closed. Lmaltier 06:57, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll grant that our decision to treat all these words under "Serbo-Croatian" is undoubtedly based mostly on the politically controversial view that these are all one language. However, for what it's worth, I'm not sure that our decision to treat all these words under "Serbo-Croatian" is itself actually taking said view. Basically, we're taking the view that for our purposes, it works best to treat these all under one language header and translation label. It's not exactly ideal from an NPOV standpoint, but I don't see it as the end of the world. Now, if we start actually defining Serbian (etc.) to match that decision, then we'll have a serious POV problem. (The term "Serbo-Croatian" has such POV overtones that it might have been better to invent our own language header, such as "Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian", but the relevant contributors chose "Serbo-Croatian", and I've no wish to interfere.) —Ruakh 13:36, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Treating the words under Serbo-Croatian is not really taking this view, you're right. But prohibiting sections with separate Serbian... headers is taking this view. This is my only concern. Please, don't reply (or not here), it was not my intention to create yet another discussion on this issue. Lmaltier 17:53, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Xyzy and HTML XML etc

Cool, thanks! I was not looking forward to doing due diligence on the specs ;-) Robert Ullmann 02:01, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] fmt=?

tx!--史凡/ʂɚ˨˩fan˧˥/shi3fan2 (歡迎光臨/Welcome! 請也用/Please also use skype: sven0921為我/since I suffer RSI!) 14:01, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

"Format". It's like "clean up", but more basic (clean-up requires thinking about how things should be presented, whereas formatting just takes mindless application of the policies and guidelines). —Ruakh 14:06, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

ic-tx!:)--史凡/ʂɚ˨˩fan˧˥/shi3fan2 (歡迎光臨/Welcome! 請也用/Please also use skype: sven0921為我/since I suffer RSI!) 14:44, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] one-finger salute

Thanks for fixing it. I considering asking you, but someone else might have figured it out. I was hoping there was a gimmick. So I just have to rerun the search for the message number. DCDuring TALK 21:00, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

No prob. The major issue was that MediaWiki interprets " as ending the URL: [http://example.com/"foo"] "foo" is equivalent to [http://example.com/ "foo"] "foo", not to [http://example.com/%22foo%22] [3]. While I was at it, I changed it to link to the individual message. When you're looking at a thread, each message has a "More options" link to the left of the date. One of the options is an "Individual message" link — which for some reason drops the search query, so you have to manually add that. (Now that I write it out, it sounds like a crazy amount of work, but in fact I do it so automatically now that I didn't even consciously realize how many steps were involved.) —Ruakh 22:12, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Any reasonable workaround will do. Thanks. DCDuring TALK 00:12, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Rostov-na-Donu and Rostov-on-Don

Thank you for nothing. Do you think that a million city and an administrative centre in Russia doesn't have a place in Wiktionary? Anatoli 23:38, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your comment.

The problem is, no one demonstrated that the terms Rostov-na-Donu and Rostov-on-Don meet our criteria for inclusion. They denote a large and important city — a city which merits (and has) a good article on the English Wikipedia — but that does not mean that the terms themselves merit dictionary entries. For comparison, New York County (a.k.a. Manhattan) is the densest county in the U.S., with 1.6 million people, a major financial district, and a world-famous skyline; but the term New York County does not have, and should not have AFAICT, any entry in Wiktionary.

(I should say that I don't really like our current "attributive use" criterion; I think it's poorly thought-out, and we do a poor job enforcing it, and the only reason it's still in effect is that it happened to be in WT:CFI when that document magically became "policy". We as a community are really rather dysfunctional, but if we were at all capable of formulating any sort of consensus about anything, I believe this policy would be changed in a heartbeat. But even if we did change this policy, I hope we wouldn't change it to something that depended only on the referent's importance. Any important city will have a great number of names and nicknames, some of which will be very minor names that aren't worth including. For example, I live in a fairly major U.S. city called "Cleveland", whose residents sometimes jokingly call it "C-Town"; but the importance of my city doesn't necessarily mean that "C-Town" belongs in a dictionary. By contrast, I grew up in a rather small town, called "Kalamazoo", with only about 80,000 municipal residents and 325,000 metropolitan ones, but the name "Kalamazoo" is probably much more significant than the city's importance would suggest, because it's often lumped with names such as "Timbuktu", and appears in various prominent bits of poetry for children. We might well want to include "Kalamazoo", while excluding, for whatever reason, names of some larger cities. It all depends on the criterion we come up with.)

