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Contents 1 December 2009 1.1 Template help 1.2 User page - time zone 1.3 Wiktionary talk:About French#Accents and ligatures 1.4 Gathering opinion on "Is a deleted page more value than a redirect" 1.5 Alphagrams 1.6 Letter as Part of Speech 1.7 Template:nonstandard spelling of 1.8 Chinese categories 1.9 Beer Parlour 1.9.1 Javascript archiving 1.10 Categories for morphemes: un/productive 1.11 The doublewiki on a single page Wikisource extension 1.12 Template:bird (et al.) 1.13 User:JackBot 1.14 What happened to "the next version of Wiktionary" 1.15 Automatic TOC in categories 1.16 The big Finnish monster 1.17 Main Page redesign 1.18 Logo voting 1.19 Another place name deleted 1.19.1 Clarifying placename issues 1.19.1.1 Clarifying placename issues — AEL 1.20 Active discussions 1.21 Reporting ABUSE OF ADMINISTRATIVE POWER 1.22 Placement of example media 1.23 Why delete orphaned talk/citations pages? 1.24 Competition 1.25 Toneless pinyin 1.26 {{prefixsee}}, {{suffixsee}} 1.27 (British) Alternative spelling of 1.28 Category talk:Topical context labels 1.29 bare-butt etc. 1.30 Redirects for apostrophes 1.31 Link to Foreign Language Wiktionary in inflection line? 1.32 Main page redesign 1.33 My concern is for the Prather family history. I am finding less and less about them. 1.34 Fundraiser (again) 1.35 Anagram layout 1.36 {{idiomatic}} 1.37 Licensing of audio files 1.38 Greek → Modern Greek (again) 1.39 Wiktionary:Votes/2009-12/Proposed CFI exception for SI Units 1.40 AWB request 1.41 Proposed pages 1.42 Wiktionary:List of protologisms/large numbers 1.43 Toneless pinyin proposal 1.43.1 Mandarin 1.43.1.1 Pinyin syllable 1.43.1.1.1 Usage notes 1.43.2 Mandarin 1.43.2.1 Pinyin syllable 1.43.2.1.1 Usage notes 1.43.3 Mandarin 1.43.3.1 Pinyin syllable 1.43.3.1.1 Usage notes 1.43.4 References 1.44 Braille 1.45 Proposal to pick a language for our next focus 1.46 Name appendices 1.46.1 Name appendices — AEL 1.47 Misspellings 1.48 etait 1.49 Mandarin, zh 1.50 Editable policy 1.51 WT: redirect to Wiktionary:, WS: redirect to Wikisaurus: 1.52 Harry Potter terms 1.53 Change Ido plural category to Ido noun form category 1.54 English plurals 1.55 Standardizing Finnish noun templates 1.56 My bot 1.57 Definition layout. 1.58 Translingual categories 1.59 Ambiguous category names 2 January 2010 2.1 Wiktionary logo vote 2.2 Vote: Renaming CFI section on genealogic names 2.3 Vote: Renaming given name appendixes 2.4 Wiktionary as a mathematical lexicon 2.5 Hidden categories 2.6 Numeral categories 2.7 Seeking examples of types of flawed definitions 2.8 Proposed Wikisaurus style changes 2.8.1 More Integration with Wiktionary 2.9 Preposition forms and prepositional phrases. 2.10 International Wikisaurus 2.11 Delinking {{io}} 2.12 Audio requests 2.13 Numbers (year?) preceding definition 2.14 Bing 2.15 Clarification or revision of WT:QUOTE#How to format a quotation 2.16 Titles for rhymes pages 2.17 RFD and RFV request 2.18 Reverse index 2.19 Is "idiom" still a valid header? 2.20 euphemisms 2.21 My bot (continued) 2.22 Italian plurals 2.23 ſ (long s) typographic variants 2.23.1 ſ (long s) typographic variants (section 2) 2.24 Pre-English section stuff 2.25 User:Opiaterein 2.26 Topical category prefix for Mandarin categories 2.27 Internet咖啡厅, Newton第三定律, Esperanto主义者, Einstein相对论, et al 2.28 Deleting Template:Wikisaurus-link 2.29 Category:Emoticons 2.30 Vote on deleting Template:Wikisaurus-link 2.31 Wiktionary:Administrators/Dishwashing 2.32 Add snippets of some sort 2.33 Latvian 2.34 Transliteration decision 2.35 Pulling our act together 2.35.1 Communication issues 2.35.2 Unilateral vs. consensus 2.36 Reversible words 2.37 User comment on an entry 2.38 Category:Idioms vs. Category:Vulgarities 2.39 Appendix-only terms 2.40 Wiktionary talk:About Translingual#What a short page! 2.41 Abuse of administrative power 2.42 New little new messages thing. 2.43 English idioms 2.44 Does spade meet our criteria for inclusion 2.45 Constructed and reconstructed language codes 2.46 Harlem 2.47 vitam impendere vero 2.48 Wiktionary:About Anglo-Norman 2.49 Right-floating declension templates 2.50 Darkicebot vote 2.51 Topical appendices 2.52 Flood flag proposal 2.53 Adminship on another account? 2.54 Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-01/Number categories 2.55 {{cite}} in FL citation pages 2.56 Simplifying {{nl-adj}} 2.57 Problem with Google Books 3 February 2010 3.1 RFD vs RFV 3.2 Where's interwicket?? 3.3 Abbreviations as palindromes 3.4 Institutionalism of languages 3.5 Capitals for pets 3.6 Babel category changes 3.7 ISO codes 3.8 Category:English terms spelled with ſ 3.9 Beta editor is broken

[edit] December 2009

[edit] Template help

Please see the discussion here. If you're good at wikisyntax, please help. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 01:22, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

done. Conrad.Irwin 12:36, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] User page - time zone

I would like to encourage that people put a time zone box on their user page, like the one that I have on my user page: "UTC+1". I find this useful for estimating the time frame of a response in a conversation with a Wiktionary editor. If you find it a poor idea, please let me know. --Dan Polansky 11:29, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, these are very useful, but don't they count as userboxes? We really need a policy page for what userboxes are allowed. (I think global account userboxes should also be allowed.) --Yair rand 20:20, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

That information is listed on Wiktionary:Administrators, though I see no reason to prohibit people from using a timezone box, perhaps {{user timezone}}? I thought we already had a global account userbox sneakily created by some visiting Wiki*edian, {{User unified login}} (you can tell it's an import by the uppercase first letter ;) Conrad.Irwin 00:21, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the timezone box is a userbox. It seems a natural extension of the userboxes for the languages a user speaks. It does not fall into the group of advertising edit counts, political affiliation, and other practically useless information. In the page Wiktionary:Administrators, timezone is listed alongside the spoken languages as key information about a user.

It would already help if people has the timezone in a paragraph text rather than in a userbox. It is just that is seems to me that entering timezone on one's user page should be almost as much encouraged as entering spoken languages, and that it should be entered on a standardized location, much like the spoken languages. --Dan Polansky 07:40, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

We seem to be migrating toward an explicit policy on userboxes of the form: "Everything that is not strongly encouraged is forbidden." I personally think timezone of normal location would be useful as part of an extended Babel box. DCDuring TALK 10:55, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

We're not migrating towards that; it's been in print for a long time already. Our Wiktionary:User pages draft policy currently says user pages "must not contain any Wikipedia-style userboxes other than Babel templates, though specific userboxes may be allowed after discussion." That was kind of the community consensus when we set up the draft. However, there are a number of NPOV things like UTC boxes that I think ought not to be forbidden, and if we have a discussion allowing UTC boxes, script boxes (also useful, such as those who know Cyrillic or IPA), or the like, then we can use them without even having to redraft the draft policy. --EncycloPetey 03:46, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Went ahead and made {{User time zone}}, which also allows one to specify whether their district observes Daylight Savings Time. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 15:15, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wiktionary talk:About French#Accents and ligatures

Comment if you have an opinion. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:17, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Gathering opinion on "Is a deleted page more value than a redirect"

Example shotgun marriage.

Can't remember exactly, but I was looking at the entry shotgun wedding, then must have gone to wedding, then to marriage. In marriage there was a red link to shotgun marriage, but, naturally, no mention of shotgun wedding.

So I created the page shotgun marriage with just a redirect to shotgun wedding. So, a user who is looking up the phrase shotgun marriage would at least get the definition, etymology etc of shotgun wedding, instead of nothing.

However, an admin, not long after, deleted the page, so we were back to square one. A red link in marriage, and no clues for anyone looking up shotgun marriage.

So, my question is. Which "Adds more value" to Wiktionary?

1. To have the redirect to shotgun wedding as the sole content of shotgun marriage, and thus no red link in marriage.
2. To have the page deleted.

--Richardb 12:20, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I know one argument for having the deleted page, ie: no page, and a red link, may well be that some people try to track red links (thus shotgun marriage appears in pages User:Brian0918/Hotlist/S5 and User:Msh210/Duesentrieb/xjf). But can this not also be acheived by somehow having a list of pages that have REDIRECTS ? --Richardb 12:20, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Redirects are considered problematic because they don't give much information, we could quite easily add pronunciation, quotations, usage notes, anagrams etc. to alternative form entries. Having the redirects reduces the (already low) percieved need to create such entries. I would strongly encourage people to use the search box, and not edit urls directly, then the problem almost completely disappears (providing the alternative form is listed on the page with the definition) as the correct entry is in the search results. If people want to edit urls or follow broken links, then they should accept the slight degradation in behaviour that results. Conrad.Irwin 12:41, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

But that goes against laziness, which is to say that it is not user-friendly. There is no amount of exhortation on this page that will reach the bulk of unregistered users. Is there any way to have a default in which red-links are treated as searches, at least for the JS enabled. This might be accepted if our experienced contributors could opt out (I'd prefer to be able to opt out.). DCDuring TALK 14:38, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

So what should be done with all redirects left over from the Conversion script (e.g. Inflammation)? Many already have been deleted, and it seems odd to keep some around. Should they be cleaned up or left? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 15:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The ones that were linked to from the main namespace were not removed. Special:WhatLinksHere/Inflammation. Conrad.Irwin 15:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Usually I remove the links for the main space as I find them, then delete. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

But why?? How is that adding value, not taking value away ? To me you are, in a sense, being a vandal, taking away vlaue for no good reason. If you have a reason, what is the reason. How is that action "adding value" ?--Richardb 23:47, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Alphagrams

(from RFD)
Someone (or a bot) has systematically been adding alphagrams to pages (see doula for an example). I don't see any point in these. Why are they being included? They become all the more pointless when added to words like ab. — Paul G 17:48, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Their non-wikiish style also cause contributors to place L4 translation sections after them, triggering rfc-structure tags. DCDuring TALK 18:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Conrad.bot, no? Anyway, this is in the wrong place as you're not nominating the word Alphagrams for deletion. Hence I'll move to the Beer Parlor. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

It's all per Wiktionary:Votes/bt-2009-09/User:Conrad.Bot to do anagrams. Though the vote page doesn't explicitly mention alphagrams, they were part of the showcased edits. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 19:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

If there's a structure problem, that problem should be fixed, but the whole projects shouldn't just be abandoned. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The problem is inherent in the use of a template. Imbecilic contributors see the template, can't imagine that it needs to be the last thing in the entry or that such a technical matter should be of concern to them, and insert an L4 translations header. (Imbecile that I am, I wasted a minute myself once on an erroneously place translation section I added.) Then the bot marks it and I clean it up. It hasn't happened often but the departure from our policy against that kind of template has not turned out to be without cost. I'll likely vote against such a departure next time. DCDuring TALK 22:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The templates have since been (mainly) replaced by real sections, I also learned the hard way. A list of the entries remaining the wrong style is at [1], which I'll go through and correct manually if the bot doesn't catch them this time. Conrad.Irwin 23:06, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I feel much better now. Really. DCDuring TALK 23:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Alphagrams were in most anagrams sections before I started, I assumed the rationale is that people wanting to find anagrams might type the alphagram into the search box. If people want them excluded from the entry when the entry itself is tha alphagram, that can be done. As with the indexes, I don't claim to know the best way to do anagrams, so if people want to suggest improvements, I'm all ears. Conrad.Irwin 23:06, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

As I'm for the idea I've launched the French speakers debate in parallel. JackPotte 18:20, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Alphagrams are explicitly allowed within an Anagrams section by WT:ELE. As long as there aren't entries being created for meaningless alphagrams, I don't see a problem. --EncycloPetey 03:39, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Letter as Part of Speech

I'm curious as to why Letter is a Part-of-Speech subheading and I couldn't find it discussed anywhere. Thinking of the PoS of a letter is a bit odd because it's one of the few times when both the name for the thing and thing itself are in the dictionary (the name cee and thing c). A quick review of other dictionaries reveals that the Concise OED, Webster's, and Random House all classify as nouns both the letters and letter names (when included). Should we? Interestingly they all subdivide the letter definition differently. The OED keeps it unified, Random House has separate senses for 1) the letter and 2) the speech counterpart of the letter, and Webster's has subsenses for a) the letter, b) the glyph, and c) the speech counterpart. I'd lean towards using noun as, to me, the letterness (that it combines with others from the alphabet to forms words) is part of its definition. What do others think? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 20:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

We treat letters proper (as opposed to the names for them) as translingual, which I think precludes using any real part of speech as the header, since real parts of speech are somewhat language-specific. (IIRC, EncycloPetey has mentioned that language names are adverbs in Slovenian — like, "I speak Englishly" to mean "I speak English".) —Ruakh_TALK 21:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

There are both Translingual and language specific entries for the letters (e.g. a#Translingual and a#English). The Translingual ones use Letter and English ones usually use Letter but sometimes Noun. I think the English one should be all Noun (other languages can decide for themselves). Translingual is tricker, but don't we treat the species names (eg E. coli) as Translingual nouns (or is there no consensus on that)? If there are some languages that use the Latin alphabet but don't label the letters as nouns, then maybe keeping Letter is fine. Does anyone have an example? If there aren't, I think they could be changed Noun as well. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 21:06, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Translingual species names are Proper nouns. They are defined that way in the international codes that govern their usage. The problem with labelling all the Letter entries as Noun is that letters are not always used as nouns; they're most often used as letters within words. The only time they're used as nouns is when they are being mentioned rather than used. So, if we define "L" as a noun because of sentences like "The L is silent.", then we have to define "you" as a noun for sentences like "The you in that command is understood." and we have to define "the" as a noun for sentences like "I forgot to write a the in front of the noun." However, these are all mentions, not uses. On Wiktionary, we normally do not group entries in part of speech by their mentions, but by their usages. --EncycloPetey 16:06, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Though I think of the abstract idea of a letter as a thing, you're right that we have to base definitions on usage. So if not noun, would it make sense to label them as Symbols with "letter" as part of the definitions? It would be analogous to saying the period (.) was a Symbol with "punctuation mark" as part of the definition. This could be used not just for English, but also Translingual. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 23:23, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not strongly attached to either system, but I think there is a very important and useful "grammatical" distinction between a Letter and Symbol. A letter is inherently a part of a word, where a Symbol can represent a sound, word, phrase, or idea. The function of a letter is thus specific, while a symbol can have any of a wide variety of functions. Since the English language is one written in letters, and we are the English Wikipedia, I think that makes the distinction even more useful. If I come across an entry labelled as "Letter" for its POS, then I know immediately a great deal about what it is. If I come across a "Symbol" then I expect to have to do a lot more reading to figure out what I've got. Were this the Mandarin Wiktionary, I'm not so sure that distinction would mean as much, but I think it does for a Wiktionary in a language that uses an alphabet. --EncycloPetey 03:37, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) I see the distinction you're making. I wouldn't necessarily call it "grammatical", though, but more "syntactic" since it's about how to compose units of meaning, not how those units get fit together in a grammatically correct phrase. As you mention, the distinction between letter and non-letter characters is a bit fuzzy. Even in Latin-script languages you have words that contain ( / ), ( ' ), and ( - ) (plus some more rare ones). Both letter and w:Letter classify them as "Symbols". Certain classes of symbols have more rigid rules on their usage. Letters have many, but also mathematical and punctuation symbols do as well. I'd still classify them as all symbols (since nouns are out:) More importantly, though, they should at least be consistent. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 15:46, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:nonstandard spelling of

See Wiktionary talk:About French. Seemed like the quickest, best solution. Should be used for other languages, like we have {{obsolete spelling of}} and others. I actually thought this might already exist, but I can't find it. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:30, 3 December 2009 (UTC

See {{form of}}, which allows some flexibility, valuable before standard wording is settled on. It allows more precise and less (or more) pejorative wording: "Obsolete form of", "Typographical variant", "Pedantic variant of", etc. DCDuring TALK 22:22, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese categories

At WT:RFDO#Category:yue-hk:Verbs Carolina Wren brought up renaming the Chinese categories I thought it was a good idea. Her basic idea was to:

1. Use the language name for PoS categories:
   • zh-cn:Nouns →  Mandarin (Simplified) Nouns.  zh-tw:Nouns → Mandarin (Traditional) Nouns.  zh:Nouns → Mandarin (Pinyin) Nouns.  Mandarin Nouns - stays the same (already contains all scripts) and would be the parent of the previous three.
2. Replace the country code extensions (-cn, -tw/-hk) with the proper script codes (-Hans and -Hant) for the remaining topical categories:
   • zh-cn:All topics → zh-Hans:All topics.  zh-tw:All topics → zh-Hant:All topics.  zh:All topics → zh-Latn:All topics.  Presumably there'd be a new zh:All topics that was the parent of all three.

   2a) An alternative here would be to note the script in the name.

   • zh-cn:All topics → zh:(Simplified) All topics. etc.

Is the wording clear on (2a)? If so, that would be preferable since it keeps the prefix for only the language code, but the wording would have to be clear. Whichever is choosen, though, I think these changes would be an improvement. Hopefully they would make the categories easier to understand for casual editors. How do others feel? Are there any problems with these types of renamings? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 21:58, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

As one of the half a dozen or so active Chinese contributors here I feel like I should give some input. Please forgive my lack of understanding of scripts and such, but I will try my best to grasp what it is that is being proposed.

Firstly, to be honest, I don't really see the point of changing "Zh-cn" to "Mandarin (Simplified)". To anyone who speaks Mandarin, the phrasing is extremely awkward. "Mandarin" (either taken as the group of Northern Chinese dialects OR Standard Mandarin Chinese) was never "simplified"; the script it was written in was. No one (certainly no one I know or in anything I have read) refers to the Simplified script as "Mandarin (Simplified)" or any variation of that. It just sounds... bizarre to me.

Secondly, what are these "Hant" and "Hans" script codes you speak of and why are they considered "proper"? No, really, I have no idea! And why should they be considered "preferable"? The wording is no clearer than "-cn", "-tw" and "-hk". I think most Chinese speakers could guess what the latter mean at first glance. "Hant" and "Hans" though - again - I have to say, "WTF"?

Lastly, I would like to ask, are any of the people proposing these changes Chinese speakers themselves? Given the awkward rephrasing they are proposing, my guess would be no? I don't mean to be flippant, but seriously, if any kind of major reform of Chinese is going to happen on wiktionary, IMO it should be done by (or in co-ordination with) the people who actually have some knowledge of what is being discussed. This is not to diss anyone, I'm just concerned that someone will change all this complicated script stuff and leave us poor (and less IT-capable) editors to pick up the pieces. Tooironic 07:42, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I second Tooironic's opinion. --Anatoli 08:31, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't mean to sound unilateral at all. No change should be made without the agreement of the active Chinese contributors. I bring the matter up on WT:BP, rather than on WT:AZH, however because the goal is find a structure that will enable casual editors to improve Chinese entries/categories. I and at least a few others steer clear of Chinese entries/categories because the categorization is so different than all other languages here on wiktionary. Chinese categories need not be structured exactly the same as other languages, but I hope there's room for improvement. Let me explain the reasoning behind these changes, and hopefully someone will be able find better solutions than the ones I proposed. The basic confusion I see arises from the implementation of the (good and proper) desire to have per-script categories for simplified, traditional, and romanized characters. Here's what I think is confusing to some editors:

-cn,-tw/-hk codes: These are ISO 3166 (country) codes are currently used to distinguish categories for simplified and traditional characters (Category:yue-cn:Nouns for simplified characters vs. Category:yue-hk:Nouns for traditional characters).

1. These give unfair emphasis to specific countries. Traditional characters aren't just used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, but in Macau and many overseas communities. Likewise, simplified characters are used not just in (mainland) China, but Malaysia and Indonesia. Additionally, it completely ignores historical differences within those countries.
2. It's not obvious that the lack of extension stands for the category of the usual romanization (Category:yue:Insects is for Jyutping romanization, while Category:yue-cn:Insects is for simplified and Category:yue-hk:Insects is for traditional characters).

I think it would be better to switch to categorization that is somehow explicitly by script. Hant and Hans are the ISO 15924 script codes for Han (Traditional variant) and Han (Simplified variant) respectively. If that is too obscure, an alternative option would be writing the script out. If my wording choice was awkward, perhaps you may provide a better one.

Organization between the script-differing categories.

1. Currently the name of the Part-of-Speech category that holds all scripts is much different than the ones that contain single scripts (Category:Cantonese adjectives which contains all three vs Category:yue:Adjectives, Category:yue-cn:Adjectives, and Category:yue-hk:Adjectives). Additionally, with the language prefix, these latter three confuse people into thinking they are topical categories about "Adjectives", like Category:ja:Adjectives.
2. There's no category links (or hierarchy) between the pan-script and single-script categories.
3. There's no topical category designated to be for all scripts like there is on the PoS side (since the extensionless form is for romanizations only).

There is no reason we can't have consistent names for both pan-script and single-script categories. If my wording was awkward, could you suggest alternatives (that hopefully could allow for pan-script topical categories)? It would seem to me, as one who does much cleanup, that the pan-script categories should be parents of the single-script categories. Does that seem logical?

I do hope that something can be improved. And I would be willing to help in anyway possible. Hopefully people won't TLDR this:) --Bequw → ¢ • τ 17:10, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your detailed explanation. Very helpful, though my head is still spinning :P What is "pan-script"?

I do get what you mean though about the pinyin and character entries getting mixed in together. This is something I raised a few months ago but no action was taken.

Let's take nouns and one possible way to categorise them:

• Mandarin Nouns (Simplified Script)
• Mandarin Nouns (Traditional Script)
• Mandarin Nouns (Pinyin Script)
• Mandarin Nouns (Wade-Giles Script) (do we even have these?)
• Mandarin Nouns (Yale Script) (do we even have these?)
• Mandarin Nouns (Bopomofo Script) (do we even have these?)