Lastly, note that this RFV resolution is not final; you are still welcome to provide durably archived citations for either or both of these terms, demonstrating that they're in attributive use. (Please use Citations:Rostov-na-Donu and Citations:Rostov-on-Don for this.) Once you've done so, let me (or another administrator) know, and I (or (s)he) will restore the entries for you.

Thanks again, and I'm sorry if this whole experience has been frustrating for you. Please try not to take it personally.

—Ruakh 01:29, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for being rude. Yes, I am very frustrated. I haven't written or supported the CFI and the rule is not really followed in Wiktionary. Any large dictionary includes proper names, especially if they are of large city names. You can't expect attributive usage for names in non-English speaking countries, if they haven't affected English speakers. Your examples are not convincing, since they show a combination: New York County and a non-standard term: C-Town, which may not be known outside Cleveland. I don't see any problem with inclusion of these names if they are often used and you can provide a reliable reference. Rostov-na-Donu is a full name as "Rostov" (without the suffix) is a name of another city. Anatoli 04:14, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

imo geonames need inclusion alredy4ipa![btw ruak-ilike urking-J!:p--史凡/Sven - Pl also let me use voice-MSN/skype as I suffer RSI and so cannot type very well! 06:18, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] birther

OK, this word appears in Wikipedia as well as being heavily used in the news. What more do you want? —This unsigned comment was added by 76.168.193.190 (talk • contribs) 20:03, 28 July 2009 (UTC).

See Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion. —Ruakh 20:10, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Update: I've undeleted it. I don't think it meets our criteria yet (it's too young), but it may. See Wiktionary:Requests for verification#birther. Thanks for the note. —Ruakh 23:11, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] August 2009

[edit] Index:Hebrew

Hi, I've just re-run the Hebrew index, having added support for {{he-translation}} and some forms of = parameters in template calls (there are cases that it just won't spot, but hopefully no-one uses them either). There seem to be problems with only four Latin pages, text is translated as he:sms, perpetual as he:Tmidi, ibex as he:yael nuby and Z"l with an {{RFC}}. If there is more to fix, let me know. Conrad.Irwin 01:41, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Great, thanks a bunch! :-D   —Ruakh 02:22, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] minor repair to {{quote-book}}

Hello Ruakh -- Earlier today I was editing lay down the law and added the 1828 quotation from Walter Scott and the 1908 quotation from Upton Sinclair. I used the {{quote-book}} template because other editors had already been using that template on that page. And I got some funny business. In each case, the chapter came out listing before the title of the book. Visviva created this template, and a number of others, but he hasn't been around since April. I lack the skills to edit the code in the template, but I bet you could fix it in a jiffy since you are one of the rare editors who is both a talented lexicographer and a skilled programmer. Could you fix that template so that the chapter lists after the title (and volume number, if given) but before the page number? (I also think that the word "chapter" should begin with a lowercase "c", but I guess that's more a matter of personal preference.) (PS -- By way of background, for public domain classics, various versions of which are all over the web, I believe it makes more sense to provide a chapter number rather than a linked page number.) Here's hoping you can help with this. Thanks for all your services, past and future. -- WikiPedant 05:01, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

It's not a simple matter as that. The template {{cite-book}} calls {{reference-book}}, which has the "chapter" parameter in that position because it is designed to quote an authored chapter within an edited book. To allow a general book to cite chapter in the way you intend might require a separate parameter with a different name. --EncycloPetey 05:07, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Which reminds me why I usually avoid the {{quote-whatever}} templates. ...[sigh]... -- WikiPedant 05:12, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Me, too — but in this case, Visviva has left a comment on the talk-page that explains what to do:

For chapter numbers, you can use section=Chapter 4, which I'll grant you is a bit backwards. […]

I've edited [[lay down the law]] accordingly. :-)

—Ruakh 14:38, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, well, I should have dug a little deeper. I'm still pretty wary of these templates, though. Thanks -- WikiPedant 15:15, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Word. I'm generally very pro-template, but these templates somehow just make things more complicated. —Ruakh 15:27, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] comment on the SC vote

Now that I see where this is going, I very much regret your decision of prolonging the vote for a week. You should've simply frozen or failed it, or leat Atelaes close it (I think he mentioned the intention of doing so in a manner that would "satisfy everyone"). Things could get very ugly, not only because of these dirty political labels such as "Yugo-chauvinist": That IP address whose comments you restored said "Ivan, I'm still digging on who you are, and after I found out we'll have a little chat on this piece of s*** you've put to vote" ^_^ Not that I'm afraid or sth...--Ivan Štambuk 02:06, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah, sorry. I would have been happy to let Atelaes close it, if I'd known. (And thanks for the translation.) —Ruakh 02:16, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted revision

I found that http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy is violated, steward agreed with me and removed private data. SpeedyGonsales 17:57, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] hanzi

Ruakh, why did you flag hanzi? Anatoli 01:39, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Two reasons. Firstly, a section was added by an editor who was clearly unfamiliar with our formatting conventions, and since I don't know Chinese, I wasn't sure if I fixed it right. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I fixed it wrong: I moved the pronunciation section up, but I'm guessing that the "˥˩"-s in the IPA indicate the tones, and if I'm interpreting the pinyin right, the noun and the proper-noun have different tones on their second syllables, so that needs to be fixed somehow. Secondly, I wasn't sure if that section should even be there; do we include non-tone-marked romanizations? If so, what are the criteria? I was hoping that an editor more familiar with our handling of Chinese would be able to take care of that.
BTW, in the future, you don't really need to ask. People flag things because they're not sure of them. If you take a look, and everything looks good, you can just de-tag them. :-)
—Ruakh 01:47, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, I changed the pronunciation, that is, I added the toneless pronunciation and removed the flag. Anatoli 02:17, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Great, thank you! :-D   —Ruakh 02:18, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

EDIT conflict, added rather than changing. I followed 东西 as an example, which has dual pronunciation. As for just removing flags when thinking it's right, I once tried to remove flags from Rostov-na-Donu and you know what happened. ;) Anatoli 02:23, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:grc-cite

Thanks for fixing this. It works exactly as it should now. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 13:08, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] WT:VOTE

Sorry about that, nothing personal. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:21, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

No need to apologize. I feel no qualms about supporting early, as long as I expect to be on-wiki when the vote for-real starts so I can change my vote if the vote changes in a way I don't like; but I know some people feel differently. I can always restore my vote once it starts. —Ruakh 03:09, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] September 2009

[edit] closing a vote

Ruakh, could you please rectify Msh210's misleading edit which does not take into account the promulgated rules on closing this vote. The consensus is glaring - 24 for imposing the threshold against 6, in other words, 80% support. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 10:49, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I did not promulgate rules; rather, I stated how I thought things should work. We didn't actually change the vote to work that way. You may notice that I voted for both options. And I don't think msh210's edit was "misleading"; it was applying the stated voting criterion. Finally, I'll note that it wasn't "24 for imposing the threshold", since 4 voters supported both, and 1 of the first-option-only voters voted after the decision, so it was actually only 19, partly divided between the two options.

Nonetheless, I've replied. I suggest you take this time to add your vote to option #2.