Note, I can only speak for my own dialect, Mandarin. Cantonese and Min Nan speakers on wiktionary will have to devise their own category names. (That is, I don't know what romanisation schemes are used for those dialects, nor how to categorise them.) Anyway, I think these categories would prevent that whole country-bias thing you were talking about (.cn, .tw, .hk), plus make it a lot easier for casual users to understand. However, when writing the actual script, we could simply use abbreviations to make our job easier:

• Mandarin Nouns (Simplified Script) → Category:Mans:Nouns
• Mandarin Nouns (Traditional Script) → Category:Mant:Nouns
• Mandarin Nouns (Pinyin Script) → Category:Manp:Nouns
• Mandarin Nouns (Wade-Giles Script) → Category:Manw:Nouns
• Mandarin Nouns (Yale Script) → Category:Many:Nouns
• Mandarin Nouns (Bopomofo Script) → Category:Manb:Nouns

As for vocab categories, these could be displayed like this:

• Category:Mandarin Nouns (Simplified Script):Insects
• Category:Mandarin Nouns (Traditional Script):Insects
• Category:Mandarin Nouns (Pinyin Script):Insects
• Category:Mandarin Nouns (Wade-Giles Script):Insects
• Category:Mandarin Nouns (Yale Script):Insects
• Category:Mandarin Nouns (Bopomofo Script):Insects

But written as script (again to make our lives easier) like this:

• Category:Mans:Insects
• Category:Mant:Insects
• Category:Manp:Insects
• Category:Manw:Insects
• Category:Manb:Insects
• Category:Manb:Insects

Are the programming whizzes able to do this? Do let me know if I've overlooked something, this whole scripting thing does my head in. Tooironic 00:13, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I was asked to chime in on this, so here goes. First, some points upon which we probably all agree:

1. Any modification should be more intuitive than the current arrangement, not less.
2. Any modification should respect the preferences of the Chinese speakers who are actually creating new Chinese entries.

The following represents my own opinion on the subject:

1. I don't like categories that include parentheses.
2. I second Tooironic's opinion that Hant and Hans are not an improvement over zh-tw and zh-cn, in terms of user friendliness.
3. If I were going to change the current scheme, and I'm not convinced that it would be worth it at this point, I would probably do something like:

   Category:Mandarin Nouns in Simplified script

   Category: Mandarin Nouns in Traditional script

   Category: Mandarin Nouns in Pinyin script

   Category: Min Nan Nouns in POJ script

The one thing that I don't like about spelling out the categories is that the categories become excessively wordy. On the other hand, I don't think replacing one abbreviation for another necessarily helps anything, and may actually turn out to be a step backwards. The argument for keeping zh-tw and zh-cn would be that, rightly or wrongly, their usage is long established in the computer world. In short, I think we should leave it like it is, unless we can come up with a much better scheme. Otherwise, it could mean a lot of work for a very minor gain. -- A-cai 12:58, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Are we also proposing to change "zh-tw:Fruits" and "zh-cn:Christianity" to "Mandarin Fruits in Traditional script" and "Mandarin Christianity in Simplified Chinese"? If so, that just sounds weird to me :) -- A-cai 13:05, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah I totally get what you mean. I think some people forget how far behind we are in Chinese entries on wiktionary (despite our hard work to this date). I mean I just created an entry for "rectangle" (長方形) yesterday! I'm afraid that all this stuffing around with scripts and whatnot might just be a big waste of time, and create more issues than it fixes in the long run. Tooironic 21:39, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

(unindent)@Tooironic. Thank you for posting suggestions. By "pan-script" I meant categories like Category:Mandarin nouns that contain entries written in all three scripts: Simplified, Traditional, and Latin (all the romanization schemes are transliterations into Latin characters so it's technically one script for all which is coded as Latn). Per WT:AZH, we currently only have entries for the main romanization scheme for each language (so we have Pinyin for Mandarin but not the others that you mention). For the topical categories, we shouldn't invent script/language codes (such as Manp, Manw, Manb) so I don't think that's the route to take.

@A-Cai, zh-cn et al. are localization languages codes (see w:Language localization#Language tags and codes). They specify the country (whose code is correctly capitalized but still sometimes lowercased) to target a dialect (eg en-GB = "British English") not to differentiate scripts like we are trying to do here. (We usually note dialect differences on the definition line.) So their's no reason to use them for this purpose here.

I think A-cai's idea for the PoS category naming is good. It's both consistent across the different Chinese script categories and it's similar to the PoS categories of other languages. If desired, a parent category (eg Category:Mandarin Nouns) could be used to relate the script-specific categories together and possibly also to contain entries in all script forms.

Is there something we can do for the topical categories? Following A-cai's preference (which is reasonable) away from codes and parentheses, would a suitable replacement for Category:yue-cn:Insects be something like Category:yue:Insects in Simplified script? This type of naming (which could be changed a bit if it sounds awkward) would fix all the confusions that I listed above. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 00:20, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Per your suggestions about Category:yue:Insects in Simplified script, why not do all of them that way? For example, we could have Category:cmn:Nouns in Simplified script and Category:cmn:Insects in Simplified script? The "pan-script" categories, if you still want them, would be Category:cmn:Nouns and Category:cmn:Insects. -- A-cai 13:05, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Because using the language code as the prefix for only the topical categories distinguishes them from Part-of-Speech categories. It allows for a distinction between a category of words that are nouns ("dog", "house") and a category of words about nouns ("uncountable", "collective noun"). See for instance the difference between Category:Japanese adjectives and Category:ja:Adjectives. Additionally, since this is the system used wiktionary-wide it would help other users edit Chinese categories. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 18:00, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Fair point. In that case, allowing for your argument, why not have Category:cmn:Mandarin Nouns in Simplified Chinese, Category:cmn:Words about Nouns in Simplified Chinese and Category:cmn:Insects in Simplified Chinese? Simply having a category called Category:Nouns for English words about nouns does not strike me as being all that intuitive to the average user (and has caused much confusion and debate, over the last few years). Shouldn't we call it what it is, i.e. Category:Words about Nouns? -- A-cai 18:27, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the naming isn't always obvious, but changing the policy Wiktionary-wide is a separate discussion. In the long-run it's most useful to have consistency among languages. Towards that end, were my previous suggestions natural-enough sounding?. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 00:06, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

They seem reasonable to me, but this is something that we may need to bring to a vote before proceeding. -- A-cai 12:08, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't hurt. I'll set it up and then post announcements. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 15:23, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Created Wiktionary:Votes/2009-12/Chinese categories. It won't start for a week. Please note corrections or changes. With regards to case, should it be "simplified script", "Simplified script", or "Simplified Script"? I see mixed usage across the internet. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 16:34, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

That's a good question. Now that I think of it, perhaps lower case would be better, since "simplified script" isn't really a proper noun. Also, just to clarify, the proposal is to change all Chinese dialects to this new format, correct? -- A-cai 00:43, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Beer Parlour

I don't know if this has been bothering anyone else, but the Beer Parlour is most likely more than twice as used as the next largest discussion room. A ridiculous amount of stuff goes in here, and nothing stays near the bottom for more than a day or two. In an attempt to fix this situation, I propose that the Beer Parlour be split into two seperate discussion rooms. To summarize the stuff that the Beer Parlour is currently used for:

• Proposals for new policies
• Proposals to change current policies
• Proposals to start/change anything else
• Bot requests
• Discussions about current policies, and how to interpret them.
• Discussions on the current practices.
• Discussions on anything that affects Wiktionary as a whole (main page, logo, etc.)
• Requests for permissions. (AWB, etc.)
• Announcements, notices...
• "Random stuff" (meaning everything else), which occupies a very large portion of the discussions.

Now, I would be okay with any restructure, but what I think would be best would be to split the first four of those items into a new discussion room, which would be set up with subpages, and the rest to stay in the Beer Parlour.

Comments? --Yair rand 00:20, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

How much could be off-loaded to language-specific discussions? In particular items that are English-specific. I understand that there are reasons to get cross-language expertise involved in languages that have few active contributors, but English has the least problem in that regard. I would expect that much of the "random stuff" is arguably language-specific. DCDuring TALK 00:37, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The English stuff could go at Wiktionary_talk:About_English. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 17:11, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I have just inserted "Move to WT:AEN" at the entries that seemed to have principally English related content. There were not very many. Perhaps some other items could be moved to English, but they potentially have implications for other languages. Such subject areas include "translations" and RfV. By policy only English sections have translations. I haven't noticed too many RfVs for non-English terms. I don't recollect whether that is by policy. Including these would at least double the amount that WT:AEN would take. DCDuring TALK 17:45, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Should Wikisaurus discussions fall under AEN? Technically they are only English, but AEN doesn't seem to be the best place. Maybe they should go to Wiktionary talk:Wikisaurus. --Yair rand 17:51, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I had assumed if the discussion was here, there was a desire for a broader audience. I hope that WT:AEN could be broad enough. DCDuring TALK 18:02, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't really care about the amount of stuff in BP, but one thing I wish we would do is have subpages for discussions, like we have on the voting pages. It'd make tracking and contributing to your preferred discussions A WHOLE SHITLOAD easier. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 17:39, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

That might be a big help as soon as a discussion passed a threshold level, probably well before someone would have felt compelled to add an arbitrary edit link. Some of the most voluminous discussions would not readily belong on any other root discussion page. I'm not so sure it should be done by default. It would be handy also if such a move automatically added the page to the watchlist of all (registered users ?) who had participated in the discussion or even to all admins or all registered users who request or don't opt out of such treatment. DCDuring TALK 17:59, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I quite like the way Beer Parlour works now - there are already several forums to watch, including Tea Room, RFD, RFDO, and RFV. Following the individual threads in Beer Parlour is a bit harder, but I don't see how managable the alternative of having one subpage per thread would be. There is already an established process of archiving BP, which works quite well thanks to dedicated archivers. OTOH, maybe watching all the currently running discussions in subpages could be done using the "related changes" function, given all the subpages would be linked to or transcluded in Beer Parlour. I don't like the option of creating several subforums managed in a way similar to the current BP, with threads being directly in the discussion page.

What could be created, however, is something identified clearly as a non-binding chatroom. Any old rant could be posted to the chatroom. The room would not be a problem-solving one but rather a digressive off-topic one. Right now, none of the forums is setup for the purpose, each focused on solving different kinds of problems. Once the discussion would grow serious, and would clearly pertain to policy making, it could be brought to "Beer Parlour". One of the problems is that the name "Beer Parlour" suggests that Beer Parlour is such a chatroom. The chatroom could be called "Ramble bar", or not. The content of the chatroom could be of IRC quality. Once the chatroom would be there, any posting to Beer Parlour that does not relate to policy making could be quickly redirected to Ramble bar. The present posting could, too, at least in part, be redirected to Ramble bar ;). --Dan Polansky 18:11, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I dunno. It seems like to many proposals to start something new just die when they get too high up in the beer parlour. (Whatever happened to the Portals discussion?) If these were moved to a separate subpage-based room it seems more likely that they would actually succeed. --Yair rand 18:27, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Many of my trial balloons have turned out to be leaden. I don't think that is a fault of BP layout. DCDuring TALK 18:40, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The portals proposal generated very little response. I personally was not interested in that proposal. If someone wants to start something, he has to show he is able to actually build it instead of only proposing it. He has to create a model portal as a showcase in his user space or something of the sort. But even that may be insufficient. In any case, a proposal needs to be backed with energy to work on it and bring it to a useful minimal state. If someone else responds positively to the proposal, the proposal can gain traction. But even when the proposal does have a dedicated page, it can grow stale. A case in point is Wiktionary:Picture dictionary. It got started by an enthusiastic person who stayed with the proposal only shortly. --Dan Polansky 18:53, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I personally find myself forgetting the names of discussions and not wanting to take the time to find them. Subpages = better. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 18:47, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I have personally long argued that "discussion pages" are where most of the discussions should take place, with a just an "advert" placed in BP. If we are discussing CFI, lets do it at the CFI discussion page, if discussing Wikisaurus, at a Wikisaurus discussion page. My analogy is this - Beer Parlour is like a rowdy pub. Everyone gets a bit overheated on a topic for a short while, then forgets about it when the next topic comes along. Meanwhile, the real long term, careful work should be done in the backroom committee rooms. Anyone from the Bar can call into the committee room to make their contribution, but can also first easily inform themselves of all the past discussion recorded in the discussion room, not scattered over many BP archives. Every so often someone can go to the bar and let everyone know the discussion is on, if they are interested. In addition, a category such as "Active WT Discussion" could be used to identify all these discussion rooms, so you wouldn't have to remember where they all are.--Richardb 01:53, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

It would certainly take out a huge chunk of the discussions were the ELE, CFI, and Wikisaurus pages to handle discussion about them, but we still have a huge amount going through here. Basically, we have three things left that go here which should really be split: new proposals, bot requests, and general discussions that can't go anywhere else. If we were to split proposals and bot requests into a new room and move discussions that already have pages for them, the Beer Parlour would become a usable size. The "Active WT Discussion" idea sounds great if possible. --Yair rand 02:56, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

One other thing I just noticed: We could also move some of the stuff about discussion pages themselves to the talk pages of those discussion pages. Which means we could move this discussion to Wiktionary talk:Beer parlour. --Yair rand 03:07, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Would anyone object if I were to move this discussion to Wiktionary talk:Beer parlour? --Yair rand 04:29, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

That sounds a bit like "which came first, the chicken or the egg". Eventually, yes, it might make sense. But not until the question is resolved, and implemented. But I'm not sure much would be achieved for this one special instance. Beer PArlour already is a discussion page. Do we need a discussion page for a discussion page ??? In this case, I'd say don't jump to doing it until the principl eis established and implemented. --Richardb 09:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Plus - be a bit patient. Don't rush this before you have enough people having viewed what you are intending.--Richardb 09:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

If this was only about the beer parlour, then it should be at Talk:Beer parlour, but it's not, it's about all discussion rooms. I don't see that splitting off bot proposals would do anything, we get maybe 1 every few months (we could always put them on WT:GP as opposed to inventing somewhere new). Policy proposals are "supposed" to be here, read the heading. A much better solution to this problem is archiving discussions better, I am of the opinion that we should archive them all to [[Wiktionary:Beer parlour/topic heading]] and (but only if someone is keen enough) to keep a log of discussions by date. The other thing that does not help is that people start lots of very similar discussions in multiple sections on this page, instead of going back and re-opening old discussions. Move them to the bottom again if you want to give them more attention. Conrad.Irwin 14:59, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Javascript archiving

Administrators can enable "Add Archive links to Beer Parlour sections" at WT:PREFS (after clearing your cache (ctrl+shift+F5)) or by adding importScript('User:Conrad.Irwin/beerArchiver.js'); to your monobook.js. Simply click the "Archive" button click "OK" and wait. Comments, bugs, improvements, please let me know. Conrad.Irwin 03:04, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow, this will certainly be very helpful. Just one question: why does it archive to Wiktionary:Beer parlour archive/Month Year instead of Wiktionary:Beer parlour archive/Year/Month? --Yair rand 03:33, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Categories for morphemes: un/productive

Is the productivity or non-productivity of a morpheme in a language stable enough to make for a worthwhile set of categories such as Category:English productive suffixes and Category:English nonproductive suffixes? It would have some value in helping with the creation of morphology-type etymology sections for some of our derived terms. It would also be useful for detecting certain errors in etymology (claiming modern English derivation for terms borrowed mostly formed from other languages).

One problem is that only some etymologies/senses are productive for some affixes (eg, -ly, -s). This is symptomatic of the more general problem is that a category is a language-entry attribute, rather than an etymology-language-entry attribute or a sense-language-entry attribute. Another problem is the intentional formation of archaic words of limited, though sometimes attestable, use (eg, be- ?). Thoughts? DCDuring TALK 00:28, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi DC – it definitely seems worthwhile and legit to distinguish between -ly (regular adverb) formation on the one hand, and be- or -en (plural) on the other, and AFAICT this is pretty clear and stable, outside of conscious archaisms such as boxen.

One may distinguish some of these categories, as in Category:English plurals ending in "-en" (which could use some subcategories for “men” and “children” – you can hardly find the oxen in it), and one could meaningfully use Category:English adverbs suffixed with -s, to incorporate POS in the category name.

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 08:23, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] The doublewiki on a single page Wikisource extension

Utilisation example on on Wikisource: to my mind we should install it and synchronise all the wiktionaries paragraphs orders to make it clearer. JackPotte 12:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

French version. JackPotte 12:51, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Expansion/explication by Amgine: The DoubleWiki Extension adds a small linked '⇔' symbol next to interwiki links. If clicked, the current page you are viewing is displayed side-by-side with that of the other language. An example of the extension in use is Engel & Marx's Introduction of the Communist Manifesto in English and Greek. Currently all namespaces of all Wikisource languages have the extension enabled. Urls add a parameter "match=[lang code]".

The extension can enforce exact alignment. For example, language headers can be aligned across Wiktionaries allowing readers to quickly find and compare translations or shared terms. This will require cross-language cooperation to insure a single standard for aligning marks is used. The extension is otherwise atomic, assuming the articles on two separate wikis have exactly the same elements and order of elements and aligning them as they appear. - Amgine/^talk 17:13, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to have any real advantage over just clicking on the interwiki and then clicking the 'back' arrow. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:43, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

But if would if a user had to compare more than one thing. Side-by-side would be easier than clicking 'iwiki link', 'back', 'forward', 'back', etc. Not sure if this is currently common, but it could be. Imagine trying to see if to#English had the same basic separation of senses on two different wiktionaries. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 21:00, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Not that useful, you can open multiple windows, then again, not intrusive, so whatever people want. I would personally much prefer we got the transliterator extension that we've been waiting for since August. Conrad.Irwin 00:06, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

"This will require cross-language cooperation to insure a single standard for aligning marks is used" - that seems like a very heavy cost for something that seems to have little use or support. I think you might say "biting off more than you can chew". Perhaps it needs the next version development of Wiktionary. What happended to that ?--Richardb 02:02, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with all this stuff, but wouldn't the standard aligning marks be headers? Almost all languages use the same basic format of ==Languag== (Sometimes with css) followed by definitions. Bawolff 20:57, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Amgine, does that mean that this can only be used for single-language entries, and other entries where the order of languages happens to be the same between two Wiktionaries? —Ruakh_TALK 21:40, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry about the delay in response. No, the current implementation defaults to atomic alignment - each block element will be aligned sequentially. The cool element is that, with a tiny invisible div tag, the language headers can be aligned, and the parts of speech, and the etymologies, and so on. The problem is starting the process of adding these small pieces. For en.Wiktionary it would be easy to do with Autoformat bot. It would likely be a bit more challenging to add such standardized tags on every other Wiktionary, but by no means insurmountable. - Amgine/^talk 05:28, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

A point I forgot to mention: Although the comparison page shows the local article plus one other interwikied article, the edit link is only to the local page, so one can be a single back/forward click from the editor. Of course, one of the primary consumers of this would be readers as well as translators; the ability to read a more expansive native definition as well as a localized translation is often helpful. - Amgine/^talk 16:34, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

For the concrete question, going to WT:PREFS and checking the box that reads:

Show an interwiki link under the language heading when one exists in the sidebar.

…yields the very simple and practical linking of Wiktionary entry in a foreign language to the corresponding entry in the foreign language Wiktionary – this is simple, low-tech, and works well for certain purposes.

The larger goal of “synchronizing all Wiktionaries” is a worthy goal, but rather better suited to a database backed dictionary, notably OmegaWiki, no? (Manually lining up paragraphs seems…baroque?)

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 08:38, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:bird (et al.)

Stuff like {{flower}} and {{fish}} that I can think of. Instead of proposing them for deletion, can't we just change the head word to (orthnithology), (botany) and (marine life) or something like that? We still have 700 pages using bird, but it's failed RFDO. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:32, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

No we can't, since these words are not restricted to a particular field of science but used in everyday life. So these must be deleted by hand (not doable by bot either) -- Prince Kassad 15:27, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I oppose deletion of these templates, and I oppose their removal from entries. They can be turned into category templates, such ones that are visible depending upon user customization while hidden by default. That is, these templates would be placed exactly where restrained-context templates are, would categorize the entry as they currently do, and would be invisible by default using CSS, but would have a CSS class "category-template" that makes it possible for a user like me to make them visible by placing appropriate CSS code to my custom monobook.css. On categorization, the template "bird" should categorize (as it does) an entry into the category of birds, which is a topical category rather than a restrained-context category, as follows from its name.

We should not change the showed label to "ornithology", "botany" or similar, as that would indicate restrained context. --Dan Polansky 15:52, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

You are welcome to propose a vote for such a policy, but this template currently is already in the process of deletion in accordance with a previous vote on the issue. --EncycloPetey 15:59, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I do not know of any vote on the mass deletion of these templates, but I'll gladly stand corrected.

I know of the vote Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2009-03/Context labels in ELE v2, which does not propose a deletion of templates. If it did, I would have opposed.

I also know of Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion/Others#Template:bird created on 29 April 2009, which, technically, is a not a vote. It is, admittedly, a precedent-making decision made outside of the full light of Beer Parlour.

And I know of Wiktionary:Beer_parlour#template:mammal, October 2009.

Anyway, I've created a prototype at the template "mammal" by placing the code "<span class="category-label" style="display: none;">(''mammal'')</span>" in there. The category label is invisible by default. The user can make the category labels visible by placing "span.category-label { display: inline ! important }" to his "monobook.css".

Other than that, votes are supposed to confirm current practice. The current practice has to grow from somewhere; it does not start with a vote. So my understanding anyway. --Dan Polansky 16:25, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

The vote you have linked above explicitly says "they must not be used merely for categorization". You are proposing using a context label merely for categorization, which is prohibitted as a result of the vote.

Template:Mammal was deleted in accordance with a full discussion on WT:RFDO. Deletion discussions are not duplicated in other locations. People may choose to watch those discussions or not, but items that fail RFD(O) should not be recreated. --EncycloPetey 16:30, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) I am proposing that those templates that are not restricted-context templates should be turned into category templates on the model of template:mammal. I am proposing the introduction of category labels for categorization. I find these category labels convenient, and some other users like them too. The category labels are hidden by default. What I am proposing is thus in no contradition to "... context label templates ... must not be used merely for categorization"; once the templates become "category templates" they exit the scope of the term "context label templates".

On another note, if the intended consequence of this vote was to get all the templates deleted, that should have been made very clear, so that I could, in good conscience and for very good reason, have opposed in the vote. --Dan Polansky 16:47, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

The template:mammal was recreated by Stephen G. Brown, edited by me today, and deleted by EncycloPetey before short, on 5 December 2009. Thus, people interested in what I was proposing and how it looked like cannot have a look at it. The template:mammal was deleted by the RFDO vote[2], in which three people voted for the deletion: EncycloPetey, Visviva and Mzajac. In that RFDO vote, msh210 proposed a redirection, although msh210 executed the deletion which implies agreement. This vote of three people is supposed to prevent any further recreation of the template by those who happen to disagree after the process. That is ridiculous. The RFDO process is meant to prevent too hasty deletions, not too hasty recreations by experienced and major contributors such as Stephen G. Brown. --Dan Polansky 17:00, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

As I pointed out, your proposal would require a vote to go into effect. Your proposed "context" templates are for categorization only, which was prohibitted by the previous vote. You can speculate about the purpose of RFDO, and you can be frustrated by it if you like, but please note that one of the reasons for deletion states "Failed RFD or RFDO; do not re-enter", and so these items should not be recreated. This is long-standing Wiktionary practice. the fact that only three people bothered to explicitly comment is sad, yes, but that's how most RfD discussions work. Most people either agree and don't bother to comment, or don't care either way in the matter, or else don't participate. --EncycloPetey 18:53, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. I agreed with the deletion of mammal, but since there was no displayed controversy, didn't feel I had to weigh in. Startup another vote if you want to see the policy changed. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 21:12, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) I do not want to get any policy changed. Categorization templates are not context templates; thus the result of a vote that prohibits certain uses of context templates does not apply to them. Categorization templates can be invisible by default. I have as yet heard no reasoned objection to categorization templates, no explanation of what harm they do, other than that they are allegedly context templates--which they are not--and that a vote on context templates forbids them. --Dan Polansky 11:57, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I just rfd'd {{flower}}, mainly to see what would happen. If we can word a vote right on "non-context context templates" then we can delete them per the vote, rather than by individual rfds. I just found {{city}} by chance too. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:51, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Dan, you are free to make a pure-categorization template, but I don't think that's exactly what you are intending. Categorizing on the sense line is controversial so such a template would be best put at the bottom of the entry. The name should be unlike context label templates for clarity (perhaps birds-cat). Finally, I imagine it would not display anything, ever (no CSS-optional display). But with so little benefit over simply typing [[Category:Birds]] it's no wonder that there are practically no entry-categorization templates in Wiktionary. What you proposed seemed to be a context label template for pro users (and it wouldn't even display right for them because it couldn't be "stacked" in correctly with other context labels). It would be confusing to normal editors who could see it's context-like name & placement but couldn't see any output. I would be against such a template. What exactly is the problem with just putting the plain-old cat at the bottom of the entry? What problem are you trying to correct? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 15:13, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Bequw, I have used wrong words when speaking of "categorization templates". The right term is "category label templates". The point really is to show the label to pro users rather than merely categorize the entry. I do appreciate that the category labels should better look different from context labels. OTOH it is clear that "(bird)" is not a context label, as "bird" is not a restricted context. If there is a will for finding a way how to make category labels workable, there are surely several technical and formatting options I have not looked into. On the other hand, if I get outvoted in the RFDO of template:flower that MG has just started, the discussion is over anyway. --Dan Polansky 11:45, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

It looks like you want to circumvent the vote for Pro users. "Category label templates" were discussed in the Vote, and to my (and others') reading explicitly forbidden. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 14:49, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I do not know how you and others read the subject of the vote, but category label templates are not explicitly forbidden in the vote AFAICS. And the phrase "to my (and others') reading explicitly forbidden" seems self-contradictory to me; either things need reading in the sense of guessing the intention and meaning, or they are explicit, but not both.