—Ruakh 11:41, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

But if the votes cast for both options by a single person are counted only once, then what is the point for me in voting for the second option? Nevertheless, I shall do so. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 15:01, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] -latry related terms

Are you sure you meant to add -lator? The usual form seems to be -later; e.g., idolater. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 13:54, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. I spell it idolator, and google books:"idolator" says I'm not alone (though "idolater" does seem to have been more common historically). —Ruakh 15:19, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. It looks like the history of this word is far form straight-forward. I’ve sent you a screen-capture of the OED’s etymology sections for idolater and idololater; important, I think, is the development of īdōlolatra in ecclesiastical Latin and the syncopic forms (omitting ol) early in the development of the Romance languages. It does seem that the -er and -or forms are, etymologically speaking, æqually valid; e.g., nota that whilst the OED only lists idolatress, idolatrix sees some, albeit little, use. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 20:41, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Ruben

Anon added an etymology from Hebrew for several of the languages listed- could you look at this? Nadando 17:19, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Done, thanks. —Ruakh 17:33, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Actarus

Hello, Ruakh! Thanks a lot for your welcome. --Actarus ^{(Prince d'Euphor)} 14:09, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Sysops deleted

How do admins do that ----explanation of deletion---- thing? It doesn't seem to be in the dropdown menu. Anyway, the old title looked a bit like a MediaWiki relict, hence I tried to make something that looked like real English. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:18, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

They use the "Replace text in deletion log comment" preference at Wiktionary:Preferences. (Technical notes: It requires JavaScript, and is tied to your current computer and browser, rather than to your account.) Personally, I don't use it, because it always replaces the default deletion summary, and I don't always want that. So, I prefer to manually clear out that field when necessary. (Though if it always replaced the default summary except in cases of redirects, I might use that, since aside from that one case, the default deletion summary seems like a GFDL violation. It probably falls under "fair use", since it's so brief, but it just doesn't seem worth it.) —Ruakh 14:46, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] secretes

Hi,
Regarding your edit ("Verb: rm RFC -- this applies to *all* of secrete's verb senses") are you sure that the quote also illustrates the physiological sense of secrete (i.e. the usually involuntary biological process whereby fluids are produced and emited)?--Tyranny Sue 14:42, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

No — in fact, I'm sure that it doesn't — but I don't see what that has to do with anything. We have exactly one definition for "secretes", and the quotation illustrates it. We don't need multiple definitions for "secretes". So, no cleanup is necessary. Honestly, the quotation is pointless — it's a regular verb, there's no oddness that needs to be pointed out or elucidated, so we don't need separate quotations for its inflected forms, and the quotation should just be at [[secrete]] — but I've no interest in removing it. —Ruakh 15:06, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I just want to get clear - it sounds like you're changing your mind about the reason you initially gave for reverting my RFC?

I think clarifying the different pronunciations & usages of the heteronyms (especially given the situation with the back-formation) is important, and the quotations are very much needed.

Our definition of 'secretes' relies on our definitions - two quite different meanings - of 'secrete', so I don't know what you mean about having "exactly one definition". (And when you say we don't need multiple definitions for "secretes" do you mean quotations?)

Anyhow, I really just wanted to understand about your revision summary/explanation.--Tyranny Sue 15:39, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

No, I'm not changing my mind, sorry. (Not to say that I won't change my mind, just that I haven't, and am not in the process of doing so.)

The heteronyms don't have different pronunciations — "secretes" as in "secret" is pronounced the same as "secretes" as in "secretion" — and the different usages of "secretes" are exactly the same as those of "secrete", so [[secrete]] is the right place for that information.

We have exactly one definition of "secretes", because our definition of it has nothing to do with its meaning. When I say that we don't need multiple definitions for it, I mean exactly that. (I certainly wouldn't say that we don't need multiple quotations for it, because I happen to think we don't need any quotations for it — or rather, I think that any quotations for it should be at [[secrete]] or [[Citations:secrete]] rather than at [[secretes]].)

Do you understand about my revision summary/explanation now?

—Ruakh 17:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:onomatopoeia#RFV discussion

What did you mean by this? That doesn’t look like an RfV discussion, and the text lacks {{rfv-passed}} or {{rfv-failed}}. It’s been modified since then, which is why I ask. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 19:38, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

By "RFV discussion" is meant "a discussion at WT:RFV". If by "doesn't look like an RfV discussion" you mean, "looks like an inappropriate discussion for WT:RFV", then I agree, but obviously the original anon was less familiar with Wiktionary practices than we are. Since neither {{rfv-passed}} nor {{rfv-failed}} was appropriate (and I hadn't yet created {{rfv-archived}}), I just did a basic cut-and-paste move. —Ruakh 05:47, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

IC; that makes sense. I’ve fixed it now. Thanks. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 06:00, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Looks good, thanks. :-)   —Ruakh 06:10, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] October 2009

[edit] User:Ruakh/quotations

Would you be OK with having this moved/copied to template space (tagged as experimental)? -- Visviva 07:17, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Sure, but if you do, please strip out all the options: for example, instead of a noborder= option, there should either always be a border, or never be a border. (Take your pick.) The options were only there for demonstration purposes. (1= can be kept, though, if you intend for these to be used in ====Quotations==== sections as well. That's up to you.) —Ruakh 15:15, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "tough economic times|climate"

What's your take on tough economic times (or climate)?

• Is economic an adverb? (Weird, if so.)
• Or is tough economic an adjective? (That seems most likely to me, but then is it inclusible here as an entry?)
• Or is this is just some standard feature of English: that two adjectives can follow one another to mean "such that the [noun of the second adj.] is [first adj.]"? (I don't think so. Certainly I can't think of many such phrases without hyphens. With hyphens, yes, of course: red-painted house. But that's different.)

​—msh210℠ 18:13, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

P.S.: I've responded belatedly to your request at my talkpage on another topic.​—msh210℠

That's a really interesting question. Looking at google:"economic times are tough" and google:"economic climate is tough", I'd say that tough is an adjective modifying "economic times|climate"; I'd also say, given the lack of plausible alternatives, that economic is an adjective modifying "times|climate". But it doesn't seem to be a predicating adjective: neither "times|climate that are economic" nor "times|climate, which are economic" makes much sense to me. Economic feels almost like an attributive form of the noun economy: the sense is "in|of the economy". —Ruakh 19:04, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Reasonable. Thanks for your (as usual insightful) input.​—msh210℠ 15:34, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps good medical condition and good working order are similar.​—msh210℠ 16:26, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think you're right. And now I see what you meant with your suggestion that economic might be an adverb; "these are tough economic times" means the same as "these are tough times, economically [speaking]", just as "he's in good medical condition" means the same as "he's in good condition, medically [speaking]". That makes more sense than my "attributive noun" thing. But in both cases, I'm pretty sure that it's grammatically an adjective, even if semantically or pragmatically it behaves like something else. —Ruakh 17:24, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah (to your last point), but what I meant was more like that the adverb-like economic was attached to tough: "{tough economically} times". But no matter.​—msh210℠ 18:07, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Testing Opera's non-breaking space behavior.

The output is [33][160][33]. Just to clarify, that's Opera 9.64 on Windows XP, but no doubt it's the same everywhere. Equinox ◑ 04:09, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] theater/homonyms

Funny: I thought that page had been newly created at the point when I deleted it. Certainly didn't notice 50 revisions. Equinox ◑ 16:02, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Ah, O.K. That makes sense, then. Thanks for letting me know. :-)
(And we do need to fix that thing, if only because one of the senses was clearly added by an editor who only intended to add it to [[theatre]], but was led astray by the edit-link.)
—Ruakh 06:11, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Replied at WOTD Nominations

My apologies for the long delay in response - I got distracted. - Amgine/^talk 05:43, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

No worries. Thanks for the notice; I've replied there. —Ruakh 06:42, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Stop errasing

Yahoud ruakh stop removing word please like נוֹגַה.