The vote was on approving the following text:

"A context label identifies a definition which only applies in a restricted context. Such labels indicate, for example, that the following definition occurs in a limited geographic region or temporal period, or is used only by specialists in a particular field and not by the general population. Many context label templates also place an entry into a relevant category, but they must not be used merely for categorization (see category links, below) ... ."

In this text I see no mention of deleting several templates, neither do I see explicit forbidding of category label templates; I see forbidding the use of context templates such as "geography" for mere categorization of, say, "river" or "mountain".

But this disagreement seems academic anyway. I get easily outvoted at RFDO of flower, which is going to formally confirm that the intention of the voters at the discussed vote really was to forbid category label templates. --Dan Polansky 18:01, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Dan Polansky, is your intention to help the reader, or just to avoid deleting these templates because it will be very time-consuming? Mglovesfun (talk) 18:08, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

MG, my intention is of course not to prevent anything merely because it seems time-consuming; and it is not all that time-consuming with the help of a bot that, with the help of a straightforward regexp replace statement, replaces each use or invocation of the template with a category assignment.

My intention is to have senses tagged with topical category labels, invisible by default to satisfy those who find this idea too pioneering or unusual. --Dan Polansky 19:11, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

We already have a way to categorize that is "hidden" by default (straight categoriation), so what you are proposing to change is to have the option of seeing the categorization at the start of the definition line. This is technically messy...very messy, since it requires coding to check all manner of things before it displays. If placed at the start of the definition line, such a template would have to interact with {{context}}, in case people started using the expected code like {{context|archaic|Australia|mammal}}, and so would have to be a kind of context template. You can't get around that by claiming it's not a context template. You are intending it to do the same job, but to be hidden from most users and from all anons. --EncycloPetey 15:03, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I've got another idea. We could use category tags like those proposed by Dan, but limited to non-English entries and added at the end of senses. This in order to avoid or limit the need to add a lot of definitions to non-English entries (like it happens in the underneath example of фаланга). You can see how this would work in User:Barmar/Italian N1, an example that I have created with an invented Italian word with invented meanings and categories. Basically, you have a categorization label ie {{tree||lang=x}} that includes a white space for comments or scientific names for plants and animals (IMHO useful because often different plants or animals share the same common name) and a language parameter. This category label would add at the same time definitions to different meanings of a given word and categories at the end of the entry. Any thoughts? --Barmar 15:28, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi there (and sorry for my written English that is not very good). Here's my two cents. And what about using for common plant/animal names something like (comm., botany) or (comm., zoology) where comm. means common name, like some dictionaries do? I mean, the template {{fish}} applied to the word shark would add (comm., zoology) at the beginning of the definition and the category [[Category:Fish]] at its end. The template {{plant}} applied to tansy would add the (comm., botany) at the beginning of the definition and the category [[Category:Plant]] at its end. And so on for mammals, trees, mollusks and so on. This would be very beneficial for non-English entries, where there is more need of categorization because we usually don't use definitions. Without category tags like botany or zoology or whatever would become more difficult to distinguish between the many meanings of a single word. --Barmar 09:28, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I want to second Barmar here. I disagree with the results of the Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2009-03/Context_labels_in_ELE_v2 vote, whereby context labels now “indicate usage as jargon within the indicated field”. This may make sense in an En-En dictionary, where the definitions are fully written, but not so for FL entries. A context (zoology) would help me immediately to understand that the “shark” in акула refers to the fish and not the figurative senses. Also, with contexts (history) and (anatomy) I can easily define фаланга without explaining in parentheses that the first sense is about the military unit, the second about the bone; and the word gets categorized at the same time. In short, I think {{fish}} should display as (zoology) and categorize into Category:xx:Fish; {{flower}} should display as (botany) and categorize into Category:xx:Flowers; that’s what 90% of my bilingual dictionaries do.

Also, let's not act like Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2009-03/Context_labels_in_ELE_v2's 7-2-1 result is a genuine consensus. I know at least three more people who haven't voted but would like the labels behave like I described. --Vahagn Petrosyan 11:24, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Vahagn, I can tell you from personal experience that botanists do not use the common names of flowers, so to label then with (botany) would be positively misleading. Those words are not part of botanical jargon; they are used by gardeners, horticulturalists, and amateur nature lovers, but not by botanists. Worse, some of the so-called "common names" aren't actually used by anyone except publishers of field guides. --EncycloPetey 21:59, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

My point is that we should not use context labels to mark words that are part of a jargon in a certain field. To me, a context label is a means of distinguishing senses and translations of French grue. I just looked up my fr-en dictionaries: all of them mark the bird sense as (zoology) or (ornithology), and the machine sense as (technology). I cannot see why would you want to replace this useful purpose of context labels (accepted by most bilingual dictionaries) with the function of merely indicating certain-area-jargon. --Vahagn Petrosyan 13:28, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

I would support reversing that vote, which I regret not participating in. The problem seems to me that as it is being implemented, it has the effect of wiping out content by converting sense-level information to language-level information. I would have hoped that this would bother people as they were doing it. At the very least the process of template deletion has to stop now. DCDuring TALK 11:52, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

@Vahagn Petrosyan: your example about акула is perfect. Actually with tags like (comm. botany) where comm. means common name or (comm. zoology) I was proposing something different: a compromise between context label = technical jargon and context label = common use/sense of the word. @DCDuring: could you please explain what you mean by 'language-level information'? (sorry, I've not understood) --Barmar 13:54, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry that I relied so much on context. Thanks for the opportunity to clarify. A category is naturally associated with a page, in principal namespace, an entry. By our practice, a context is associated with a sense. By our practice and category structure, we also have specialized our categories to be language-specific. I was referring to this as "language level". The narrowest specification of category information is an L2 language header. This is certainly useful. But, for long language sections (most commonly, English), it is not at all easy to determine which sense might be associated with a particular category.

For me the problem arises in associating grammatical or grammatical/semantic categories with particular senses. I am using these to attempt to improve the quality of the definitions, usage examples and synonyms for adverbs, for example. I cannot do it without context tags which are visible to me, short of some kind of rectal tonsillectomy, which is beyond both my surgical and technical skills. DCDuring TALK 15:39, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Can you give a specific example so that maybe a technical solution can be found? Carolina put forth the idea of categorizing on the sense-line. This accomplishes the goal of relating cats to senses, but it's slightly hidden in the wikitext. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 01:45, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I was hoping for something visible without opening the editbox. I can insert as comment a terse abbreviation that reminds me of the category and doesn't waste edit box space (long full category names), but it is double work.

See the subcategories under Categories:English adverbs, such as Category:English degree adverbs. "Degree adverb" is a characteristic associated with a sense. It is arguably not a satisfactory term for normal users, but it is very useful for those who might be hoping to improve the entry. There is nothing technically complicated about having it appear as a context label and having the context template assign the headword to a category. The problem is just in whether we want to exclude that orienting information from appearing because it violates our idea of the purpose of a context label. It looks too much like scaffolding and chalklines, not like the facade of a finished building. To me we are still a construction site: entries that seemed great two years ago already could stand some major upgrades. So perhaps what I'm looking for is a class of sense templates that assign a category and provide a label that can be seen by registered users who wish to see them. If this turns out to be too complicated or of insufficiently wide interest, then I can make do, as HippieTrails seems to have, with embedded comments visible only in the edit box. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 03:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

But Barmar, shark is not a common name of any species; it is a everyday word which does not quite correspond to any taxonomic category. Your label would therefore be incorrect. Even more problematic, there is no longer any taxonomically defined group that corresponds to fish; zoologists use technical terms to refer to certain groups of fish, but "fish" is no longer a taxonomic category and thus "fish" is not the common name of any current zoological taxon. What you are proposing we do, then, is to inappropriately label items that are simply everyday words. Also, what would you do for a word that translates as "plant" (in the sense of the organism)? There are at least three different botanical meanings of that term in use that are very, very different. Labelling as (plant) or (botany) would not help clarify such a situation. It is better by far to put the definition in the definition, rather than try to cheat by putting some of the definition into a category tag. --EncycloPetey 21:55, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok some dictionaries don't agree on that, but I definitely prefer editing to discussing :), so if I have understood it right, in non-English entries we must add definitions to translations. I.e. фаланга (example of Vahagn Petrosyan) would become

===Noun===
фаланга (falánga) f.
  1. phalanx (ancient Greek military unit)
  2.  phalanx (bone of the finger or toe)
  3.  sun spider, wind scorpion (insect of the genus Solifugae<-or whatever it is) 

Can you confirm this? --Barmar 08:16, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

It could, yes, except the last could simply be glossed (arachnid)...it isn't an insect. However, I rather doubt that either sun spider or wind scorpion have any other meaning in English, so no additional gloss should be necessary at all. Also, depending on its actual usage, phalanx (2) could be labelled (anatomy) as it currently is. That depends on whether it's an everyday word or anatomical jargon. If it's jargon, like it is in English, then the (anatomy) context tag is correct as it stands in the entry. --EncycloPetey 15:52, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] User:JackBot

For a few days, we need to make apply the terms consensus in our categories in order to correct a grammatical error. After an IRC confirmation, I've begun manually today, and for Category:English_terms_spelled_with_ligatures I could also test automatically with replace.py, before being stopped by EncycloPetey (I apologize for the time I made lost to him), because I've abused to let the script modify its 200 entries whereas our policy tells 10-100 entries enough clearly.

As far I can see there is now around 1,000 articles to change with a bot.

If nobody wants to do it I propose to continue 1 week with a bot flag:

1. Your user name: User:JackPotte.
2. The proposed bot user name: User:JackBot (already flagged on fr.wikt).
3. The bot software you'll be using, with pointers to its source and documentation if it's not standard: replace.py.
4. An indication of the task or tasks you'll be performing with the bot: replace the string of characters "words" by "terms" in a few categories in around 1,000 articles.

JackPotte 20:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Sounds okay. Create the bot User page, and indicate the replacement patterns (regexp) if you would. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 21:15, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

 Done, with the converter, it's "Category:English words spelled with ligatures" replaced by "Category:English terms spelled with ligatures" in the pages described on my bot request profile. JackPotte 22:12, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

• I noticed no prior consensus. I also can't understand what is being proposed. That is, I do not understand the sentences as English. The word "consensus" doesn't match my understanding. I have no idea who the referent for "we" is. I don't recognize "make apply". I have no idea what any of the discussion has ever had to do with a "grammatical error". And that's just the first sentence. It is very difficult to trust any process so dreadfully explained. DCDuring TALK 01:09, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Clearly, "hors d'œuvre" isn't a single word, and "hors" doesn't include any ligature. Yesterday I wasn't the only one to understand this current grammatical problem to let it in Category:English words spelled with ligatures, on this page, the French equivalent and on the #Wiktionary, for more than 15 days. That's why I begun to correct it. JackPotte 09:52, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

JackPotte, that's almost a punny use of grammatical, the issue is in the choice of word and the word is about grammar (you'd need a whole sentence to find a grammatical error), also you need a WT:VOTE to get a bot flag. DCDuring, I think this is "consensus" as in "lack of disagreement despite publicity" (the discussion was on WT:BP afterall). The process is simple enough, replace the many occurances of the word "words" in our category names by the word "terms"; the rationale is that a "word" is commonly (mis)understood to mean a set of letters without spaces, wheras a "term" has a broader intuitive meaning. Conrad.Irwin 10:06, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Ahh. Intelligibility. Trust. DCDuring TALK 10:29, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

If we have a bot vote, that will quite clearly discuss what the bot is actually doing, which will serve as a consensus in this case, right? Mglovesfun (talk) 10:58, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Fulfil(l)ed. JackPotte 11:54, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] What happened to "the next version of Wiktionary"

In the past there was a proposal for a next version of Wiktionary, using software specifically developed to support Wiktionary, a semantic network etc. Instead we seem to have an ever increasingly complicated Wiktionary with a labyrinth of templates and layout rules, with serious arguments between those like me, interested in adding new words, new information, but not too fussed about format and layout, and those very concerned about layout and format.

• Does anyone know what happened to that proposed new version ?
• Should the community perhaps be more interested in developing such seemingly necessary new software, rather than making Wiktionary increasingly complex, complicated ?--Richardb 02:11, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

See http://omegawiki.org/ Such software would be nice, and I (and many others) have given a lot of thought to how to do it. To be successful, I think the following must remain true:

1. It must be a smooth transition. (There's no way we can expect all users to unilateraly move to a new system that requires new training and skills, there's also no easy way to import the wealth of information we already have)
2. It must be able to encode all the information we have now, even the stuff that means nothing to a computer and is just notes for humans.
3. It must be flexible enough to allow non-technical users to add all the information they want to in a manner that is readable by a computer.

OmegaWiki took a different viewpoint and just started from scratch, they have lots of translations and definitions, and technical-looking pages (though I'd be the first to admit that ours are hardly less intimidating for the uninitiated).

The way I would like to see evolution in the immediate future is to stick with the Wiktionary we have in the middle, but to work downwards (towards machines) and upwards (towards humans). The downwards work would consist of adding a basic API, and then making the wikitext more regular and templatised; meanwhile the upwards work would be projects like WT:EDIT which allow the humans to add knowledge without needing knowledge of the formatting (though the wikitext will still be there for the advanced users and robots who wish/need to edit it). The difficulty with downwards development is doing it in a manner that Wikimedia will permit on their servers (i.e. it has to be reasonably efficient), the difficulty with upwards development is trying to design interfaces that are actually pleasant to use. (And of course the whole thing is made harder because you can't build in either direction individually, better editing tools need more structured wikitext, and more structured wikitext requires tools to hepl people edit). Conrad.Irwin 02:37, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd say that working upwards is more important at the moment. It would be great to have something like WT:EDIT for Wikisaurus. And for topic categories... --Yair rand 03:11, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Automatic TOC in categories

These changes were made by me some months ago, but in case you want to know, improve, criticize, praise or discuss:

1. TOC templates are added automatically into every POS category (programmed with {{poscatboiler}}) and every affix category (programmed with {{affixcatboiler}}), considering the examples below.
2. There is a {{ru-categoryTOC}} but not a {{ru-categoryTOC/full}}, so the existing template is added into all Russian categories that contain more than 200 members.
3. There is a {{pt-categoryTOC}} and a {{pt-categoryTOC/full}}, so the former is added into Portuguese categories that contain more than 200 members, except those with 2500 or more members. When a Portuguese category has 2500 or more members, {{pt-categoryTOC/full}} is used instead.
4. The exact naming scheme is "Template:xx-categoryTOC" and "Template:xx-categoryTOC/full", where xx is any language code. For consistency reasons, old messy template names such as hypothetical "Template:EnglishTOC" or "Template:TOC-en" wouldn't work.

--Daniel. 11:09, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] The big Finnish monster

Okay I was talking to Jyril about this yesterday and I think it's about time someone (namely me, at least partially) tackled this. What I propose to do is make it like Category:Hungarian noun forms. I don't know how hard it'll be but Jyril did say {{fi-form of}} or something was made in such a way that it'd be easy to do this. Thoughts? (and yes..., I know that a categorisation issue such as this is not Wiktionary as a whole's no. 1 priority but it's something I want to deal with) 50 Xylophone Players talk 19:55, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

mazel tov; whatever floats your boat - seriously. DCDuring TALK 20:10, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any purpose in these numerous noun/verb forms subcategories. IMHO they should all be kept together in one giant PoS category like Finnish. And also noun plurals categories - they make no sense for languages with cases such as Finnish and Hungarian. It's not "plural form of <lemma>", it's "nominative plural form of <lemma>" (and usually some other case as well). --Ivan Štambuk 21:23, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I hate the idea of maybe someday having over a million entries in categories like this as I already stated on Jyril's talk page. As for the "(nominative) plural of", it makes some sense because nom. plural is the simple plural form indicating nothing but plurality, e.g. házak corresponds to "houses", whereas házakban corresponds to "in houses". Perhaps a note should be added to Category:Hungarian plurals to disambiguate the matter of exactly what kind of plurals they are. Category:Swedish plurals already has something doing the same kind of job. 50 Xylophone Players talk 15:22, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Like Ivan, I see no purpose in micro-categorizing all the inflected form entries according to the specifics of their morphologies/grammar. --EncycloPetey 02:43, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, even if you have separate subcategories for specific case forms (which might possibly come in handy, although a case in point is not evident to me at this time), I don't really see why the entries should not also be categorized in the main noun form category. I think there is greater need for a category that lists (ideally and hopefully eventually) all conceivable noun forms than noun forms within a specific case. So, to sum it up: keep the main noun forms category as it is, but by all means add the others if you find it useful. – Krun 11:29, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Main Page redesign

The Main page redesign seems to have basically died down. Anyone want to try a six-day rush job, throwing in nominations for the new features and deciding all the last minute stuff, to attempt to make the redesign launch on Wiktionary Day? --Yair rand 20:08, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, that was rather ridiculous and totally impossible. We should at least try to get it done this year though, so it's still the 2009 redesign. --Yair rand 06:03, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there is enough initiative to tackle something this big any more. Some of the proposed additions to the Main Page withered long ago, and would need sustained input over a long time in order to work. I've been doing Word of the Day nearly solo for several years now, and on the rare occasion that I fail to get the new WOTDs put in, it's been three or four days before the community even noticed this. Extending the Main Page to include several additional items that require such continued and regular attention doesn't seem likely to succeed, in my estimation. I'd like to be wrong about that, but that's my own experience. --EncycloPetey 02:50, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, the "Interesting stuff" feature seems to mainly just pull stuff out of our existing stockpiles of rhymes, glossaries, appendices, random translations and a lot of other stuff lying around. I think if we trim the harder sections of Interesting stuff, and expand the standards of Word du Jour to include basically anything, this could work. But maybe not... --Yair rand 03:28, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Logo voting

... is now open, so that "Vote on a new logo for Wiktionary" link at the top of the page actually means something now. L☺g☺maniac ☃ 00:10, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I have advised the Russian Wiktionary. Please spread the word across other language projects. Anatoli 00:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Posted in the Spanish Wiktionary's Café. L☺g☺maniac ☃ 15:33, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Another place name deleted

Another place name has been deleted - Chiayi - a city in Taiwan, an administrative centre. It was rfv'ed, not rfd'ed. What has been achieved? How does it improve the Wiktionary? Does anybody care? I do and I am very upset. Anatoli 02:53, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I am confused. This entry was RFV'd and no one was able to provide citations for it which means the city must not exist, right? --Yair rand 03:05, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I am confused about the request for citation - why an what. Chiayi (Jiayi) 嘉義/嘉义 does exist, of course, not just in the reality but in the dictionaries, Wikipedia, etc. The RFV serves as a signal to delete for some, which is a big worry. --Anatoli 03:16, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Then the entry may be recreated once someone finds a citation that the city exists, right? --Yair rand 03:19, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure what drives place name haters here. Will the citations be satisfactory? Will the sources be considered "reliable"? Are these the real reason for the deletion? As if a city will stop exist, if there are no satisfactory English citations. In my opinion, it's a misuse of authorities given. The place names from the English speaking world are also welcome, not from other places. I feel sorry for my time spent on the entry - finding translations and transliterations in other languages. The English only entry itself has little value and would not take a long time to recreate. --Anatoli 03:32, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow, straw man much? We've had this argument enough times, I'd think you'd at least have a vague notion of what people have been telling you. Are you intentionally misrepresenting them, or were you just ignoring their explanations to begin with? —Ruakh_TALK 03:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Not quite. According to our criteria for inclusion (CFI), the question isn't whether the city exists, but whether the English name Chiayi is used attributively, with a widely understood meaning. (One can argue that the CFI allow it to be listed just as a name, like we do with given names and surnames; but first of all, I'm not clear on exactly how that would work, and secondly, that wouldn't satisfy Anatoli.) Personally, I don't RFV real place-names, given that the "attributive use" criterion doesn't really seem to have consensus, but if someone lists them at RFV, and no one provides citations, I'm not sure what Anatoli wants me to do. We've had many discussions and votes towards addressing the issue, and none of them has accomplished anything. —Ruakh_TALK 03:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Where was the vote to change CFI? I am not ignoring what I am being told, I disagree with what they say - I can only remember maximum about 5 users who would agree with you. People with this opinion (CFI based on attributive usage) are not in majority here but are the administrators with the right to delete. Yes, there were a lot of discussions and I could tell that the majority was for the increase of CFI, not for the decrease. The rule to base CFI on attributive usage is not followed, will only allow place names known to English speakers. If you want to be nice and don't know what to do when someone RFV's, place "missing citations" or other flags, add to discussion but why delete? Deletion is not productive, it's destructive, in any case. Do you personally doubt that the place exists and will have entries in dictionaries and pretending to be innocent? Anatoli 03:49, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The simple logic is that it is not necessary that any place names be in a dictionary. It had been decided before I arrived here that they were to be excluded, except for those names that meant something beyond their literal meaning. "Golden Gate Bridge" is meaningful because its use as a jumping point for suicides appears in publications in ways beyond simple reporting of the fact of a suicide. This kind of usage is not very common, but some famous places have that kind of associated meaning. There have been various proposals to allow some kinds of places. The proposals always end up with some kind of non-lexicographic criteria that amount to to notability.

But, frankly, there seems to be no one willing to assume responsibility for making an intelligent proposal, let alone implementing it. Until there are at least two or three people who seem willing to put in the work required and start to do so, I doubt that a vote to change policy will succeed. Right now, if people are even unwilling to take the trouble to find out what geography entries might be included under current and proposed standards and do the work to cite a few entries, I think there is no basis for expecting anyone to do the sustained work required. At this point many of the geographic entries that have been made do not even meet our formatting standards. If they do not, they show up on cleanup lists. When they do, I often tag them if they do not seem likely to meet our current standards.

There seem to be quite a few people here who are already favorably disposed to place-name entries. It probably would only take a core group to make a good effort to understand the issues and make a proposal to get things changed. Perhaps someone could take a stab at something at Wiktionary:Editable CFI. DCDuring TALK 04:06, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Well suppose it doesn't? Suppose someone, as a joke, makes up a realistic sounding place name - let's say, Fjeurnsalooften, and claims it is a town in Norway. How can we protect the integrity of the dictionary from false entries without requesting proof? bd2412 T 04:09, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Use an atlas/Google/Google Earth!!! That's how lol...50 Xylophone Players talk 15:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

So you don't think that atlases, Google, and Google Earth constitute "proof", but do think that we should base our CFI on them? Sorry, but I don't think that makes sense. (And anyway, decent atlases don't include such place-names as Valhalla, which surely merits an entry more than Chiayi does.) —Ruakh_TALK 15:50, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

WTH? I never said I didn't think atlases etc. constituted proof. o.O Where are you getting that from?? As for Valhalla, while it is a "place name", whether it merits inclusion or should, IMO, be judged along with the likes of entries for Greek, Norse, etc. gods. 50 Xylophone Players talk 23:41, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The place names situation is very similar to the given names and surnames, which also don't have an official policy. What we need here is for someone to start up a proposed policy page on place names, given names, and surnames, for everyone to work on, so we can have a vote and finally settle matters. --Yair rand 04:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

We've had 4 vote attempts on this issue so far, it's not such a simple matter. See Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2009-08/Common placenames get entries, Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2007-06/Placenames 2-A, Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2007-05/Placenames 2, Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2007-02/Placenames. If you want to create such a page do it, nothing on Wiktionary ever happens if the task is assigned to "someone". Conrad.Irwin 14:05, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

We also had this vote, Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2009-05/Names of specific entities, which I still believe to be the most sensible answer. Maybe it didn't pass as an overall solution to the proper names issue, yet it could pass in a narrower scope. I've never heard and would hardly believe analogy such as "the Chiayi of..." so I'm fairly confident the term in question wouldn't pass in English. In Chinese it's probably a different story though. And if not for Chiayi, maybe for the Chinese spelling of Taoyuan. And if not for Taoyuan, then for a bigger city like Taichung. And if not for Taichung, then most certainly for Kaoshung, depending on how inclusive or exclusive the criteria. Apart from where the line is drawn for any single language, the question becomes, would we allow translations of place names that can be cited only in a different language? If we use citation to back entries, inevitably there will be some that are highly recognized abroad and all but unknown to English speakers.

I personally think that a vote on expansion of exclusions to include "Wiktionary is not a gazetteer" (in the sense of a geographic dictionary) could culminate in a decision to or not to include placenames that are only placenames and do not have additional meanings. That might be too simplistic an idea, though. --Ceyockey 05:08, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Not to include any place names that have no further meaning, including New York, Africa, and Jupiter? --Yair rand 05:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I think a suitable enough criterion is whether a translations section is possible, i.e. whether knowledge of the place name is well-known enough for translations to have developed. --Yair rand 05:43, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

"Wiktionary is not a gazetteer" would not be an absolute blockade on inclusion of standalone placenames, just as "Wiktionary is not an encyclopedia" does not dictate definition content. Rather, it would set a high bar for inclusion, albeit a bar which would be open to interpretation (for better or for worse). --Ceyockey 11:22, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

• The most important sentence in our CFI is the first one "As an international dictionary, Wiktionary is intended to include “all words in all languages”". Perhaps some people would like to change that to "most words in most languages" - but I would prefer it to stay as it is. SemperBlotto 11:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Is not the entire purpose of the CFI to qualify the aspiration of "all words in all languages"? --Ceyockey 23:25, 8 December 2009 (UTC}

    Indeed. Not a single constituent of our slogan is without qualification, including "in". Much of it is necessary so we have the time to upgrade the quality of our content so it approaches that of our competitors. In the long run, we may have enough contributors to be able to successfully include more. DCDuring TALK 23:49, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

    Well, what is a word? Is a place name a word if it's proven to be in use? Is it a word if it's part of one language, meaning that other languages have their own versions? Is it a word if it has been mentioned in published works, or if has been displayed in a map or an atlas? Are all place names assumed to be words, or just those that are integrated into a language as much as any regular word? --Yair rand 00:01, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

FYI, all toponyms in all languages are words. --Ivan Štambuk 01:06, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Clarifying placename issues

To try and get some structure going here, let's assume we want "all words in all languages" and we have workable definitions for "all", "in", "language", just wishing to clarify "word" as it relates to placenames. After a few days/replies/when this whole structure disintegrates, hopefully we'll be able to see why we have disagreement; then we could try to solve it. Does anyone have short(ish) answers to the following questions, you don't have to answer them all, but try to avoid replying to answers (at least initially) any comments can probably go positively under the opposite section. Conrad.Irwin 00:37, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Why is a placename not a word?

because it's a placename. Conrad.Irwin 00:37, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Generally, word is phonetically or orthographically separable sequence of sounds (in most languages, in some due to extreme sandhi or agglutination only grammatically separable). Whether something is a placename or not has to do only with semantics. All placenames in all languages are words on their own. The whole "problem" of placenames as "non-words" was raised only to somehow degrade their status, as if they have nothing to do in a dictionary, which is in fact wrong as all modern dictionaries of all languages include at least some placenames. --Ivan Štambuk 01:31, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

re "because it's a placename": this is an empty reason, isn't it? It does not state any property of placenames from which their wordness or non-wordness could be inferred. --Dan Polansky 09:15, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

A placename, like a personal name, may be arbitrary and of no practical use to a dictionary. It seems obvious that if I decide to name my house Beedeevaynia, that would not merit an entry here (even though it is clearly a word that I have coined. On the other hand, it seems equally obvious (to me, at least, and to most of us, I think) that we ought to have entries for Chicago, Connecticut, Andorra, Gulf of Mexico, Mount Everest, and Ganymede, for example. The trick is explaining why we want the latter and pinning down the dividing line, a function I find to be fairly well served by the existing CFI. bd2412 T 04:16, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

A placename, like a personal name, may be arbitrary - Excuse me, but what exactly is this suppose to mean? How are toponyms "arbitrary" ?

...and of no practical use to a dictionary. How can you say something like that after everything what was written in this discussion. Entries or toponyms are exactly like the "normal" entries minus the definition lines. They have their own pronunciations (often extremely unpredictable), etymologies, translations, obsolete spellings, archaic varieties, slang synonyms, their own derived forms (demonyms, relative adjectives, even verbs in some cases). They are also extremely important source of etymological information (because they're usually attested before most of the languages were ever written. There are even some languages entirely reconstructed from toponyms). --Ivan Štambuk 13:16, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

If a placename is not a word, should Wiktionary include it anyway?

useful to readers. Conrad.Irwin 00:37, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

many of the same reasons as regular words: provide translations, pronunciation, etymology etc. --Yair rand 00:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

seconding input from Yair rand --Ceyockey 01:17, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

An entry without at least translations may be of little value but translations can't be added if the entry doesn't exist. A purpose of any dictionary for a place names is to look up its name in another language in a convenient way. The (previously) deleted Chiayi entry contained this useful information. An example, how do you find out how to pronounce 嘉義 in Russian or Korean? What do the characters 嘉 and 義 mean?--Anatoli 02:39, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Contributors can also contribute to the wikipedia w:Chiayi page. We aren't the only place people can add info to. And those pages probably have easier formatting details (though you'd have to write a few more words to make stub entries for those not already created). --Bequw → ¢ • τ 15:04, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

You cannot add translations to foreign languages to that page. In fact, you cannot add foreign-language entry info at all to Wikipedia because it's monolingual project and not multilingual like Wiktionary. We also have languages many of which don't even have an associated Wikipedia project. The type of content we're primarily interested in as a dictionary is of little or no value to encyclopedia and vice versa. The most logical conclusion is that they should complement each other. --Ivan Štambuk 15:35, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Translations are done via the iwikis (works only for languages that have a wikipedia project). This does raise the bar for editing since to add a new a translation someone has to create at a least a stub article in the foreign language wikipedia before adding the iwiki. Admittedly, no perfect. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 19:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Interwikis function very poorly as translations:

1. For once, they're not translations at all. They're articles on FL wikipedias on the same topic or related topic. An article on English Wikipedia on some English village might interiwiki to an article on FL wikipedia on the entire county. An article on a certain mountain peak on English Wikipedia might intrwiki to an article on FL wikipedia on the mountain itself.
2. Often interwikied articles are not in lemma forms. We deal with this all the time because users copy/paste interwikis from Wikipedia translations that happen to be in plural, in definite form, or similarly grammatically marked "title" form.
3. Interwikis are bound to only one script, which is a major drawback in languages written in several scripts (like Mandarin - the most spoken language in the word). They also don't provide other additional information that our translations do: transliteration, gender and alternative display (with marked accents - often of utmost importance for proper pronunciation).

In general Wikipedia interwiki serves as a very bad source for the translations of toponyms. We could include all that I listed above plus more: historical and regional forms that will never have their own Wikipedia articles. Interwikies are opaque and decoding them requires intuition and lots of unnecessary assumption. Reading checked Wiktionary translations OTOH provides information user can firmly rely on. --Ivan Štambuk 20:17, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Why is a placename a word?

clearly a "distinct unit of language" (cf. word). Conrad.Irwin 00:37, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

it is a proper noun or noun phrase with a distinct though historically mutable meaning. --Ceyockey 01:15, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

gets pronounced, written, typed, sometimes contains no spaces, is a proper noun and proper nouns are words; in other words, looks like a word or a multi-word term, is non-SOP (the location of "New York" cannot be determined from the location of "York" and the meaning of the common noun "new"). --Dan Polansky 09:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Agree, but not all proper nouns are words (e.g. Winston Churchill is not a word, but two words). But most placenames are words, including New York. Lmaltier 22:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but where do you get these rules from? You've provided no evidence that the "wordness" of one is different than the other. I think it's far more "fuzzy" than you assert what a word is. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 23:52, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

If a placename is a word, why should Wiktionary not include it?

waste of time, it's in Wikipedia. Conrad.Irwin 00:37, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

dog is in Wikipedia, too. But information included is not the same. Here, it should be linguistic info, just like all paper language dictionaries dedicated to placenames (they mainly deal with etymologies). Lmaltier 22:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Especially since the default search here no searches Sister projects like Wikipedia. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 15:04, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

a distraction from core task of being as good a dictionary as our competitors. DCDuring TALK 00:52, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

We are competing with someone ? --Ivan Štambuk 00:57, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Like all living things in this universe. DCDuring TALK 02:23, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

In order words: we are not competing with anyone, and you're simply using a blank and invalid argument. --Ivan Štambuk 02:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I responded in kind to your vacuous question. DCDuring TALK 12:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

My question was hardly "vacuous". You gave a serious answer - that apparently inclusion of toponyms somehow "degrades" long-term goals of Wiktionary, as if we're effectively competing with commercial dictionaries. That is hardly the case. Wiktionary and all of the other Wikimedia projects are based on free, volunteering effort, and even tho certain goals may be more "desirable" from someone's perspective than some others based on the utility for the end-users (e.g. coverage of "big" and "important" languages as opposed to smaller and "less significant" ones), forcing contributors not to contribute valuable content is principally against Wiki principles of collaboration and self-managed creation of content. --Ivan Štambuk 14:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It is gratifying to see you lay out this set of principles. My and your attempts to persuade are part of the "managed" part of self-managed creation of content. Collaboration among ourselves to compete with others is something I hardly can object to. I can think of at least a small number of "smallish" languages whose contributors I have tried to encourage. To prevent further OT divergence from I have opened a heading for #Competition. DCDuring TALK 15:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

In the sense that we aim to provide useful information to users and there are other sites that offer similar content, yes we are competing. If we don't try and address the needs of the user, and DCDuring thinks there are more important way we can do this than working on toponyms, then all of this is intellectual masturbation. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 14:25, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

This a volunteering project, no one is getting paid to do anything, and contributors are free to contribute in any domains then like to. It's preposterous to think of us "competing" with somebody. In this tempo Wiktionary won't reach the quality and coverage level of comprehensive English dictionaries in at least 5 years. I'm sure that DCDuring would like it to be sooner, but this kind of exclusivity fascism will not "force" anyone to contribute in the direction they don't feel like contributing, and DCDuring and his English-focused friends would. Toponyms are hardly an "intellectual masturbation" - their study is a well-established discipline in lexicography and historical linguistics. There is absolutely no reason why Wiktionary couldn't function as a dictionary of toponyms. --Ivan Štambuk 14:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

To prevent further departure of this discussion from its original susubject I have started a new header #Competition. DCDuring TALK 15:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Let me get this straight: You're basically saying:

1. If we allow toponyms as entries we'd enter "a new arena of competition" that would somehow degrade the quality of "normal" (non-toponymic) entries?
2. It is desirable to explicitly forbid creation of certain type of content if that measure would "force" contributors to focus on domains that are from someone's perspective more "important" as long-term goals ? --Ivan Štambuk 15:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Instead of achieving pre-eminence in one field, which is very possible, we will remain the fifth best free online English dictionary. DCDuring TALK 15:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

And I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. We'll get to the quality of commercial dictionaries sooner or later (much sooner than Wikipedia will reach the quality of commercial encyclopedias). This is a free dictionary and explicitly forbidding certain type of content is against the tenets of free knowledge that the Wikimedia Foundations cherishes. It's all about choice. --Ivan Štambuk 16:02, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

their definitions are quite difficult to nail down with much accuracy without resorting to inclusion of encyclopedic content --Ceyockey 01:15, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Can you give an a few example toponyms whose definitions are "difficult to nail down"? --Ivan Štambuk 01:21, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

This appears to be addressed adequately below without my providing redundant input. --Ceyockey 03:58, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Where below? Can you list a few such examples here? --Ivan Štambuk 13:17, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

How do you say "of or pertaining to Moscow" in Russian? Or "woman citizen of Moscow" ? How do you pronounce it? What is the etymology of that word? How does it inflect? What is the translation of that word in languages that don't have Wikipedia articles on Moscow (or worse, don't even have Wikipedias at all)? Countless lexicographically relevant information can and should be be included. The problem is not whether allow toponyms or not, but to set the lowest bar of criteria for their inclusion. --Ivan Štambuk 01:03, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Wiktionary cannot do justice the special needs of placenames: special data structures, special data, maps, photos, without doing great violence to its existing content and seriously challenging its technical resources. DCDuring TALK 02:23, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Not a good excuse, DCDuring, Wikipedia can do these things much better. Place names dictionaries don't have to do this. The linguistic information is all that's required - meaning (minimal info), spelling, grammar (gender, declensions, etc), pronunciation, etymology, translations, alternative names/spellings if I haven't missed anything. Anatoli 02:29, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

What special data structures? Photos would be nice (at most 1), maps are of no use (though linking to google maps or similar external resources in ====External links==== should be allowed). Absolutely everything else would simply follow the normal layout of WT:ELE. --Ivan Štambuk 02:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Coordinates, borders, overlapping borders, changing borders. Without some geographic information this is of minimal value, especially to users in the host language. With geographic information, it will start and remain far behind WP, Google Earth, etc. DCDuring TALK 12:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Coordinates can be trivially linked to in ====External links==== (they're static). Borders and order geographic information that you mention are completely irrelevant for our cause: this is a dictionary and we only focus on lexicographically relevant content. Users who want to find out how do you pronounce, inflect, translate X, what is the demonym or relative adjective of X, or the etymology of it, would look it up in a dictionary. If they're interested in X's climate, population and industry - they'd look it up in encyclopedia. You're really exaggerating when you claim that this is "of minimal value" - this type of information we could provide Wikipedia normally does not provide at all, and neither to Google Earth and others. We are not interested in providing the type of content they provide at all. --Ivan Štambuk 15:16, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and in my opinion, Google Maps could be used to confirm the existence of the toponym. I don't see any difference in checking out the existence of place names from other words. Like with any word human errors are possible but a simple check is easy for people worrying about the integrity of entries. Real and significant names are easy to check, especially in English. Anatoli 02:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Services such as Google Maps aren't "published" in the traditional sense. They can and do change the info in their mapping database. How then could we properly cite & reference this changing medium? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 14:51, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Coordinates are static aren't they? We could possibly embed them in some kind of template that will generate link to several online Maps services (Google Maps, Bing Maps etc.) This is really something completely optional. --Ivan Štambuk 15:22, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Clarifying placename issues — AEL

(a) they are traditionally excluded from dictionaries; only few place names are included by them if any;

(b) there are overwhelmingly many place names; (bi) they overflood the random-page function, and (bii) they overflood the next-page and previous-page functions, analogous to browsing a printed dictionary page by page;

(c) place names are not really a part of the vocabulary of a language; their knowledge is not needed for understanding of texts. I am not sure how valid these reasons are, though. --Dan Polansky 09:08, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Though there are many advocates-in-principle of WikiGazetteer entries there seem to be no advocates-in-action. IOW, lots of talk, no work. If no one can be found to even put forth a proposal that anticipates and answers practical objections, why should we expect this project to be anything other than a waste of time on a scale vastly larger than these tedious discussions? DCDuring TALK 12:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm shocked by this comment DCDuring. This whole discussion started after one of our editors did actual work, and complained after the entry was mercilessly deleted by one of the admins strictly abiding by the defective policy that basically prohibits 99.999% of world's toponyms. It's important to settle down disputed points (which apparently range from "placenames are not words" to "placenames are worthless from lexicographical viewpoint) first before making any kind of formal proposal. The purpose of policy pages is not to settle objections but to codify established consensus. --Ivan Štambuk 15:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

We have a never-ending stream of vandals who do that kind of "work": adding entries or other material that doesn't meet CFI. The true work that has to be done is to make a proposal that defines the change to be made and anticipates and addresses the issues that will be faced once CFI is relaxed to include the entries that ought to be in a Wikigazetteer project. What you define as "work" seems to be whatever someone wants to enter as long as it is properly formatted, without regard to any policy, guidelines or practices concerning inclusion. The intent of the existing rules is to exclude most toponyms. It is not accidental.

The resort to pejorative labels makes this discussion more like some kind of public demonstration rather than something practical. DCDuring TALK 16:25, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I've said more than once that I'd personally lock this project to registered users only. 99% of IP-generated content is either vandalism or so badly-formatted that it needs someone's attention to the point that the entry was better created from scratch. And the vandalism argument is not particularly strong IMHO: very rarely are the IP-generated entries toponyms. It is highly unlikely that there is a stream of some vandals out there that is eager to create thousands of low-quality toponym entries that would cause havoc on RfV. It's is much more likely that it would stay confined to a group of dedicated regulars who are primarily interested in that type of content. Like we have Makaokalani and Alasdair for personal names.

Anyway, as I said, the only thing that I see that needs to be done, judging from this discussion, is raising the bar a bit higher, so that we evade mass creation of stubbish entries. --Ivan Štambuk 17:08, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

As we have no intention at present of locking the project to non-registered users, I suppose that the WikiGazetteer proposal could wait until that time.

It is specious to use the behavior of users now to suggest their behavior in the future in such a way. If users find that we have place names, they will be more likely to look up their own favorite places and, finding them missing, add them. These are just the kind of entries and users that we need, I suppose, to successfully achieve high coverage of place names.

I eagerly await the arrival of the users interested in that kind of content. Do we have three from existing active contributors? Are they willing to do the real work of making a credible proposal that anticipates and addresses problems and objections. Or is there just going to be more whining, blathering, and fencing. Fencing can be a fun diversion, but it doesn't accomplish much. Why doesn't someone who wants this start a project page and get this show on the road? DCDuring TALK 18:25, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It is specious to use the behavior of users now to suggest their behavior in the future in such a way - no, it's prefectly reasonable and common-sense. My prediction is based on the observation of empirical data, yours on some irrational apocalyptic scenario that has no foundation in the actual history of IP edits.

As I said below, we could explicitly request that all toponym entries be created with citations or some kind of additional value. That would significantly throttle "creation only for the purpose of creation". No we're not interested in coverage of world's toponyms at all - we're interested in the coverage of lexicographically relevant data. Entry such as ==English== ===Noun==={{en-proper-noun}} # City in Southern Arizona is basically worthless. But, if it includes some kind of information that a dictionary is interested in - that's entirely different thing. Once again, we are not interested in defining toponyms (as you cannot "define" onomastics): we're interested in including absolutely everything else.

We already have at least 1 user that happens to be quite interested in placenames: Anatoli who initiated this discussion in the first place. How many are there is irrelevant to this discussion. Feedback is still being actively gathered and discussed. There is absolutely no hurry as we have 117 billion years ahead of us (that's how long universe is going to last). --Ivan Štambuk 20:01, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems (and I hope I'm not over simplifying too much) that those for toponyms are arguing that the only real criteria that should be used for inclusion is whether or not it (a toponym in this case) is a word. Taking that argument ad absurdum, would they be for the inclusion of any person's name (eg Ben Affleck) as well? People's anmes seem to share all the same dictionary needs as toponyms: they have translations (some are transliterated, some go to the nearest cognate, and some are reproduced exactly in the original script), etymologies ("we named him after ..."), inflections (in some languages), they are proper nouns, and there are mononymous and polynymous members. I'm definitely against including non-attributive senses of people's names, so I'm suspicious of the "for toponym" arguments. If some people are for toponyms but against individual names, how then should the criteria for inclusion be expanded beyond the the simple "is it an (unidiomatic & attested) word/term" test? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 14:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Translations, pronunciations and inflections of personal names are almost always equal to translations, pronunciations and inflections of individual component parts combined, which we do allow as entries. I wouldn't really consider a factoid after whom sb was named that name's "etymology" - it's a result of non-linguistic, external sources that are not the topic of a dictionary. Except if that is somehow connected with the word's meaning (which usually is not in case of personal names, except in nicknames). Our inclusion criteria for toponoyms (and all of onomastics in general) should be expanded to allow all toponyms in all languages, every village, hill, river, lake, mountain peak on Earth and elsewhere: every Martian canyon and Moon valley, asteroid or galaxy. We only need to agree what is the lower limit of quality for their creation, in order to only have quality content and not thousands of bot-generated stubs that are worthless (like Wikipedia does). Something like "at least one translation, link to Wikipedia, and coordinates linked to in Google Maps". --Ivan Štambuk 15:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Hear, hear. --Vahagn Petrosyan 15:50, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

While this has its ground, Ivan, please take into account the demand for 3 durably archived quotations, which the entry should provide, if demanded. If I create entries for hills and rocks in the vicinity of the village of my grandparents, e. g. Голо бърдо (not that from the western part of the Macedonia region) or Черната скала, they most certainly would fail such a procedure, even under Bulgarian headers (not to speak about English). In my opinion, it would be accepatable to allow such entries, if they are attestable by three quotations (though I am not favourable of them being prædicative), thus making no præcedent in current policies. Why not set a limit of, say, 10 000 inhabitants? Or even 10 inhabitants, if you will, some threshold is indispensable. There is no use in accepting defunct small settlements (I am not talking about Pompeii, but about El'ginski for example). I personally like your point of view, I myself am an ardent supporter of Aut Caesar, aut nihl, but let this comply with the extant policies. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 16:17, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Mandatory requirement of 3 citations when creating an entry could also serve as a reasonable alternative to prevent automatic creation of stubbish entries with little or no lexicographical value. Population as a parameter is a very bad choice, because there are some villages that are depopulated or barely populated today but have centuries or even millennia old history. In what external way (e.g. population, economy, historical significance etc.) is a certain toponym "important" shouldn't be a argument: that's the prominence type of inclusion criteria used for an encyclopedia. We don't care of the properties of real-word objects that the toponyms refer to, simply because we're not interesting in defining them at all (it is arguable whether onomastics terms can be defined at all, in the sense of normal gloss-definitions that we usually provide). In that respect, all toponyms are equally important. The more "important" and "less important" toponyms could have equally thorough entries and equally minimal definitions. The "important" toponyms are likely to get more attention and eventually rise in quality, and we should simply allow that process to occur spontaneously. --Ivan Štambuk 16:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

But Ivan, you're reasoning just separates multi-word proper nouns from single-word proper nouns. You're comment amounts to saying that usually peoples name are polynymous, and the constituent words are usually already in the dictionary. But, by applying that rule to places as well, you'd include "Moscow" one word, but not "New York". I don't think that's the inclusion criterion you're looking for. Why should toponyms as a class of words be treated differently that people's names?--Bequw → ¢ • τ 19:22, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

No, it's impossible to e.g. translate "New York" to FL by translating "New" + "York". In most languages it's actually some kind of counter-intuitive phonetically adapted form that regularly needs to be learned. Or perhaps it is some kind of a calque, or possible even some completely indigenous term (although that it very unlikely in case of New York. Perhaps in some Indian language or sth). In case of "John Doe" translation would literary amount to "John" + "Doe".