[edit] Hebrew translations

Hi Ruakh,

I wonder if it's possible to add a flag "missing transliteration/pronunciation" (or similar) for Hebrew entries. Many Hebrew entries/translations miss pronunciation info. E.g., I was looking at ore, saw a blue link at עפרה, was hoping to be able to see how it's pronounced. Sorry, I can't read Hebrew, even fully vowelled. Just didn't find time to learn yet another script. Do you see any value in this for users? --Anatoli 21:46, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Anatoli,

We do have Category:Entries missing romanizations of Hebrew, and an entry with {{he-noun}}, {{he-adj}}, or {{he-verb}} will automatically get added to that category if a transliteration isn't provided. However, I'm not sure if anyone is watching that category. I hadn't looked at it in months, and I see it's now got more than 200 entries … :-/

—Ruakh 01:55, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I didn't phrase my question properly. Perhaps this entry - עפרה didn't follow that syntax. Thanks for fixing! --Anatoli 03:38, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] No usable content given

I'm not sure that deleting this was the best move as that was the only evidence of User:Mglovesfun's possible wonderfoolery. (See Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion#No usable content given) --Yair rand 15:46, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Would someone care to create an entry at the boy who cried WonderFool? — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 16:12, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

The evidence remains in the deleted history. (Granted, only admins can see the deleted history, but still, it's not as though the deletion turns this into a "he-said-she-said" thing.) —Ruakh 16:36, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Admins can see the deleted history? (without having to undelete the page or go through any other process?) Okay, no problem then. BTW, I wasn't the one to originally suggest wonderfoolery, it was a (formerly blocked) IP on the RFD page. --Yair rand 16:45, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes; we can see the equivalent of action=history, and for any revision listed there, we can see both the wikitext and a preview. (And it seems to be kept indefinitely; the deletion logs go back to December of '04, and I can see the deleted revisions from then. Though oddly, the very first deletion-log entry is a restoration of an entry that doesn't seem previously to have been deleted.) —Ruakh 16:54, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

The deletion log anyone can see IIRC: special:log/delete.​—msh210℠

Yes. I assume that's how Yair knew I'd deleted the entry. (When you visit a deleted entry, it shows the relevant entries from the deletion log.) What I'm saying is, I can see the actual deleted revisions going back all the way to the beginning of the deletion logs in December '04. —Ruakh 18:59, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Hebrew/Yiddish root of caraïte

fr:caraïte seems to suggest it's seems sort of Hebr origin. The pronunciation is roughly /kar.ait/ if that helps. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:20, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's from Medieval and Modern Hebrew קָרָאִי (kara'í), “‘Karaite’”), with French -ite (“‘-ite’”). (The French is three syllables, BTW: /ka.ʁa.it/. Hence the dieresis on the <i>.) —Ruakh 16:57, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

What's the English, if there is any? Mglovesfun (talk) 16:59, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Karaite. —Ruakh 17:11, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] November 2009

[edit] AWB Edit rate question

In your opinion, should I go all out and make as many of the changes as I need to as fast as possible to minimize flooding to the Recent Changes, or should I limit the number of edits I make a minute down to like 5-10 a minute? Which do you think is a good idea? Razorflame 23:28, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

If I may butt in, it might be more helpful to go slower so that you do not flood Recent Changes. L☺g☺maniac chat? 23:35, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Almost done now, so it won't be much longer. Razorflame 23:41, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Yo, read the docs on the AWB page. It says not to edit too fast. Equinox ◑ 23:43, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry. I'm done now, so it shouldn't be a big deal. Razorflame 23:43, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I would like to regain access to AWB. I will not use it for anything big without seeking community approval first. I've learned my lesson and am now wanting to be trusted to use AWB again. I promise to ask the community first before I start making anything that I think would impact the community. Razorflame 20:32, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

See also once bitten, twice shy. —Ruakh 22:25, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