Also, I don't really see the point of drawing comparisons with polynymous personal names. We are not discussing their inclusion at all (and nobody wants them included anyway). Place names are special and distinct category and we should focus only on them. --Ivan Štambuk 20:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, so say I'm reading a historical fiction book and come across a placename, say Ouagadougou. I get interested in the name and want to find information on a) how to say it, b) where it derived from, c) what it is, anyway, and d) how to say it in Spanish, the language that I'm learning at the moment. I don't want the Wikipedia article about the city itself, I want a dictionary entry which includes etymology, pronunciation, definition, translations, perhaps a map and a link to Wikipedia for information on the city itself. I look it up in Webster's Third, which gives pronunciation but really no other helpful information. Then I turn to Wiktionary, and find Ouagadougou with pronunciation, a definition and translations. Not perfect, but it does contain the information I was looking for and not much extra.
OK so that didn't really happen, but it could, and that would be why we would include such information. Right? Or did I misunderstand this whole discussion? L☺g☺maniac ☃ 16:34, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment. For translations to be useful, it's not enough to include place-names; we have to include actual places, indexed by name, like a Wikipedia disambiguation page. For example, consider the place-name Paris. I imagine that most modern languages have a name for the capital of France; but do they all use that name when referring to Paris, Texas? Now, there's no intrinsic reason that we can't include places — that's what Anatoli has been pushing for — but before we make that leap, I think we should pause to consider whether we really want to do that. That's a lot further than we go with given names and surnames. (At least, it's further than we're supposed to go, according to the CFI. In practice, we do currently include a lot of specific people, just as we do currently include a lot of specific places.) —Ruakh_TALK 17:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Sure. (And don't forget Paris, Missouri! And probably a boatload of others) Maybe then the definition would read "A placename used most commonly to refer to the capital city of France but also to several places in the US and elsewhere" and, if the languages have different words for different places, use maybe two trans-tables: one for Paris, France and one for others with explanations in the table as to which city each term refers to? L☺g☺maniac ☃ 18:12, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Different toponyms that happen to have the same form in English must be separated. In FL they might have different forms: e.g. French Paris being borrowed from French and American from English. Some languages might have some "native" term, others might not and use some international that happens to coincide with some other placename. There are countless possibilities. To me the best would seem not to separate them in the definition lines, but in different subsections altogether. --Ivan Štambuk 19:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Who said anything about "different toponyms that happen to have the same form in English"? Plenty of American cities are named after European cities — same toponym, no "happen"-ing at all. —Ruakh_TALK 20:25, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, toponyms may have several senses, derived from each other, just like other words. And linguistic info about these senses (pronunciation, demonyms, etc.) may be the same or different. Lmaltier 22:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Yup, we agree. —Ruakh_TALK 04:35, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

That's a good point, Ruakh, that including placenames as names are including placenames as referring to specific places are two wholly different things. That was the idea behind the vote I proposed in August: I thought that names as names, at least, could be agreed on. (I was wrong, apparently, as the vote stalled due to opposition.) But the difference between names as bare names and names as referring to specific places is one that's not always made, leading to discussion at cross purposes. Specifically, I don't think everyone taking part in this discussion is talking about the same thing.​—msh210℠ 23:34, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Just to qualify an "afore-made" comment, whereby someone said at least 1 person (Anatoli) was interested in this matter. There are at least two others, making for a total of three.

Allow me to explain separately:

First, there is myself; last year I created entries for two toponyms (each specifying a place in a different country) : Tarica and Nkinora. Sure, I did create them for the Christmas Competition, but there was also the underlying, ulterior motive of actually making a nice, little, new entry to add to Wiktionary's "menagerie". ;-) Sadly though, they were later obliterated after allegedly failing RFV, no doubt due to certain (IMO) half-assed parts of the deformed chimera that is CFI... N.B. these in anyone's eyes were surely not the worst thing to emerge in the name of someone who wanted to win the competition. I remember the undesirable and waaay too uncommon relatives of T. rex and E. coli all too well ;P

Secondly, there is SB. I cannot cite any specific place but I know that in the discussion of votes on matters like this and whatnot, he has called himself an inclusionist and thus pushed (if only slightly) for the inclusion of stuff like this. 50 Xylophone Players talk 22:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment The "attributive use" condition strikes me as possibly causing some somewhat strange effects: say that "Venice" is verified as being used attributively, so that the page may exist (rather: the 'city' sense of that entry). But may we then add translations of that word (in particular the city definition) without first checking that the translation verifies the attribution test? Or should translations to language A (which never use its word for "Venice" in an attributive manner) be unlinked? Or perpetually red? Also, I can't say I ever understood the why attributive use would be relevant as a condition. CFI mentions "New York", and that it's included because of the existence of terms such as "New York delicatessen". Okay, I can see why that could motivate us to include the adjective. But why would the adjective motivate the proper noun? Why an all-or-nothing situation? Why either both adjective and proper noun, or none? Sorry, but I simply don't understand why the presence of an adjective is relevant to the presence of a proper noun. \Mike 23:21, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Many dictionaries have similar restrictions on entries for people and places. The OED for instance on includes them if they are used attributively, possessively (eg Foucault's pendulum), figuratively, or allusively(to meet one's Waterloo). It's general practice to note the geographic/biographic referent and then explain the meanings that extend beyond that referent. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 00:00, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

This is because the EOD does not want to include all words, its option is the traditional one in language dictionaries: excluding proper nouns (except when there is a specific reason to include them). But other language dictionaries are specialized in first names, other ones in surnames, other ones in toponym etymologies. We have no reason to specifically exclude placenames (no space limit). Including all words including toponyms might seem an issue for the random page feature, but this feature is not for those looking for information. Lmaltier 07:10, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Lmaltier is correct: comparisons with traditional monolingual dictionaries are pointless and misleading. We are multilingual multi-purpose dictionary, and there is no reason why we couldn't also function as a dictionary of onomastics (personal names, toponyms, *nyms of all kind). These themselves already have their own specialized dictionaries, and there is plethora od lexicographically relevant data that we can build on and integrate into "normal" entries. --Ivan Štambuk 13:07, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

On self-management and self-allocation of contributors as resources: Like some other editors and contributors above, I think each contributor should manage himself as a human resource rather than being managed by the collective of editors. If a person wants to allocate his scarce resources including attention and time to contributing toponyms, he should have the option. The only question should be whether that person's lexicographical toponym-documentation activity should be channeled to Wiktionary or to a dedicated Wikigazetteer project. Either way, the person is going to be spending part of their time and attention outside of English definitions. --Dan Polansky 11:17, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

To me the question is not simply about the time and enthusiasm of those who want toponyms, it is also with the loss of focus of the project as a whole. What technical resources we have will be spread yet thinner. Those who have the knowledge and experience to integrate a new class of entries into Wiktionary will find more and more demands on their time. There are likely to be a steady stream of compromises and confusions about the policies, guidelines and practices applicable to various classes of entries, as should already be evident in the discussion of attestation.

I think Wiktionary could play a role as an incubator for a portion of the content of Wikigazetteer. But for Wikigazetteer to be in any way limited by the structure, policies, guidelines, practices, habits, reputation, and volunteer base of Wiktionary or Wikipedia seems silly for an enterprise of such promise. Wiktionary is having difficulty in getting even Wikisaurus, a subproject close to the core of the function of project, to a level of coverage and use approaching that of the main dictionary. DCDuring TALK 11:56, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

To me the question is not simply about the time and enthusiasm of those who want toponyms - the question should be only about that. Absolutely everything else is irrelevant.

it is also with the loss of focus of the project as a whole - Again, there is no such thing as "project focus" that you speak about. People are free to contribute whatever interest them, whenever they want. There is no pan-project management and strategy. Common interest groups ("wikiprojects") and "could you help me with this"-type of wiki-friendships arise completely spontaneously.

Those who have the knowledge and experience to integrate a new class of entries into Wiktionary will find more and more demands on their time. - that is their problem not yours. We already happen to have people creating valuable toponymic information that is being deleted under the absurd CFI policy. That is much more relevant problem than any of your could-be scenarios, which I personally find very far-fetched. Who are we to forbid them to contribute what they like in their free time?

There are likely to be a steady stream of compromises and confusions about the policies, guidelines and practices applicable to various classes of entries, as should already be evident in the discussion of attestation. - Nothing more problematic than what has be done with "normal" non-onomastics entries. Again you're making ominous predictions without empirical data to substantiate it.

Wiktionary is having difficulty in getting even Wikisaurus, a subproject close to the core of the function of project, to a level of coverage and use approaching that of the main dictionary. - Wikisaurus receives as much attention as is statistical interest in it among Wiktionary contributors. Like every other part of this project. All of them are "having difficulties" as being undermanned and missing a bulk of essential information. But that is of absolutely no concern to the problem of forbidding toponymic entries on Wiktionary and I would be grateful if you finally stopped insinuating causal relationships between the two. --Ivan Štambuk 13:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Active discussions

Richardb suggested that Wiktionary should have an "Active discussions" category a little while ago, which I thought would be really useful, so I made the {{discussion}} template, which, when placed on a discussion page, will (hopefully) place the discussion page in Category:Active discussions (not made yet, waiting to see if anyone proves the whole thing impossible) if the page has been edited in the past three days. The category will list the pages in order of how recently they were edited (I think).

Any comments, suggestion, criticism, proof that it will never work and is entirely impossible and/or ridiculous? (I've actually never had something like this work on the first try so it's pretty unlikely that it will work properly.) Could someone please try to review the template to see if I messed up before it's put on talk pages? --Yair rand 06:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

This category was deleted (by me) in 2007, along with {{active discussions}}. It does not work, it requires people to manually add it, manually remove it, and to manually look into the category, it doesn't allow people to chose which discussions are relevant to them, the watchlist is a much saner way of doing this, that has been proven to work. Because of the way pages are cached, the template will only be re-processed when the page is edited, and so all pages it is added to will appear in the category sorted under 0. (The previous template just added the category). Conrad.Irwin 13:57, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

You mean it will stay in the category permanently?--Yair rand 16:32, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, how about this: a template that when subst'd will replace itself with the same template using subst'd nosubst ... that would subst REVISIONTIMESTAMP as the first parameter ... inside noincluded comment tags ... and will show parameter one ifeq:PAGENAME|active discussions ... with the rest of the page inside noinclude ... and the active discussion page could take the revision timestamp and calculate it there and show it if it's less then three days. Does that make any sense? --Yair rand 17:44, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

That only solves manual removal, not manual addition, nor classification of relevantness. It will also still only remove the page when someone else edits it (i.e. the chances are someone will find the discussion in the category, go and reply to it, and thus remove it from the category despite the fact that the discussion is renewed). Conrad.Irwin 18:28, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

If you have something like {{#ifexpr:{{#time:U|{{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}}}}-{{#time:U|{{Wiktionary talk:Wikisaurus}}}}<259200|[[Wiktionary talk:Wikisaurus]]}} on the active discussions page it still won't update automatically? --Yair rand 18:34, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

No, you can test at WT:SAND, which is 20091207201652. Conrad.Irwin 20:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Reporting ABUSE OF ADMINISTRATIVE POWER

In response to Block ID: 53325 initiated by Mglovesfun <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Mglovesfun> .

After attempting to ADD CITATIONS to an entry WITHOUT ANY, I've been completely removed form your website. I can't even log on and edit the entry on dysafferentation that I STARTED AND CITED with my original username. It is not just a chiropractic word, and that misleading bit needs to be removed; but I can't.

I am sloppy, and editing my entries must be difficult and annoying to administrators. For that I apologize.

I study in Missouri, USA. I am earning a doctorate at a fully accredited institution with several hundred formal education hours under my belt. I know a lot about the history and use of the word subluxation as it is used everyday in the USA and around the world. I am aware of the controversy and disagreement within even the Chiropractic profession surrounding the word. So I attempted to begin to add bit by bit, every reliable source defining this word SPOKEN EVERY DAY FOR NEARLY 100 YEARS.

When the entry was changed back WITHOUT ANY EXPLANATION. I edited it again, with good intentions, using DIFFERENT AND NEW INFORMATION, and told those who disagree to read more of the scientific literature on the topic.

Originating in mid America, chiropractic is a legitimate scientific profession. I understand it is historically primarily an American phenomenon; just you wait. My entry may not apply in France where McFunGlove's lives and studies, I don't know. But I didn't find any affiliation with the French Chiropractic Association on McFunGlove's user page. He left me without anyway of contacting him.

An updated definition for subluxation is needed. Chiropractic may not be as big and the most trusted and used method of healthcare in the word, TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE. However, there are thousands of chiropractors with millions of benefactors who say the word SUBLUXATION multiple times a day. AND THEY DON'T MEAN "LESS THAN A ISLOCATION." If allowed to debate with FunGlove, we could perhaps have agreed on a new entry "chiropractic subluxation complex;" But nobody except maybe 1st year chiropractic students would say it that way.

I was called STUPIDLY STUBBORN, but McFunGlove gave no citation or even an adult explanation!

He explained "This is a dictionary. We do definitions, we don't do biographies or miscellaneous information" Too busy to read...

1. A publication, usually a book, with a list of words from one or more languages, normally ordered alphabetically and explaining each word's meaning and sometimes containing information on its etymology, usage, translations, and other data.

AS DEFINED BY WIKIPEDIA! "and sometimes containing information on its etymology, usage, translations, and other data."

I tried to make the connection between the French luxation leading to a word commonly used to mean "less than a dislocation." (Etymology) DENIED

I tried to make the connection between the Latin lux leading to a DIFFERENT word literally meaning "less light" (Etymology) and connotatively used to mean "a condition of less life" (Usage everyday in America, found in online advertising for chiropractic care) DENIED

So I got the message. And changed my approach.

I tried to add the historical usage as definition by the founder and by the developer of Chiropractic, with four requirements for a subluxation. (Other Data)

I tried to stimulate further study by adding that the osteopathic term "somatic dysfunction" describes a subluxation complex (Other Data) (Dr. Still, also part of mid American history and who collaborated with Dr. Palmer)

FOR THAT I WAS BLOCKED BY ONE PERSON, Martin Richard Gardner.

Somatic dysfunction is in the current literature and not on your website! I'd add it if I could.

I used recent sources and intended on collecting the newest agreement among chiropractic colleges in American as well as agreement among current chiropractic physicians. Including a recent poll of chiropractors, majority of which agreed they wanted to keep the word "subluxation."

In my explanation for my edit I stressed the importance and need for more multidisciplinary sources. THERE WEREN'T ANY before I came along. I TRIED WITH GOOD INTENTION TO JOIN YOUR ONLINE COMMUNITY. Until further notice I will understand I am unwanted here. YOUR LOSS. I just wasted some time, but it was worth it. Now I know to STOP DEFENDING AND RECOMMENDING WIKTINARY to my peers.

I must add, in case anybody is blind to the fact, that a large population of humanoids are living in the dark ages; for lack of resources, time, ability, or EFFORT. I used to view Wiktipedia as a part of the solution. I was wrong.

THE ONLY CLINICAL ENTITY THAT CHIROPRACTIC CLAIMS TO TREAT IS SUBLUXATION! I'm not talking about partial dislocations. As a student I am hinting at fixations causing dysafferentation and therefore contributing to cord sensatization, neurogenic inflammation, and sympatheticotonia. Most importantly, as a future practitioner of strait chiropracTIC, I am thinking about how to remove a strangle hold on your brainstem.

WHAT A HEAVY, LOADED WORD! And McFunGlove would have you read one fragment about it.

MUCH LOVE,

AND READ THE LITERATURE!

To repeat what MG said on your talk page, this is a dictionary. We do definitions, we don't do biographies or miscellaneous information. The content you added was not appropriate for Wiktionary. And please don't type in capital letters so much. --Yair rand 22:07, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

• I understand where you are coming from, typing-in-caps-supposedly-no-name-user. However that first usage note simply didn't make any sense, and the historical stuff you added after that was way, way too detailed. Wiktionary is supposed to help the average person understand how words are used - not give detailed linguistic, socio-cultural, professional and/or historical information. Although I'm not directly involved in this dispute, I can see how perhaps Mglovesfun could have communicated this to you better. However, it would appear he was merely following Wiktionary's guidelines. Tooironic 22:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

  Indeed. Long explanations that go into detail are for Wikipedia. Your contribution seemed to talk a lot about one specific person, which I thought might have been yourself as we get quite a lot of promotional material on here. If I had nothing to do on here but reply to contributors, my reply would have been much better. But instead, I created and checked some entries. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:29, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Placement of example media

I am unsure of where on entries to put "example" media:

• Sounds (not pronunciations): Where would I put an example sound file of a laugh at laugh?
• Images: How do we put more than one image per Part-of-Speech without making the entry look too clutter. One attempt at A#See also 3 put's all the images in an image gallery in a =See also= section, but I don't think that's what the header is really for.
• Text (not quotations): Where should we put "The ball was kicked by Fred" on passive voice? We currently use {{examples-right}} a bit, but it's right-aligned (most real content should be at least able to be put inline), and makes some pages look weird, such as prepositional phrase.

As these all deal with the actual referents rather than the word, how would people be disposed to adding another heading to WT:ELE, such as =Examples=, or something better worded? There would of course be formatting to determine and placement (under each PoS or Etymology?). --Bequw → ¢ • τ 22:56, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I am in favour of this, but also couldn't feel of an amazing title for the section. Examples is probably good enough (at level 4). Conrad.Irwin 22:59, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

If I can remember it, I found an article where I checked the French from T-bot, but with the image and {{wikipedia}} notices, the English section interfered with the French. It should be in my last 500 edits, so I will look tomorrow when I wake up. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:03, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The idea of a =Examples= header sounds good to me. L☺g☺maniac ☃ 23:12, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, sounds good.​—msh210℠ 17:45, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The additional sound file may interfere with the pronunciation audio when the index is generated. I had a sound file for cselló in the See also section and it was picked up as the pronunciation in the index. This entry does not have an audio file. --Panda10 23:24, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I should fix that, and only loook for audio templates under ===pronunciation=== ? Conrad.Irwin 02:55, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Part of the ratinale for {{examples-right}} is that its rhs positioning conserves vertical screen space. Images and examples both seem to fit into the same broad class of non-core content. I don't know how non-human users of our content handle such material but it is safe to assume that human users like to see useful content at the first screen they land on and some direction to what might lie below the fold. If examples have good content that illustrates a particular sense, then we should have the ability to place that content as close as practical to that sense, without radically disrupting user habits and expectations. I don't really see how a separate header accomplishes that better than our current non-standardized approach. DCDuring TALK 00:22, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

And many times that lay right-hand side layout is perfectly fine. We have decent ways of adding an image or a text example to the right-hand side and we should find a way to do audio like that as well. But my question is, what do we do when that layout looks bad, for instance when we get more than a couple media for a PoS? If there are too many quotations for a sense, some go in a quotation section. I think we should have the same facility for examples, and the decision to use the subheading would of course be on an article by article basis. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 00:51, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

It just occurred to me that we have had galleries of images in entries. See head. No header to set it off, just <gallery> HTML. DCDuring TALK 02:17, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Technically, everything is under some heading (unless it's before the first L2 like {{also}}). In this case, the image gallery is under a =Quotation= heading, which seems just about as right/wrong as what was going on with A#See also 3. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 02:41, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I've yet to see {{examples-right}} in a context it didn't look cluttered. It's wider than the images which makes it look out of place, coupled with the margins being wrong and the yellow bizarre, it's a truly dreadful effect. For audio examples, it is possible they will fit in a side-audio template like a sister-project box, but I'm not a huge fan of those either. Conrad.Irwin 02:55, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Ruakh admittedly just cobbled something together, for which I am grateful. Now that it has been used a bit we have a population of situations that such a thing should handle and we can emend, amend, or replace it. We don't have so many uses that we couldn't virtually start over. The side-bar approach is widely used in contemporary textbook publishing as well as on the Web. We would probably benefit from looking at the approaches that have gained traction on the Web on sites that are comparable from a user PoV. DCDuring TALK 12:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I have to admit that most of my previous complaints were removed by forcing the width to be like a box (though there are still some pages that explicitly set the width of it to 50%, yuck!) and by removing the right floating TOC stuff from my monobook.css (I'd forgotten that wasn't turned on for everyone). Conrad.Irwin 12:43, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

There are cases where the examples are long, too long for the default width. Whatever the weaknesses of the sidebar approach, having text examples (of figures of rhetoric or of any linguistic phenomena) appear unmarked and in-line confuses them with usage examples. That was and is the only essential point with respect to textual examples. Achieving consistency of presentation with other classes of examples media seems desirable, as does conserving vertical screen space and some proximity between definition and example. The head example shows that we can't always get even three of the desiderata, but long entries are multiply problematic anyway. DCDuring TALK 13:00, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I tried putting {{audio}} in {{examples-right}} on laugh. Works OK. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 01:12, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Glad it worked. At least it's a good second step, now fairly well advertised. DCDuring TALK 02:29, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Started Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2009-12/Addition of Examples header to ELE

Could we perhaps use "Illustrations" rather than "Examples", as a more general term? -- Visviva 01:36, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

That might look weird with example sound files. What about "Samples" or "Representations"? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 09:00, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Why delete orphaned talk/citations pages?

Per Citations:American-born Chinese. Is there any advantage to deleting this, if so, what is it? At the very least archived deletion/cleanup/verification discussions should not be deleted when the article is. I notice this is in our policies, and I can see that in some case it is appropriate, but in others not. I sometimes feel a bit mean when I delete a legitimate, intelligent discussion because the entry failed RFD. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:05, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

It was copied without thought from Wikipedia. The talk page should be decided on its own merit, often there is nothing useful there, but sometimes there are previous discussions which it seems a shame to delete (that said the chances of anyone refinding them unless they are linked to is quite small). Conrad.Irwin 16:12, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd favor keeping both the talk and citations components by default. They are a bit more findable in the talk and citation spaces than anywhere else I think.

Also citations are sometimes not for the exact spelling (spacing/hyphenation/ligature/diacritic) of the headword. If we are going to have these headwords, then ultimately the citations ought to be sorted appropriately. However, I would not want to burden the closing of RfDs with this. Perhaps we could bot-identify such citations. both in citations pages and in entries. Ultimately, all these fine (and some are not really "fine") distinctions might be worth respecting in full. DCDuring TALK 16:19, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree we should by default keep citations, though for deleted-as-SoP entries they can move to the appropriate parts' citations' pages instead of remaining where they are if anyone wants to bother. (If we already have equally lexicographically interesting citations of all the parts, then the sum's citations can be deleted.) Talk pages are a good place for the RFD/RFV discussion to be archived; if the archivist goes another route than archiving there (we have no fixed process), then the talk page should be kept or deleted depending on content.​—msh210℠ 17:43, 8 December 2009 (UTC) Actually, what Ruakh says below about consensus makes more sense. 19:30, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

We have no formal procedure for archiving, but everyone seems to use WT:PDE for deleted stuff, probably because if it's deleted we delete the talk page too, so it can't go to the talk page. I still think that's somewhat useful as it keep the terms together by letter. And I suspect nobody is going to bother retrieving the thousand-or-so archived debates and putting them on talk pages, so it will have to stay! Mglovesfun (talk) 17:50, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: "everyone seems to use WT:PDE […] we delete the talk page": Actually, no. In the past thirty days, you're the only one who's touched the PDE pages; and you're also the only person I've seen deleting these talk-pages. So the main problem is that you were doing it a different way from everyone else, destroying other people's efforts. (To be clear, I'm not blaming you; you didn't know better, and you seem to have stopped as soon as you realized. I'm just saying, you've already fixed the problem, and no further discussion is necessary on that subject.) —Ruakh_TALK 18:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think "orphaned" citations-pages should normally be deleted; after all, the major reason we created that namespace is to keep track of citations for entries that fail RFV or RFD. I don't think that all citations-pages are worth keeping, but our standards for them should be much, much lower than for entries. We deleted "American-born Chinese" because we (FSV of "we") decided it was SOP; but unless there was unanimous consensus that the term was obviously and unambiguously SOP, then I don't think that decision should carry over to the citations-page. —Ruakh_TALK 18:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

What Ruakh says makes sense to me. Keep citations-pages with exceptions; keep SoP citations pages unless there is an unanimity about their SoPness. Keep talk pages with expections. --Dan Polansky 19:18, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. And to add: “Citations pages for uncontestedly SoP phrases shall have their quotations copied to the citations pages of each of the phrase’s constituent words.” Agreed? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 20:42, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't oppose "Citations pages for uncontestedly SoP phrases shall have their quotations copied to the citations pages of each of the phrase’s constituent words", yet it seems that copying citations of uncontested SoPs to the citations pages of the constituent terms should better be optional, especially for the case that the constituent citations pages are already full. --Dan Polansky 06:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Citations pages can’t (in practice) be filled. How many is too many? Fifty? To my knowledge, there are maybe two such citations pages in the entire English Wiktionary. That simply isn’t a problem. OTOH, requiring such copying ensures that editors’ work and the sorely-needed citations resource (upon which a descriptive dictionary ought to be based, and of which we have an extreme paucity) aren’t wasted. Copying should definitely be obligatory. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 18:26, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Err on the side of keeping Citations pages, and even when everyone agrees to delete, you can still keep the citations themselves by moving them to a different page. 70.112.24.181 05:50, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Competition

A somewhat OT digression from the placenames discussion is the nature of the competition Wiktionary is engaged in. Rather than clog that discussion any more than it already is, I am attempting to lead this thread here.

The competition that Wiktionary is engaged in is not a voluntary thing. We are in it whether we choose to acknowledge or not. Depending on one's profession, one's living circumstances, one's life experience, and one's ideology, one may be more or less inclined to perceive it and accept it. Wiktionary competes for:

1. the attention of users (against other online and other references);
2. the time of qualified and willing volunteers (against a great number of language-oriented commercial, non-commercial, and semi-commercial (ad $) sites);
3. for technical resources from WMF (against our sister projects);
4. for financial support from WMF or potential donors (against other language-oriented educational vehicles).

Whether attempting to compete in a new arena against new competitors by entering a new universe of entry types will help us in any of these competitions for resources more than, say, quality improvement or targeted recruitment of volunteers is a yet undiscussed set of questions. DCDuring TALK 15:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

From what I gather, according to your personal opinion the most important part of Wiktionary are the English definitions: you want to forbid placenames so that people would focus more on that part. But Wiktionarians are not a herd of cattle; if you bar them in one direction, they won't necessarily flow to where you want. People who do placenames, will do them; others who focus on en-content, will focus on it. Besides, I don't think Wiktionary's English content can ever compete with commercial dictionaries: not in 5 years, not in 10. I know I never use it. Where we can compete are the translations, FL-entries, great etymologies, inflection information and lexicographical content about placenames. IMO. --Vahagn Petrosyan 16:18, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Please keep the placename "discussion" under its heading above.

I personally believe that:

1. the English language is the host language,
2. English entries are the only one's that usually have full definitions and translations,
3. English entries are what most users expect us to be good at,
4. English entries are our most numerous entries.
5. Many of our English entries are wrong, dated, or incomplete.
6. Consequently, many of the translations are likely to be misleadingly wrong.
7. If we continue to fail to get enough native English speakers to contribute to Wiktionary, then English Wiktionary will fail and, with it, all the translation work.

Wiktionary's main problem is the quality of the English-language definitions, the principal reason English speakers and, especially, writers use a dictionary. As these definitions are the targets of the translations, translations are unlikely to be superior in quality to the English definitions. There is no quantity of definitions and other work that is likely to overcome a significant English-definition quality deficit. DCDuring TALK 18:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to break it down for you DCDuring, but in case you haven't noticed most of our native English contributors have rather limited contributions to English entries. In fact, they mostly focus on non-English entries in a language they happen to be studying at the moment. English entries have achieved enough quality and coverage to host FL entries, and only rather obscure and rarely used words have remained to be added. (As well as many -ly, -ness, -ian, and similar secondary forms, as well as countless idioms that are being coined faster than any dictionary could record them). We cannot "fail", because our goals (all words in all languages) is pretty much impossible to achieve anyway. After some thinking, I pretty much agree with that Vahagn has written: as the time goes on English entries will constitute ever-smaller and smaller number of total Wiktionary lemma entries, and most visitors from the Web will come here to look up inflection tables or a pronunciation of some Russian or Japanese verb because we happen to be the only site on the Internet that provides it.

I have no idea how to attract more native English contributors that are willing to contribute to English entries, but as the time goes on and Wiktionary's general quality improves, the threshold for making quality contributions will only rise and only rare sort of language freaks would left to be attracted.

I personally see little difference in a thoroughly covered FL and En entry - if the only difference is that the En term has definition lines (which FL term can have in terms of glosses). It would be IMHO extremely wrong to impose prejudice that English is somehow the "primary" target of this project and that absolutely everything else needs to be modeled around that thesis. No: We're here primarily to lexicalize words in all languages using English as a host language.

People are contributing in domains they feel like however they're able to. Our greatest potential lies in the inherent medium which is not bound by physical capacity, and the integrative approach. We simultaneously function as En-En, En-FL, FL-En dictionary, as a dictionary of names, etymological dictionary, we allow phrases and idioms, slang, proverbs, absolutely everything imaginable under the sky but which has never ever been compiled together.

I also firmly believe that in distant enough future EN Wiktionary will subsume all the other FL Wiktionaries. Perhaps in some OmegaWiki-type of common platform, or simply because we'll have 10 times more quality entries in their native languages than they do, and they'll get so demotivated to simply relocate here. So it's sth to keep in mind for the long-term. --Ivan Štambuk 19:40, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I am completely in agreement, and I take issue only with the 'impossibility' of achieving the goal. There are a finite number of words in all languages out there (so long as we are not compelled to 'define' the endless streams of gibberish uttered by madmen), and I'd bet that our 1.5 million entries covers a good chunk of all the words that have ever been that would qualify for inclusion. And if we add another twenty thousand place names to that total, so much the better, we'll draw more people to the site through them. bd2412 T 15:58, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

There's 5,000 living languages; at 20,000 words per language, that's 100 million words. I estimate that Cook's Anglo-Saxon dictionary has 28,000 entries, so I bet that's a serious underestimate for all but the moribund of those.--Prosfilaes 23:04, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• I think at the end of the day users will contribute however they want to; like Vahagn said, we're not "cattle". :P I'm not a fan of this apparently negative attitude, that the project somehow has the potential to "fail" because of supposed lack of quality in our entries. Now, I'd be the first to admit that Wiktionary has a long way to go to add new entries in English (not to mention the LOTEs) - but let's not forget how far we've come. I, for one, actually do use Wiktionary as a resource - it's quick and easy to search and, best of all, no ads. :) Moreover, I enjoy adding to the project and watching it grow, and see it more like a personal record of everything I learn in my language pair (Chinese/English), something which is very useful for me personally. As for this "competition" you speak of, DCDuring, isn't the whole point of volunteer programs that we don't have to desperately conform to commercial interests? Call me naive, but I'd rather just enjoy my time here and get on with the work that has to be done. Tooironic 21:43, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there's competition considering a lot of things. Including, I'd like to add, competition for volunteer's time from different tasks which all have to be done, or at least could be done. Such tasks all have different weights for different users - if I may take myself as an example, the three tasks which compete most successfully for my attention while I'm here are Swedish definitions, Swedish translations and templates for Swedish, in that (approximate) order. Contributing to English definitions is quite far down, by the simple reason that I know my English is not quite advanced enough to do so. Would I instead like to add place names, to reconnect to the issue that started the whole discussion? Certainly not impossible, but most likely mainly Swedish. But: if these were to be banned - perhaps even further than they are today (I am e.g. not at all certain that Helsingfors would qualify under a strict interpretation of CFI - Swedish exceedingly rarely use noun attributively at all - if ever.). I would for certain not add more English definitions instead, by reasons already put forward.

So, in short I'm of the opinion that you can't be certain that people will work on what you think is important to work on just because you ban work on other things. Competition simply doesn't work that way. Instead we may see them go elsewhere where they *can* contribute with their special interests. \Mike 23:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

At this time, I'm only going to respond to DCD's #7 "If we continue to fail to get enough native English speakers to contribute to Wiktionary, then English Wiktionary will fail". The first website I spent my time contributing to allowed contributors the same kind of freedom (mostly) that Wiktionary or Wikipedia has, but existed long before either one. The small number of contributors that we had (about 6, but most of the content work was done by 4 people in their spare time) tended to focus on preparing content in smaller or lesser-known subjects, and we often overlooked the larger ones that people might normally expect users to want to find. What we discovered was that this bias actually contributed to our success. We kept very detailed statistics on how people arrived, what they went looking for, etc. In a growing internet, where most sites were focussing on general and big-picture items, we succeeded because our site floated to the top in searches for all the hard-to-find and obscure things people went looking for. We developed a reputation for being the place to look because of that, and the Smithsonian awarded our web site a medal. So, I have to disagree with DCD that failings with our big-ticket entries in English will lead necessarily to failure. It leads to problems (and often errors) in our Translations, but not failure. --EncycloPetey 02:38, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

What are the implications for us of your site's experience? The one I draw (of course) is that it would be really good to have good statistics on hits for anons, by source or source type (our own wikilinks, internal search box, sister-project link, portal (eg. OneLook), and search engine (Google)) and on which were the high-volume hits (eg, MILF).

Is the site still going in some form?

I don't know what you mean by big-ticket English entries? The long ones? The high-frequency-in-use ones? The high-frequency-of-hits ones? The high-number-of-translations ones? DCDuring TALK 18:01, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the site is still running, although it's no longer growing like it used to, and has accordingly dropped in terms of its profile (relative to other similar sites). Policy and personnel changes that were made after a few years practically locked out additional growth of the site. Instead of free editing access to the various contributors, everything (new images, corrections, additions, minor edits) had to go through a single individual who had other responsibilities besides the site. As well, the various active contributors all left for other work around that time. The site does now have a professional graphics designer working to make things look nicer, but most "real" content has changed comparatively little since I was involved.

By "big-ticket I mean those words that are common, have many meanings (eve if we lack them), and usually have sizeable entries in print dictionaries as a result. --EncycloPetey 04:38, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Toneless pinyin

There seems to be a consensus that toneless pinyin entries are not desirable; despite this they continue to be created. I've never seen it explicitly stated, so it would be nice to have something concrete. Nadando 19:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

They are quite ugly aren't they? And yet I suppose some beginner Mandarin learners might find such entries useful. Like many aspects of Chinese entries on Wiktionary, there is no consensus about this (AFAIK). I don't see anything wrong with them per se, as long as the actual tones are provided in the entry, along with tones in example sentences. (Unfortunately this is not the case with Shijieyu, renzao and some of yuyan, for example.) That being said, it would be hard to police such requirements as we Chinese contributors are stretched as it is and I think most of us probably don't want to spend our time adding tone marks to pinyin entries when we could be doing much more interesting things. So, yeah, there's two sides to it. Tooironic 21:50, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

For the record, I have been mainly responsible for deleting some of them and I have been doing so as per the precedents at talk:ou and talk:ojo. —Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 01:03, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Removing words easily attested in print, of the type that a reader is particularly likely to need help discerning, simply makes the dictionary less useful. bd2412 T 01:45, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, the discussions you cite do not offer a "precedent" for wholesale deletion of thousands of entries. They involved very few members of the community, and ojo is not even Chinese. bd2412 T 01:59, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

It failed RFD. (Twice.) What can I say? I am aware that ojo is not Chinese. The very same arguments apply to Japanese as to Chinese with regards to romanization.

AFAICT, these words are not attested except other-language texts. We don't use disambiguation pages on Wiktionary. That's why we have {{also}} and why the search feature displays hits for forms of the query with different diacritics. —Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 02:21, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

here is an example of a book filled with toneless pinyin (worse yet, it mixes sections of toneless pinyin with sections of pinyin with tones, to guarantee maximum reader confusion). Toneless pinyin entries are not disambiguation, they are entries which reflect the actual use of words in the real world. If we prescriptively prohibit such uses, we merely prevent the dictionary from being useful to those most befuddled by the words they encounter. In any event, only two specific terms failed RfD, one of which is not a syllable, and is inapplicable to the specific discussion of pinyin syllables, which are the fundamental elements of the Chinese language. You offer no means of determining which particles are more or less likely to need such an entry, nor any means of assisting readers who come across a toneless term for which one option is an actual toneless entry (such as bo). Unless and until there is a statement of policy on this subject which achieves the broad consensus of the community (and not three people voting in an RfD), there is no basis for putting the resources into tearing down the hard work that went into making the hundreds of entries that have been made for this purpose. bd2412 T 03:31, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, we have had at least one or two discussions about this topic on Beer Parlor in the past. I believe the decision was to permit non-tone Pinyin entries, provided that they are properly formatted. However, non-tone entries are not a priority. Since most students of Chinese quickly move to Chinese characters within a few semesters, I originally decided to place an emphasis on non-tone entries for Beginning Mandarin words. In fact, I had made it through to the T's in the Beginning Mandarin list, before getting sidetracked with other things. Take a look at bangongshi for an example of a properly formatted non-tone Pinyin entry. Thanks. -- A-cai 02:35, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

To me, creating toneless pinyin entries seems not worth too much effort. I don't think toneless pinyin has no usage at all. E.g. since this is the official romanisation in China and company, product or street names may have this spelling. However, more important is to have proper Chinese entries with pinyin with tones. If a word has become an English word (or other languages) - like jiaozi, guanxi, pinyin, they are no longer just Chinese and the entry should say it. I already mentioned on abc123's page that toneless pinyin could be ambiguous like yaofang and we don't have the disambiguation pages. There are two many possible combinations, even pinyin with tones seems to be a waste of time but perhaps it could be used to find the proper Chinese entry or if search allowed to enter toneless pinyin (or with tones) to find the Chinese entry with ease. --Anatoli 00:53, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I've thought this over, and think I have a solution. Instead of the current layout, we can simply use the {{misspelling of|}} template to correctly characterize toneless pinyin transliterations as a misspelling. bd2412 T 18:30, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Different alternatives could be linked together as these examples: niuroumian, niúròumiàn, niu2rou4mian4, 牛肉麵, 牛肉面.

This format may be a practical solution for linking different alternatives of Chinese entry: {{cmn-noun|p|pin=[[niúròumiàn]] / [[niu2rou4mian4]] / [[niuroumian]]|pint=niu2rou4mian4|tra=牛肉麵|sim=牛肉面}}

I'd go for that. As pointed out, these words are used. Are we denying that? Mglovesfun (talk) 18:34, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

That would be an RfV question - and it's not particularly hard to find volumes of toneless pinyin when you know what you're looking for. Can we get a bot to do the work though? Shouldn't be to hard to pluck out the forms that I added and replace them with templated lines. bd2412 T 18:47, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

An example of the lyrics of the Internationale in Romanized Chinese (non-tune-marked Pinyin)

One more example: Examples in Romanized Chinese (toneless Pinyin)

Romanized Chinese (non-tone Pinyin) are used in the Internet such as:

* Google hits: "niuroumian"

* Google hits: "kaoshi"

• I don't think anyone really doubts that toneless pinyin transliterations exist. The question is, should we exclude them from the dictionary anyway, and, if we do include them, how do we do it. bd2412 T 02:29, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

• We could include them as traditional and simplified Chinese characters, such as: Pinyin Shìjièyǔ / Shi4jie4yu3 / Shijieyu, tra 世界語, sim 世界语.

I've changed a few to reflect them as common misspellings - see ai and bo, for example. bd2412 T 06:09, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

• Maybe use the template "{{alternative spelling of|lang=cmn}}" is better, because toneless Pinyin are formal spellings in some cases, such as this and this

• Good point, although I fear we'd have to track down an official usage for each word to justify calling it an alternative spelling, rather than a mere misspelling. I suspect that if we look at enough street signs and official documents in China, we'd get every one of the 1,400+ base syllables. I'm game for whatever the community thinks is best. bd2412 T 15:49, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

My deletions and moves have all been reverted at this point. My sincerest apologies for acting without the due consensus. —Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 00:13, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

• Well the thing to do now is reach a consensus. I agree with our anon contributor's proposal - in light of the use of toneless pinyin in street signs (and another, and another), in restaurant names, and more, and another), on menus (clearly widespread use, a la moo goo gai pan - misspelling of mó gū jī piàn, plus chow mein, lo mein, siu mei, siu yook, won ton soup, and kung pao chicken]]), on currency, and on some official documents (noted above), these should be considered alternate spellings, and so templated. bd2412 T 17:06, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I am going to open a vote fairly soon on how these issues should be addressed - should we use the current single-sense format, template these as misspellings, or template these as alternative spellings. bd2412 T 05:31, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

• Examples of "alternative spellings" for reference: pinyin, Pinyin, mogu-jipian, mo gu ji pian, moo goo gai pan, -zhuyi, -jia.

FWIW ou didn't failed RFD simply because it was toneless, but also because it acted as a dismabiguation page and we don't do that here. So I wouldn't apply that example too easily to all other pinyin. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:36, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Still working on a proposal - will take some time, as I'm pressed this week, and I'm aiming to get it right. Cheers! bd2412 T 05:13, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Please take into account the efforts, the number of contributors we currently have and may have. Proper Chinese entries (in Hanzi, this is English, not toneless Pinyin) or translations from English into Chinese should be the priority. It may be fun to write sentences like "ni qu nar? wo qu mai dongxi" but this is not the proper Chinese and we are a dictionary. let me compare this with the discussion on place names. The English vocabulary here is in a very advanced state, we can add some extra stuff - expressions, place names, etc. Chinese content is still very low or not enough for a decent dictionary. As a result, we still need to save efforts and add more (proper) Chinese contents. When this is more or less achieved, we can worry about redirects, toneless pinyin and other features. --Anatoli 05:22, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, my primary concern is individual toneless pinyin syllables - of which there are only about 410, and for which I already made entries several years ago. The format of the entries that I made has been disputed, so the main question is whether to keep, delete, or change, those existing entries. bd2412 T 16:17, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] {{prefixsee}}, {{suffixsee}}

These templates transclude from from Category:x pages suffixed with y, to insert a list of derived terms into prefix and suffix pages (see ante-). I'm hoping that this will make the categories more useful / visible. I don't know if it is possible to style so that it is not simply a long vertical list. Thoughts? Nadando 00:12, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

With CSS columns, this should be doable using <categorytree>, which according to the documentation takes the style attribute. Of course, columns aren't official yet, and older browsers (including I think current versions of IE and many others) don't support them.​—msh210℠ 17:29, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Loving this. Make it multi-column, please. --Vahagn Petrosyan 20:06, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] (British) Alternative spelling of

We have any number of entries that have {{UK}} {{alternative spelling of}} (or {{US}} {{alternative spelling of}}, but for brevity and clarity I'll stick to the UK ones). Some of these are actual UK alternative spellings: that is, they are alternative UK spellings of words that are, in the UK, primarily spelled a different way. But many — I suspect the vast majority — are actually the primary UK spellings of the word, but listed as {{UK}} {{alternative spelling of|some US spelling}}, I assume for want of a better way to wikify it. Well, that way now exists: Thanks largely to Conrad, {{context labelcat}} now exists, and — though I wish to avoid technical discussion here — can be used, if we slightly modify template:alternative spelling of, so that the latter template displays

1. British spelling of foo.

linking 'British' (as {{UK}} does), and categorizing both as cat:English alternative spellings (as the template does now) and as cat:British English (as {{UK}} does). This method is already being successfully applied with {{eye dialect}}, q.v. This seems like a great boon, though care must be taken to only apply this change to primary UK spellings and not true alternative spellings (as I distinguish above), but I wanted to check here first to make sure there's no objection to this fairly major change.​—msh210℠ 17:19, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

While the idea is fine in principle, I forsee a complication. We have a number of "UK" entries that become (UK, Aus) or (Commonwealth). Could this idea work with multiple regional contexts (and would that work well)? I also think this might be inconsistent formatting. There are some definitions whose usage is strictly "UK", so having a split in ofrmat style between those entries that have a restricted sense versus those that have a regionally restricted spelling could be confusing for both editors and users. --EncycloPetey 03:27, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Re the "UK, Aus" issue: Should be doable by means of multiple parameters (e.g., from, from2, ..., from5) and code similar to that found in template:also. I'm not sure I understand your second issue, though, EP, so can you please give examples (made up, if you prefer) of the different kinds of senses that you say will confuse people?​—msh210℠ 18:21, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Two examples:

1. If we say kerb is the "British spelling of curb", then how will the user know which meaning of curb is used in the UK?
2. If we label kilometre as "British spelling of kilometer", there would be no doubt about the deifnition, but we'd be inconsistent in labelling. Consider that lift in the UK is the same as elevator in the US, but we can't say it's a "British spelling" because they're not the same word. We have to use (UK) to mark that deifnition of lift.

So, with the proposal above, we'd have some entries labelled with (UK), but others labelled with a non-gloss definition line. That's inconsistent and would confuse both editors and users. --EncycloPetey 04:02, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

There's currently no form-of template on [[kerb]]: there's a full definition. I have no problem leaving it there (nor, even, leaving full definitions on both kilometre and kilometer). I merely want to modify existing form-of entries, which brings me to your second objection. Yes, there will be inconsistency the way I envision it, but better inconsistency, imo, than inaccuracy, which is what we have now with "(British) Alternative spelling of..." on things that are not alternative in the British context (but, rather, the only British spelling). I'd even be happier with "(British) Spelling of..." than with what we have now, though I think that "British spelling of..." less ambiguous, referring more obviously to an only-spelling-of form.​—msh210℠ 18:03, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I like this idea, though I assume there are some cases where two spellings are British, so it really is {{British}} {{alternative spelling of}}; but this is certainly not the common case, and I would support moving to embedding the dialect in the template. Conrad.Irwin 00:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Fine. I will implement this. Thanks for your input, folks.​—msh210℠ 19:02, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category talk:Topical context labels

Give your two cents, please. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:23, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

You propose that you sort topical context labels currently found in Category:Topical context labels into subcategories, for which you are planning to create new subcategories in that category. The reason or stimulus for your proposal is that you find 567 items in the category for topical labels too much.