That is exactly why I'm going to be more careful in the future. Thanks, Razorflame 23:18, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Me, too. Thanks, —Ruakh 23:29, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

So I take it this means a no, then? Razorflame 01:43, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

This means a "not by me unilaterally". —Ruakh 02:37, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Does this mean that I need to start another discussion at the Beer parlour? Razorflame 04:10, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know. —Ruakh 04:13, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Non-babel userboxes

Why can't someone use non-babel userboxes in their own userspace? It isn't hurting anyone to have it there. Why such strict rules about them here? Razorflame 20:26, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

No clue, but see Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2007-08/Babel userboxes and Wiktionary:Beer parlour archive/2007/July#Why are userboxes not allowed?. But really, yours doesn't seem harmful to me … if you restore it, I won't revert you. —Ruakh 20:35, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the links to those archives. I've decided to bring it up at the BP to make sure that I can use it first before I re-add it to my userpage. Cheers, Razorflame 20:54, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Main Page

I don't see how "from over 350 languages" conflicts with the fact we have 364 languages (which is more than 350, hence the round-up). -- Prince Kassad 16:07, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh! Sorry. Your edit summary was wrong, then; see round up. I'll re-revert. —Ruakh 16:15, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] I was in a bad mood in early october...

...and I apologise for that. It wasn't the good place to write that. No place was good to write that. It wasn't a good idea to write it at all. True. I apologise.

I just wanted to let you know that your translation of my bullshit was very good. Very politically correct, but very clever : I recognise myself in your translation : bravo !

Regards. :)) --Szyx 18:41, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

But why are you apologizing to me? I don't think that I'm in a position to accept your apology, since your comment was not directed at me, and did not affect me more than anyone else here. I'm sorry. :-/   —Ruakh 22:05, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] African American Vernacular English

Sorry about the sudden move, but I'm having trouble getting my articles in the right categories. Is it possible to reorganize? Right now it looks like this:

 Regional English
   North American English
       American English
           African American Vernacular English
       US Slang

Can it be reorganized like this instead?

 Regional English
   North American English
     American English
       US Slang
         African American Vernacular English

Heyzeuss 14:32, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

AAVE is not slang, and Category:US slang is already in Category:American English; so it doesn't seem like any change is needed. (Am I missing something?) —Ruakh 14:43, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese snooker

You're welcome. I forgot about having moved it; I probably just objected to a lower-cased chinese but was about to go to bed. It does bother me that, when the CFI-compliant citations require Usenet, capitalisation becomes a bit of a patchwork. I'm sure if the posters were asked to write the same posts in a formal context, they would capitalise. Equinox ◑ 22:59, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Subera

Subêra is a real city in Mozambique; why does it not pass WT:CFI? Warmest Regards, :)--Thecurran 04:23, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

See Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion#Names of specific entities. —Ruakh 04:43, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] coup de maitre

Thanks for the enormous amount of work you're doing on RFV. Does the entry above pass? I say logically yes. It appears more often in dictionaries than in print, but I've added 4 citations. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:35, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Yup. Thanks! —Ruakh 14:40, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] gẃraidd

Hi Ruakh. I replied on my talk page. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 18:48, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Reply: ARML

[edit] "tosh"

See here: http://books.google.com/books?id=5blNPE6gQWQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=semidiameters%20of%20the%20annual%20orb&f=false

Page 23

I said it was archaic, this book was published in 1702.

76.66.197.2 07:24, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

My apologies. "Semidiameter of the annual orb" did not get a single hit on Google, Google Books, or Google News Archive. I did not think to try "Semidiameters of the annual orb". My mistake. —Ruakh 14:02, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] RFV archiving

Hello, I have seen you archiving RFV discussions to the entries' talk pages a lot and was wondering how exactly that is to be gone about. That is such a huge page and I'd like to know how to help reduce it some.  :) Regards, L☺g☺maniac chat? 01:57, 1 December 2009 (UTC)