I think having a flat category for topical labels is just fine, so I'd prefer you don't. --Dan Polansky 14:50, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Dan.​—msh210℠ 18:17, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] bare-butt etc.

I'm not entirely happy about this "bare-butt" spanking stuff in example sentences (scroll down), as continually added by Verbo/Fastifex. They aren't natural-sounding examples and seem to exist only to serve some fetish. OTOH I don't know any Dutch to replace them with something saner. Should they be cleaned up? Equinox ◑ 07:41, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

IMO yes, we do not censor but there's no reason not to replace an example with a better example. This is a good example of one to replace, this one seems more justifiable as it's in the right context. It does seem to be a "fetish" of Verbo's as you say. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:29, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

This user has been blocked three times for this already, please do so again. Conrad.Irwin 13:07, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Redirects for apostrophes

Irritatingly enough, the French Wiktionary uses the printers' apostrophe (’) so we typical use redirects to allow Interwicket to link to them by interwiki. As pointed out, rather than creating these redirects by hand, can't a bot do it? Example: violon d'Ingres. Click on the French interwiki, then click again to get back to English. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:33, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Link to Foreign Language Wiktionary in inflection line?

On reflecting on the doublewiki vote: might we consider linking to the foreign language wiktionary in or near the inflection line, as we already do for translations?

For example, on the page for renard (“‘fox (in French)’”), list the main line as something like:

renard^(fr)

as is currently done by the translation {{t}} template?

This is because the most compelling reason to visit other language wiktionaries is to see their coverage of their own words – thus somehow highlighting this or making it easier would be very helpful, as we already do in the translation section.

Including a link in the inflection line may be distracting, but currently the link to the French entry for renard is relegated to the “in other languages” box, between فارسی (Farsi) and Galego – it would be great if it could be highlighted more prominently. Thoughts?

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 07:59, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

There is a preference which does something similar. If you check the option "Show an interwiki link under the language heading when one exists in the sidebar.", you'll see it does something similar to what you ask for. Of course, one could consider doing this the default option... someone? \Mike 08:19, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Mike! That’s exactly what I had in mind. It’s admittedly a bit buried – perhaps it’s useful enough that it should be default?

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 08:27, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

The one drawback to this is that there's no guarantee that the entry will be for the same language. That is, our Galician entry for cantar might let you go to the Galician Wiktionary, but their entry might be only for the Portuguese or for the Spanish word with that spelling. Programming the links to go to the other Wiktionary and to the correct language section is much trickier. --EncycloPetey 03:56, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

This is a good point - there is no guarantee that a language (esp. a less-used language) will necessarily have entries for their own language (for terms that exist in their language and others), so I'd be careful about doing anything too formal or automated (too many moving parts), but it's a pretty good bet, and perhaps worth highlighting.

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 04:23, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Main page redesign

I've proposed some changes to the proposed Main Page redesign. Perhaps with these changes, the redesign could be doable. --Yair rand 06:52, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] My concern is for the Prather family history. I am finding less and less about them.

Some where somebody has the information. Why not let it be found here?

I am willing to help. I don't see where I need to comitt myself to contributing any money. Times are hard.

Jack Prather

Not here, this is a dictionary

What you need is a genealogical database - try FamilySearch.org. Cheers! bd2412 T 05:12, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Though, if anyone's interested, there is a proposed Wikimedia project called Rodovid which is a genealogical wiki. The demo site has 250,000 records. --Yair rand 19:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Fundraiser (again)

For those who find the strangely centered, colour-pulsating, fundraiser banner as irritating as I do, the WT:PREF, "Hide the display of site-wide notices at the top of the screen." is bliss-inducing. Though a similar effect can be acheived by adding

#siteNotice, #fundraiser, .fundraiser-box {display:none; !important;}

to your monobook files. Conrad.Irwin 02:28, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

The current banner doesn't show for me, but it does seem to interfere with the acelerated page creation. I usually have to attempt to create the page three or more times before it fills in the information correctly, which is very irritating. --EncycloPetey 04:23, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Anagram layout

As noted by Bequw, the anagrams section of tesla was fairly monstrous, I've updated it to put everything on the same line, which uses about 5% of the amount of screen space. As this change goes against the example given in WT:ELE (though not against the text), I thought I'd ask your permission before updating Conrad.Bot to use the new horizontal format henceforth (old anagrams sections won't be updated unless they need anagrams added or removed). Are there any objections? Conrad.Irwin 02:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The "eveything on the same line" link above should be to http://en.wiktionary.org/?oldid=8078582, not what it links to now.​—msh210℠ 02:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I prefer the one-line way. It does seem to violate ELE, but I, for one, am willing to overlook that, or change ELE.​—msh210℠ 02:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I think they should be kept vertical unless it's longer than five or so. We have the same situation we the synonyms/antonyms lists, that they look a little ridiculous when they get really long. I don't think there should be a bot running in violation of ELE, so I think it might be a good idea to hold a vote to modify ELE. --Yair rand 03:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

From memory, synonyms are supposed to be in horizontal lists, one per sense. I did think about the "up to five" idea, but it seems fairly arbitrary; a word with five synonyms has five lines, a word with six has one; if the word with six was still on five lines it would feel more consistent, but then it wouldn't make much sense. Conrad.Irwin 13:34, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the vote can trim the Anagram section of the ELE a bit, and have the majority at Wiktionary:Anagrams, that way if we want to make minor layout changes a vote won't be required. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 17:03, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

What if we did like this for large sections?:

The one-line proposal is fine too. I'm not fussy about the arbitrariness of what defines a "long section", personally. —Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 03:24, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that's worthwhile. I would prefer we be fully consistent, rather than collapsing some sections and not others, and the vast majority of anagram sections aren't long. We could use visible columns, if needed. --EncycloPetey 04:21, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

---

•  : least, leats, salet, setal, slate, stale, steal, stela, taels, tales, teals

---

I am still under the impression that all on one line is more aestetic, would people prefer multiple columns? Conrad.Irwin 12:58, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Using one line for all anagrams entries is a possibility with me too, as long as we do it consistently for all entries. --EncycloPetey 13:06, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Started Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2009-12/Modify anagram section of ELE. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 23:33, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I prefer all on one line, as opposed to the two in the vote, but I'm not overly fussed. Conrad.Irwin 23:35, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

How would you prefer to show the alphagram (the only reason that I listed two lines instead of one). --Bequw → ¢ • τ 01:13, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

As above: Conrad.Irwin 11:33, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

---

•  : least, leats, salet, setal, slate, stale, steal, stela, taels, tales, teals

---

[edit] {{idiomatic}}

Is this actually useful as a context template? For example, at [[Nuremberg defense]], what does the "idiomatic" tag tell me that's not otherwise obvious? —Ruakh_TALK 15:53, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

The fact that a given set of words is idiomatic is already given by its mere existence, as is explained at WT:CFI. However the template categorizes to [[:Category:<language> idioms]] which is useful, so it might just need a different name. -- Prince Kassad 16:45, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

That would be true were it not for the numerous actual exceptions to WT:CFI that actually exist, not all by accident or unintentional neglect. DCDuring TALK 17:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it's possibly overused. There are certainly some pages where it is used well, putting heart under {{anatomy}} is pretty much stating the obvious too. There are cases like mettre en bouteille where, for me, the tag helps. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:56, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Some uses and beneficiaries:

1. It is useful for editors as a marker of that justification for inclusion (or lack).
2. It is useful to all to distinguish idiomatic from non-idiomatic senses of a headword.
3. It has been useful for English editors as a tools to migrate away from use of Idiom as a PoS header in favor of more grammatical PoS headers. It might be useful in the same way in other languages if they migrate away from the Idiom PoS header.
4. It is useful to new users as a marker of a departure in en.wikt's approach to idioms (separate headwords) vs. what most general print dictionaries do (placement under the first and/or "heaviest" component word).
5. It is useful, mostly for editors, because it creates a category which can be provide a useful list for scanning or for narrowing clean up lists using the intersection search tools.

As a matter of policy we might do well to not assume the identity between being idiomatic and meeting WT:CFI. We already have a few entries that are explicitly only translation targets and more "phrasebook" entries. DCDuring TALK 17:59, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

As DCDuring implies, since we (arguably de jure, and certainly de facto) include unidiomatic senses of idiomatic expressions, this is useful.​—msh210℠ 23:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Really? O.K., if we assume that "unidiomatic" means "not being an idiom" (which isn't what it means in real life, but is basically how we use it here), then I'll grant that we do include some "unidiomatic" senses. But aren't those the exception rather than the rule? Shouldn't those senses be the ones set apart (by giving definitions such as {{non-gloss definition|Used literally; see this, is, not, an, idiom}})? I mean, if we were only using {{idiomatic}} at entries that have one or more "unidiomatic" senses, that would be one thing (though not my preferred approach), but at an entry like [[Nuremberg defense]], how is a reader supposed to guess the purpose (and therefore meaning) of the tag? (BTW, I don't think "Nuremberg defense" is really an idiom in the ordinary sense of that term. I suppose it's an idiom in that it's multiple words and not guessable from its parts, but it's actually more of an "allusion". I don't think anyone uses it without knowing what it refers to.) —Ruakh_TALK 23:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Ruakh here. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 23:44, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

No, the only appropriate use I can think of for this tag is on idioms' entries that have "unidiomatic" (as we use it here, yes, Ruakh) senses. But now that you mention it, marking the unidiomatic senses does make more sense.​—msh210℠ 00:45, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

There is a great deal to criticize in our definition and use of this tag. I would welcome a recommendation in detail as to how this could be done better and how any change could be accomplished without the process being entirely manual. It would be nice if we had some concept that did not require large-scale revision in one or two years. —This unsigned comment was added by DCDuring (talk • contribs).

I'll look for some examples of where this is used in Latin. I find the {{idiomatic}} and {{figurative}} tags very useful for Latin, since there are many Latin words that have an "everyday" or literal use, but also have one or two senses that are highly idiomatic. Marking them as such shows much more about meaning in Latin than not marking them. --EncycloPetey 02:43, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that would be useful to see. —Ruakh_TALK 00:04, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm... On search and reflection, I guess I havent used {{idiomatic}} much for Latin after all. I found only four entries where it was used, and two of those don't need it. The one that I think most benefits is amabo te, which literally means "I will love you", but translates more often as please. If examples for {{figurative}} would still be helpful, I know I have done lots of those and could pull a few. --EncycloPetey 04:19, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Nah, don't worry about it. I use {{figurative}} all the time, too. Thanks for looking. :-)   —Ruakh_TALK 13:41, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Licensing of audio files

Hi,

This question is not specific to Wiktionary only. Please let me know who to ask if it's the wrong place.

What are the licensing arrangements for the audio files? Can they be downloaded and used on other websites? Or they can only be linked to with a direct link. --Anatoli 01:46, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Each file may be different. You should check the file's page on the Commons for its license.​—msh210℠ 01:54, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Either. See commons:Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia for details. If the other site is running MediaWiki it can be configured to use files from wikimedia commons directly. Commons does not allow files that cannot be reused, with the exception of some of the wikimedia logos. Conrad.Irwin 01:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

But — and this is the reason I said to check licenses — you may have to do something to use the file elsewhere, such as include (or link to) a copy of the license.​—msh210℠ 02:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the answers! --Anatoli 02:55, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Greek → Modern Greek (again)

Previous discussion: Wiktionary:Beer parlour archive/2009/August#Greek derivations.

Please take note of this. It seems that, despite the use of {{etyl|el}} and {{etyl|grc}} in place of {{Gr.}} and {{AGr.}}, contributors still confuse Modern Greek (displayed as Greek) with Ancient Greek. This is probably down to the fact that most people don’t think to distinguish the two, and it really doesn’t help that a lot of dictionaries write “Greek” (or an abbreviation thereof) in their etymology sections when they mean “Ancient Greek”. I’m guessing that the switch to ISO codes hasn’t helped much because:

1. A contributor wants the language-linky code thing that he’s seen in other entries for the etymology section he’s writing (if he doesn’t, then the language ends up as Greek, written in plain text only, and still suggesting derivation from Modern Greek), but he doesn’t know the ISO code.
2. He searches for “Greek” on Wikipedia, which gets him to this disambiguation page.
3. He scrolls down, and more often than not, seeing “language” in the name of the link (perhaps using Ctrl+F to look for it), clicks on the link for Greek language.
4. He looks for the language’s ISO code in the section entitled “Language codes” in the box on the right (or uses Ctrl+F for “iso”), finds the ISO 639-1 code el, and uses that.
5. The result looks fine, so he carries on oblivious, thus introducing an avoidable error to the project.

The best solution I can see would be to “outlaw” the use of el as a language code on Wiktionary; use of el would autocategorise that entry into a clean-up category, whose members would require having that ISO 639-1 substituted with any of the seven more specific ISO 639-3 codes, viz. grc, ell, pnt, gmy, gkm, cpg, and tsd (for Ancient Greek, Modern Greek, Pontic Greek, Mycenaean Greek, Byzantine Greek, Cappadocian Greek, and Tsakonian Greek, respectively). The initial clean-up effort could be as sluggish as it wants if the clean-up category is made a HIDDENCAT and the displayed language of {{etyl|el}} isn’t changed; however, this leads to the eventual elimination of this error and allows its easy detection in future. Does that sound like a good idea to everyone? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 20:39, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: your first two sentences: The relevant edit was part of Autoformat's misguided mass-conversion, more than a year ago, of {{Gr.}} to {{etyl|el}}. Before the conversion, use of {{Gr.}} for Ancient Greek was very common, but after the conversion, I'm not sure that any human editors have been using {{etyl|el}} where they should be using {{etyl|grc}}. —Ruakh_TALK 23:35, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, OK. Nevertheless, IMO, the scenario set out in 1–5 seems pretty plausible to me. Furthermore, I think moving from the catch-all, imprecise ISO 639-1 code el to the seven ISO 639-3 codes would be a definite improvement that we should institute regardless; what do you reckon? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 23:41, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, according to the standards, el means Modern Greek; it's synonymous with ell. It's not really a catch-all or imprecise code, it just became one here as a result of an Autoformat mishap. I don't think we should start trying to distinguish el from ell; but the last time I raised this issue, I suggested using el-GR (Modern Greek as spoken in Greece), which amounts to the same thing. Alternatively, we could take the opposite approach: bot-convert all the {{etyl|el}} uses to {{etyl|Greek}} for cleanup, then change {{etyl|el}} to be explicit about meaning Modern Greek.
But either way, I don't think further BP discussion is going to get us anywhere. The current approach is to use {{etyl|el}} both for real Modern Greek derivations and as a cleanup template for the auto-converted entries; and the editors who are actually working on cleaning out seem to be happy with that approach. Personally, I don't like it, but we can't really force them to change. (But if they change their minds, then we can certainly offer suggestions, technical help, etc., towards a better approach.)
—Ruakh_TALK 23:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wiktionary:Votes/2009-12/Proposed CFI exception for SI Units

Pursuant to the unresolved discussion at Wiktionary:Beer parlour archive/2009/September#SI units and abbreviations, and several pending RfV/RfD nominations, I have initiated Wiktionary:Votes/2009-12/Proposed CFI exception for SI Units. Cheers! bd2412 T 21:15, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] AWB request

Even though I already have AWB access, I would like to ask the community if I can use my AWB access to make changes like this and this to Ido nouns to get all of them standardized. The edits will be made manually because of how complex the changes are. Thank you, Razorflame 00:14, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Seems fine to standardize on the Ido inflection line template. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 01:28, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed pages

I would like to propose two new pages, one for for handling unresolved CFI and ELE issues, and the other for suggested templates, bots, and scripts.

The first of these would hold (in subpages) links to old archived (or not yet archived) discussions about ELE and CFI, and would provide centralized discussion areas for working on issues that have not been finished yet. Often, these discussions would have to take place partly in the BP to have a wider audience, but these could be moved afterward and continued. I think it would best look something like this (the draft does not actually contain all unresolved CFI/ELE issues, as I don't know what all of them are).

The second of these would be for suggested templates, bots, and scripts that there is no immediate need for, but would be useful to have. I notice that many users do have good ideas for bots, but do not have the necessary programming skills to build their own. Suggestions could remain on the page until they are either built, or have been proven to be unnecessary or impossible. Maybe something like this.

This leads to a third possible page, which could be for suggested suggestions pages, but I don't think we need that now :D.

So, what does everyone think? --Yair rand 08:25, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

The bots and scripts can stay on WT:GP, I have no objections if you want to create the page for old CFI and ELE issues, it'd be nice to have some proper thematic archives and that seems a good way to start. Conrad.Irwin 12:41, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I think a single placement for CFI and ELE discussions would be helpful, and I support this idea. I basically agree with Conrad, continued Grease Pit discussion of bots, etc., is fine. bd2412 T 20:22, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Unresolved CFI and ELE issues now started, although it really needs work. --Yair rand 03:02, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wiktionary:List of protologisms/large numbers

Can I have the content of this page before it was deleted pasted to my userpage. I am the originator of the content. Shoof 13:57, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Not sure who did so, but looks like it's there now. DAVilla 06:16, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Why does list of protologisms actually exist? Isn't it just a green light to create nonsense in a Wiktionary appendix? Mglovesfun (talk) 06:51, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Apparently, just like the /more pages in Wikisaurus. --Yair rand 16:52, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Toneless pinyin proposal

I am preparing the a vote at Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2009-12/Treatment of toneless pinyin syllables, regarding our options for the presentation of toneless pinyin syllables, discussed above at #Toneless pinyin.

A fundamental feature of spoken Chinese is the use of tones - four specific variations in pronunciation which can impart different meanings on any of the ~410 basic syllable combinations which make up the language. Chinese characters are romanised using pinyin, these tones are usually represented as either accents over the affected vowel, or numbers next to the syllable (for example mā and ma1). There are numerous instances of "toneless pinyin" out there in the wild - that is, instances where someone has used words that should have a tone, but left the tone out. This is particularly prevalent in the names of Chinese cities (like Beijing, which is bei and jing), with Chinese street signs, on Chinese currency, in certain official documents, in Chinese Restaurant names, and in certain common menu items (e.g. kung pao chicken and wontons), as well as in some books and bibliographies discussed earlier. I made entries for all 410 or so toneless pinyin syllables in 2007. We have four basic options on how to treat these, with examples set forth below.

The first is to continue using the format that I used in making the initial entries. From gang:

[edit] Mandarin

[edit] Pinyin syllable

gang

1. A transliteration of any of a number of Chinese characters properly represented as having one of three tones, gāng, gǎng, or gàng.

[edit] Usage notes

English transcriptions of Chinese speech often fail to distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Chinese language, using words such as this one without the appropriate indication of tone.

---

The second option is to treat them as misspellings. From chan:

[edit] Mandarin

[edit] Pinyin syllable

chan

1. {{misspelling of|chān|lang=cmn}}
2. {{misspelling of|chán|lang=cmn}}
3. {{misspelling of|chǎn|lang=cmn}}
4. {{misspelling of|chàn|lang=cmn}}

[edit] Usage notes

English transcriptions of Chinese speech often fail to distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Chinese language, using words such as this one without the appropriate indication of tone.

---

The third option is to treat them as alternative spellings. From zhen:

[edit] Mandarin

[edit] Pinyin syllable

zhen

1. {{alternative spelling of|[[zhēn]]|lang=cmn}}
2. {{alternative spelling of|[[zhěn]]|lang=cmn}}
3. {{alternative spelling of|[[zhèn]]|lang=cmn}}

[edit] Usage notes

English transcriptions of Chinese speech often fail to distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Chinese language, using words such as this one without the appropriate indication of tone.

---

The fourth option is to exclude them altogether. A side issue is, if they are retained in any form, whether to also include the usage note which I added when I made the initial entries.

Cheers! bd2412 T 02:10, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't it make sense to put the Usage notes content inside a template? --Yair rand 06:33, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, it is in a template for chan, but not for zhen or gang. --Yair rand 06:37, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

It used to be in a template for all of them, but I long ago subst'ed them. The wording is unlikely to change, but I've raised the question of whether we ought to have the usage note at all in the proposed vote. I'd like to add to the above that whichever option is ultimately selected, I can make all the changes with AWB in the space of a few days. bd2412 T 21:05, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] References

• yinjiebiao (syllable table; syllabary)
• Mandarin pinyin with diacritics
• Mandarin pinyin with tone numbers
• Mandarin pinyin
• Pinyin Index
• Google hits: "yinjiebiao"
• Google hits: "Hanyu Pinyin yinjiebiao"
  • Please note that this proposal is directed only at individual syllables, not syllables combined into words. bd2412 T 16:39, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Braille

We seem to have no specific policy (or even a precedent) on how to format Braille entries. In ⠁, we have English, Chinese, Cyrillic and Japanese Braille information under the ==Translingual== header, and information about Hebrew and Korean Braille are under ==Hebrew== and ==Korean==, respectively. The same is true for all of the other Braille entries. It seems like we should standardize these by either placing all information under the Translingual header, or by putting each piece in its respective language header. --Yair rand 05:36, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

This is an odd consequence of the fact that Braille symbols encode for letters in multiple scripts and that by our Translingual policy characters in some scripts are considered Translingual and others are not. Since the Latin, Cyrillic, and Hiragana scripts are used by multiple languages, characters in those scripts can have "Translingual" entries (see Latin a, Cyrrillic а, and あ). This is not the case for Hebrew and Korean (though "technically" Hangul is also used now in Cia-Cia) where the characters still can only have individual language entries. So the Translingual entries for the three Translingual script are together and the other two are separate. I think there is room for improvement somehow though. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 06:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Fyi, Hebrew characters are also used in other languages (though I don't know whether Hebrew Braille is).​—msh210℠ 20:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

In any event, I think certain Braille characters need an English section: those that code for words. For example, ⠡ codes for child in English, per this font of information on Braille.​—msh210℠ 20:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to pick a language for our next focus

I'd like to think at this point that we have coverage of almost every word in the English language for which people are likely to turn to a dictionary seeking a definition, synonyms, or similar guidance. I'd like to propose that one of our main value-added propositions is our utility as a translating dictionary. To that end, I'd like to propose that we as a community pick one specific language, and agree to spend the next month expanding our coverage of that language (both in the addition of entries in that language, and in the inclusion of translations into that language in English entries), through all the tools at our disposal. I feel that, given that month (and our existing decent coverage of widely spoken languages), we will be able to surpass the coverage of the typical translation dictionary. I would also suggest that either Spanish or French would be a good place to kick off such a focus, given our existing strong coverage of each. Thoughts? bd2412 T 03:49, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

While I think that this is a good idea, I just don't think that we have the userbase to be able to do so. There aren't enough users that would be able to spend a whole month helping out in our coverage with certain languages. I believe that instead of focusing on particular languages, we should instead let people continue making pages for the languages that they like to make the pages for as that will help us expand our coverage of more than one language at a time, which would be better than spending one month working on just one language. Razorflame 04:05, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I certainly respect the fact that users will work on what they are interested in working on, but I think if we come together on this, enough people will put in enough time to make it worth doing. bd2412 T 04:24, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

It is certainly worth doing, but I just don't know if enough users will be able to come together on this. We could always try, though :) Razorflame 04:36, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

If others are for it, I say why not try. bd2412 T 04:42, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with the premise that we have sufficient English coverage. We sorely lack many compound terms. I the past few weeks, we've added mobile home and electron cloud. Rather than picking a new language, I think we need to seek out compound terms in English that we lack.

In addition, we very badly need to clear up missing and incomplete definitions of existing English entries. Having an entry is not the same as having all the basic information. Consider the entry fluidly, whose entire entry consists of a PoS header and the *ahem* definition "in a fluid manner". So, if I hear that someone "spoke fluidly", does that mean he drooled a lot while talking? And what about the etymology, the pronunciation, the synonyms, the translations tables, etc.? There may be an entry for fluidly, but it's hardly an entry that would enlighten anyone. There is still a LOT of work to be done on our coverage of English words. --EncycloPetey 05:14, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

At least this would get us started on translation tables for words having none. I see your point, however. Perhaps a future project then, once English is more fully accomplished. bd2412 T 05:21, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I would like to see a process of advancing our English definitions to a state where they were worthy of the effort of, 1., initial translation and, 2., translation review. To focus translation effort initially, we might consider the, 3., use of {{trans-see}}, which, in turn, requires the, 4., identification of synonyms.

1. One class of terms that need an initial translation effort will be adverbs. In almost all monolingual dictionaries most adverbs are not defined. We would be differentiating ourselves somewhat by providing good definitions and translating them. Until the adverb definitions are checked for adequacy, I am not sure the translation effort is worth it.

   Another class of terms are English idiomatic predicates and English idioms in general. The rationale for having them is that they cannot be understood or translated word-for-word. Yet a large portion of them have no translations. Massive insertion of trans tables and {{trreq}} would be a constructive step for terms that seem to have adequate definitions.

2. Many basic terms have benefited from massive translation effort. Unfortunately much of that effort was applied to entries that were not renovated after import from Webster 1913. Visviva has compiled a list of terms on the GSL list of basic words that show signs of needing updating. It would help if we had some marker for a sense being sufficiently up to date to be translation-worthy.
3. There is little value to copying translations to truly close synonyms. There is good reason to have translation effort concentrated. That is the purpose of {{trans-see}}. For English terms have particularly close synonyms, it is good to mark the term most worthy of translation effort with trans-see. To help translators and users it would be very desirable for the template to direct them to the specific Etymology-PoS. If trans-see directs users to our more massive basic-word entries, it may be necessary to remove it.
4. To apply trans-see and to help with translations, it is helpful to have synonymous entries to refer to. Some entries do not have synonyms marked or wikilinked, or the in-line synonym links are lost in a sea of blue links.

While this is going on, there is no reason not to have massive addition of words in other languages. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 11:48, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

If that is what you want to do, then that would be very useful. But experience has shown that you can't tell (or even ask) people to cooperate on a project. We all do what we want. Cheers. SemperBlotto 11:56, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

It is part of what I have been doing. They are just suggestions for others. They fit into a program that couldn't possibly be completed without others working on it or similar programs too. The idea of a program in a volunteer effort is to solicit interest to get efforts that add up to more than the individual steps. I gather that I don't have your interest, which I regret.

My objective is to improve English definition quality enough so that translation effort is not wasted. I am, in part, responding to complaints about an excessive number of {{ttbc}}. To avoid excessive ttbcs (or divergence of trans glosses and definitions) translation effort shouldn't be wasted on poor entries, such as those still with obsolete 1913 wording. I would think it very cool if by 2013 we had honored Webster's 1913 by updating its language in our entries. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 13:19, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

We have a lot of missing English entries. I worked through a little bit of the first S page of User:Brian0918/Hotlist. Before we get anything big started with foreign-language entries, I think it'd be better to perhaps work on English quite a bit. There are lots of 'missing lists'... L☺g☺maniac ☃ 15:13, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

After some further thought, I'm wondering if it would be a good thing to have an organized Wiktionary:Sign up sheet or something with the major tasks to be done for each language listed so that users (especially newcomers) can have some idea of what needs to be done and who's working on what. Any thoughts on that? L☺g☺maniac ☃ 16:11, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

As with everything, it needs a dedicated user to devote time and energy into keeping it up to date, WT:DW (the previous attempt at something like this) fell into disuse; I think the WT:CDPR is a better idea, where people can create lists of things and mark them off as they get done. Conrad.Irwin 16:43, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Wiktionary Community portal has a section one or two page-downs from the top that directs users to some particular pages. Perhaps that could be made more prominent. Perhaps, also, we could identify and mark appropriately some tasks that are well suited for new users and suggest what skills are required (eg, basic knowledge of WT:ELE, knowing how to bold words in a usage example or quote, advanced knowledge of English grammar, knowing how to add or remove wikilinks appropriately, ability to add synonyms, ability to add transitive, intransitive tags, ability to detect and mark hard-to-understand definitions).

This would require:

1. Some specific rfc-tags,
2. Corresponding automated cleanup list pages with instructions,
3. A page to help users find the tasks, and
4. Some means of advertising some or all the tasks to new users (possibly a "featured task").

The first step might be to get consensus on some specific tasks that fit this kind of framework and were better done by new users than by bots. It might be necessary to make sure that bots were likely to catch the kind of errors a new user might make in working such lists. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 16:42, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I've started User:Logomaniac/Sign up sheet, if other editors would please add helpful links for each language. L☺g☺maniac ☃ 20:06, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Question: Is that list specifically for missing words, or can any tasks be placed there? --Yair rand 20:20, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

It would be better to keep tasks at WT:CDPR, where we could do with taking some of DCDuring's advice. Conrad.Irwin 20:26, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) It is for any (semi- to large) tasks that need to be done. I understand that CDPR is for smaller things. L☺g☺maniac ☃ 20:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

There was a certain meta-logic to my thinking on this. Outpacing print translation dictionaries in a particular language brings us more utility that other resources; which brings more users; some of whom will stay and become editors. bd2412 T 21:09, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

The meta-logic is well worth some thought, too. I'm interested in tasks that improve en def quality where new users can help and learn something about en.wikt as they do it. Some of them might become long-term contributors too. Because this is en.wikt, English has a special role. I have focused on English definitions because they are important to both monolingual users and translation seekers and have quality problems which seem to have been hard to solve. Not everyone has the skills or desire to work in that direction, but we can reduce the skill requirement a bit by decomposing the tasks and serve the tasks up as clean-up lists a format that seems to direct effort fairly effectively in many cases.

I assume that the many non-en-N contributors here would like to be able to count on en.wikt to have good English definitions, usage examples, synonyms, glosses, and grammar information to facilitate their translation work and answer any questions about English. The quality of the English sections or the ambition to improve them must play some role in their being here.

One thing that I would really appreciate would be some feedback from those whose are not en-N, en-5, or en-4 about the intelligibility of definitions, especially at the sense level. Perhaps some new sense-level clean-up templates like {{rfc-hunh}}, {{rfc-saywhat}}, or, more prosaically {{rfc-def}} would help. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 23:15, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand this premise at all. If we haven't got a good number of contributors for most languages as it is now, how are we supposed to "focus" on one language? People either contribute in their language of proficiency or not - some kind of "focus" proposal won't change that - that is, unless you mean getting people who don't speak the language to contribute too which will only lead to errors. Tooironic 22:40, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Clearly there are choices in how folks spend their time. With negligible language skills outside of English I can still choose to facilitate work of translators by inserting {{trans}} (with glosses) and

{{{1}}} — see {{{1}}} and clean up messes in the trans tables. I can clean up WT:ELE errors in entries outside of English.

With en skills of 2-3 someone could still evaluate English definitions for intelligibility and opine on the adequacy or relevance of usage examples.

At the level of shared resources, policies, and cleanup lists there are lots of choices that determine what is made easier or harder; encouraged or discouraged.

People ultimately do what they want and what they can. Most people want to do things that further a larger objective. Their view of how the larger objectives, how wiktionary as a whole might get there, and how they can best contribute is subject to discussion and change. In addition, what people can do changes as a result of what they learn, often by explicit choice. For example, I didn't own CGEL or Garner's before coming to en.wikt and didn't have much conscious knowledge about grammar. I chose to learn more to help more in those areas. Some of our more technically adept contributors have produced very helpful cleanup lists which facilitate correcting certain kinds of deficiencies. If a particular kind of deficiency doesn't capture enough of their interest, it will get corrected much more slowly. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 23:32, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

<tongue-in-cheek> Why don't we go through all the [[Category:User lang]]s, pick out all the users that are anything-3, 4, 5 or N, and leave a message on their talkpage, You list yourself as proficient in this language, would you please care to contribute in it? </tongue-in-cheek> L☺g☺maniac ☃ 23:33, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

The bottom line is this: what is our value-added proposition? Why should people in need of a dictionary turn to us instead of a print dictionary, or one of the countless websites offering dictionary services? Granted, most of those websites are either electronic versions of existing print dictionaries, or regurgitations of public-domain dictionaries that we have already absorbed and improved upon. Still, what is it that we offer that will make us the go-to source of lexical information? bd2412 T 23:50, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

why we are better than other dictionaries: 1) We are always being improved instead of once every several years like print dictionaries 2) We are a wiki, which means it's easy for someone to fix a mistake or add needed information 3) we rock. :)

Just FTR: I think it would be a good thing to have editors working together on specific language(s). But it would probably be better as a smaller project, not a community-wide one, as there are many editors who won't know the language(s) in the spotlight. So if we started something in, say, French or Spanish, all the French or Spanish-speaking editors (es or fr-2 (3?) or above, probably) would be invited to participate. L☺g☺maniac ☃ 00:12, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I think there actually is a way we could actually make this work, and have a temporary specific-language focus:

1. Don't do it often. Have a specific month for working on a language once every six months or so, or maybe once a year.
2. Make it an 'event', as in "February is French month on the English Wiktionary! You can help!" and try to get users (especially newbies and IP's) enthusiastic about the idea. Throw in a sitenotice and we've got a huge load of new users interested in helping.
3. Advertise off-Wiktionary. Wikimedia has very many users who would be glad to help with an event related to their language. For example, in the case of Spanish, we could post a message to w:wt:WikiProject Spain, and wherever the Spanish translators would see it, and try to get the word around Wikimedia. Again, try to make it a Wikimedian event, make it "exciting".
4. Big, colorful, and active. I think everyone knows what I mean.

Still, it would be difficult. On the other hand, if it's a huge success, that would be a seriously major victory for Wiktionary. --Yair rand 04:51, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for taking so long to get back to this - I think that is a great strategy, and I think we should aim to try it out in June. If we can get the other Wiktionaries on board, and have that indeed be a Spanish month, in which several different Wiktionary projects work on adding Spanish content, we might be able to get a synergistic benefit of cross-posting from one Wiktionary to the next (by which I mean, someone posts a new Spanish word on Italian wiktionary, and then posts that same new word here so that we have a quick interwiki connection established). bd2412 T 03:40, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

How about a "month of the obscure language focus" ? Several interested editors pick a rather obscure language (living or extinct), decide to learn it and add quality entries to Wiktionary (complete entries with pronunciations & inflections). And I'm not talking about regional or minority variants of "big" languages with (semi-)official status (which are rather easy to pick up once you learn the standard idiom), but of indigenous languages, languages with little or no literary tradition, or e.g. ancient extinct languages attested in a relatively small corpus of texts (Hmm, that whould be pretty much all except Greek, Latin and Sanskrit). There should only be one condition: that there is at least one online reference work of it available (preferably a comprehensive grammar). And that a language is, of-course, "obscure" (e.g. spoken < 1 million people). There are a lot of high-quality research works (usually in PDF format) available on the Web, including audio recordings made during the fieldtrips as well as texts (songs, folk tales etc.), that can be utilized as a learning material. There are countless indigenous languages of America, Africa, Australia, Caucasus, Siberia etc. to chose from, most of which are extremely interesting. One or two months should be enough to cover the basic lexicon (a few thousand basic words). If there is anyone interested in this kind of teamwork, please let me know (either here or on my talkpage), and I'll start a project page! --Ivan Štambuk 06:29, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

That is a noble idea, but what does more to increase the utility of Wiktionary to the world at large? I suggest that we become a resource for translations into common languages first as a means of drawing in more participants, and once we have done that, use the additional manpower to plow through more obscure tongues. bd2412 T 16:55, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Name appendices

Perhaps Appendix:Names male-A, Appendix:Names male-B, etc. could be renamed to Appendix:Masculine given names/A, Appendix:Masculine given names/B, etc. --Daniel. 13:15, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Support renaming. --Yair rand 19:55, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Support, definitely a clearer and more intuitive naming scheme. bd2412 T 20:38, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Support. —AugPi _(t) 21:03, 24 December 2009 (UTC) (see below)

I prefer Appendix:Male given names/A which would be consistent with all uses of {{given name|male}} and its categories. (male: 5800, female: 5500, for interest) Conrad.Irwin 21:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Good point: Support this alternative. —AugPi _(t) 21:38, 24 December 2009 (UTC)(see below)

Support Appendix:Male given names. --Dan Polansky 12:58, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Support original proposal and changing "male names" everywhere to "masculine names". Names are grammatically masculine. Names are not male, as they have no genitalia and do not reproduce; only the bearers of such names can be male. --EncycloPetey 21:42, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

But then, the categories are wrong! —AugPi _(t) 21:53, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The category names are wrong, and should be corrected. They were named incorrectly the last time we went through name cleanup, becasue the change was hurried through without adequate discussion. --EncycloPetey 22:01, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Names in English have no gender, male names are those given to males. While I can quite happily agree that a masculine name is one given to a masculine person, it seems fairly pointless to change the tens of thousands of pages just to "correct" a perceived mistake. Conrad.Irwin 22:38, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

The mistake is more than merely perceived if in fact there are women who have these names. Which, in some cases, there are. bd2412 T 23:16, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean? We called a girl at school Harry Potter (because she happened to look `exactly` the same as Daniel Radcliffe or something) it didn't make the name less male or the person less female. Conrad.Irwin 02:14, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

If a given name is used for both males and females, it is both a male name and a female name; I see no problem here. --Dan Polansky 12:48, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

I support Conrad's "Appendix:Male given names/A":

The term "male name" can be read in several ways, one of them being "name given to males" on the model of "tree name" or "person name", meaning that "male" in "male name" is read as a noun used attributively. And English has no gender, so "masculine name" as applied to, say, English "John" seems technically incorrect. --Dan Polansky 10:12, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

According to Wiktionary, one definition of masculine is "pertaining to male humans", so masculine given names is not technically incorrect when applied to English. --Daniel. 12:36, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

As far as "masculine" means "pertaining to male humans", "masculine name" is synonymous to "male name", while the term "male name" is less ambiguous than "masculine name" for the purpose of denoting "name given to males". In "masculine word", "masculine" clearly refers to grammatical gender, so "masculine name" seems per default to be read as a "name with masculine grammatical gender". For instance, "Praha" is a Czech feminine name, albeit a place name.

To apply "masculine name" in the sense "name with masculine grammatical gender" to "John" seems technically incorrect. --Dan Polansky 12:48, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

An afterthought, to expand on the point with "Praha": the point of dividing given names into male ones and female ones is to divide them by the gender of people to which they apply, not by the grammatical gender of the name. We have neither categories nor appendices on "Feminine place names" and "Masculine place names", not because these names can have no grammatical gender but because places have no gender. Yes, the gender of the person to which the name applies and the grammatical gender of the given name almost always coincide, hence this discussion in the first place. --Dan Polansky 13:05, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, no, I have to disagree about "male name" and "masculine name" meaning the same thing. They do not. One is grammatically correct in English, the other is a misuse of "male". Further, per my comments below, John does have grammatical gender, and saying so is actually correct. --EncycloPetey 15:41, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

I am not saying that "male name" and "masculine name" mean, in one of their senses, the same thing; it is Daniel who implied this assumption in his argument above. I have only picked up his assumption, and, working from that assumption, shown what makes me think that even under that assumption "male name" seems preferable to "masculine name".

The claim that "male name" is grammatically incorrect seems implausible: from what I can see, it is an attributive use of the noun "male", on the model of "tree name" and "person name", a model that I have already mentioned. The claim that the term "male name" is grammatically incorrect is as yet lacking any proof, other than an attempt to interpret "male" as an adjective applied to biological entities, which "name" admittedly is not. --Dan Polansky 09:16, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Let us see some Google results:

• google:"male names" - 544,000 hits
• google:"masculine names" - 84,300 hits
• google books:"male names"- 888 hits
• google books:"masculine names" - 813 hits

While mere web hit counts cannot indisputably demonstrate that something is a correct grammar, they at least indicate that the users of the language do not consider it an issue. This seems relevant in the absence of an indisputable theoretical proof that the thing in question is not a correct grammar. --Dan Polansky 09:37, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for throwing out so many meaningless numbers. Now search "Male Arabic names" vs "Masculine Arabic names", or better still, look at what was actually returned in the first list of links you listed above. On the very first page are some hits for "masculine names" that lack the combination "male names" that you were supposedly searching for. Google numbers cannot be used the way you have tried to, and we've gone through the problems of using such numbers as support many, many times before. The Google search is not as strict as people naively believe, but searches also for things you might want, but didn't actually search for. It's also weighted in favor of sites with more pages, since it returns page links rather than sites, and doues not weed out duplicates.

Now look at google hits for "he be sick", which has more than one million returns, but which every grammarian will agree is a problematic construction in English. Your arguments from Google numbers are irrelevant. --EncycloPetey 16:16, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Support original proposal, per EP. —AugPi _(t) 22:30, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

No, stay with male as English given names (and lots of others) don't have a gender. Male can be used to me "for a male person" so to say that Peter is a male given name is correct, but not masculine. Not in English anyway. But yes move these somewhere better. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:31, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Debatable as it is, I don't think French given names have genders, they just take the gender of the person they are referring to. While Martine is a female given name, if someone did call their son Martine people would say un Martine not une. 14:35, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Given names do have gender, even in English. This is not to say that they have morphological endings specific to the gender, but that each name falls into an expected category of gender value, and takes corresponding pronouns that match this expected gender. These expectations affect understanding. If you saw the sentence, "Why can't Anna open her locker?" you would assume Anna was trying to open her own locker. On the other hand, if you saw the sentence, "Why can't Anna open his locker?" then you would assume Anna was attempting to open some other person's locker. This occurs because we expect that Anna is a feminine name. The expected gender of names in English affects understanding of the language, affects choice of pronoun, and so I maintain that English given names have gender. --EncycloPetey 15:36, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

The example that you have given only proves that the gender of the person called "Anna" can be securely inferred from "Anna", not that the term "Anna" has a grammatical gender. Yes, given the knowledge that Anna is a female name and not a male name, the inference can be made that in "Why can't Anna open his locker?" it is not the locker of Anna but of a male person. By contrast, in Czech, "osoba"--person--is a term of feminine grammatical gender, yet no conclusion can be drawn from it on the gender of the person denoted by "osoba". It is not the supposed grammatical gender of "Anna" but its being exclusively a female name that makes the inference on the gender of the person possible. --Dan Polansky 09:16, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

An afterthought: are you saying that "woman", "girl", "fiancée", "baroness", and "actress" have grammatical gender in English? Each of them can be substituted into the argument that you have built above; each is sufficient for an unambiguous determination of the human gender or sex of the referent: "Why can't the actress open his locker?" --Dan Polansky 09:45, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

You've misunderstood my argument. Nowhere did I say that Anna referred to a woman; the gender of the individual is not at issue. I said that assumptions about gender of the name affect understanding of the language and use of pronouns. That is what grammatical gender means. --EncycloPetey 16:07, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

I could have misunderstood your argument, but tell me: Are you saying that "woman", "girl", "fiancée", "baroness", and "actress" have grammatical gender in English? If they do not have grammatical gender, what makes them different from "Anna" for the sake of determination of the presence or absence of grammatical gender? Put differently, what feature, property, or quality that "Anna" has and "actress" does not have makes you think "Anna" has a grammatical gender? --Dan Polansky 10:48, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

EncycloPetey, I think your assertion is incorrect, and propose that people assume that "John" is male for the same reason they assume in "Alfred drank qwenkjqbn with his bakbjw" that "qwenkjqbn" is a liquid and that "bakbjw" is a consumable (food or drink, I'm not sure -- maybe we should include Klingon?). The same reason that I assumed Sandy was a male name, until I met a female Sandy. There is no grammatical magic here, it's merely our wordly experience; it is incidentally the reason that computers, lacking a large store of wordly experience, have enormous difficulty in reading text. I do agree with comments above that "male name" could be misconstrued, and that "masculine name" could be misconstrued, and would request the authors of such comments read a little more English, this will learn them how to use context to disambiguate multiple possible interpretations of terms. Both are arguably correct, and arguably confusing, "male" is simpler and shorter and requires less work to implement consistently, thus I prefer it. Conrad.Irwin 21:56, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

In your example "Alfred drank qwenkjqbn with his bakbjw", I could not assume that bakbjw was a consumable, because it could mean "mouth" or "straw". However, through the magic of grammar, I can assume that it is a noun. This is not a question of prior experience, but of grammatical context. If I say to you "That Gryldis sure likes his dog", then you assume "Gryldis" is masculine because of the grammar, and not because of any prior experience with a person named "Gryldis". This is what grmmatical gender means. As a parallel real example, consider the Spanish noun teorema. From previous experience with Spanish (or related langauges), you might assume from the terminal -a that the word is of feminine gender, but it isn't. The reason we say it's masculine is that it takes masculine articles, adjectives and pronouns, as in El teorema es correcto. It is grammatical context in relation to other words that identifies the gender to us.

Since "male name" is more likely to be misconstrued, the problem should be corrected, and not passed on simply because it will take work to fix. It took a lot of work to put the categories into their current shape, and we did it successfully. Now it's time to improve them. --EncycloPetey 22:40, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

But you agree, surely, that "qwenkjqbn" is a liquid? Is that grammar too? I can eaily insert "tasty" before "bakbjw" to make it more clearly a food (I would not assume an "implement" on first reading because of the "his", normally it would be with "a" fork, though the "mouth" interpretation works fine, and I suppose if Alfred was edible he could have a tasty mouth, but I certainly would not assume such when reading) Sure, I can use the "his" to tell me that Gryldis is probably (but not certainly) a male; I strongly disagree with the assertion that it's a grammatical property of the name. As above, even when "Harry" refered to the girl at school (and this was certainly the male name Harry, short for Harry Potter), "Harry liked her dog" still uses "her" to agree with "Harry". It is a property of the referent and not the word. For the purposes of category naming, neither are hugely advantageous, and I will happily go with the flow, but I would like to get to the bottom of the "do names have gender" issue now we've started on it. I disagree that "male names" is more misinterpretable than "masculine names" because I don't accept your parse of the sentence. Conrad.Irwin 23:01, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Being a liquid is not a grammatical property, but being a noun is. Adding "tasty" (an adjective) further supports the interpretation that it's a noun. The issues you have with referent/word are not as easily separable for proper names as for common nouns. Proper names have the characteristic of being applicable only to a particular referent. However, here's an example in English of a proper name having a grammatical gender, even though the referent does not: "Britannia's finest hour was her perseverance in the war." The proper noun Britannia takes the feminine pronoun her, but does not refer to a female entity. English names of countries and vessels are routinely treated grammatically as feminine in English, despite having no inherent biological gender. --EncycloPetey 23:12, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, and I contest that, for English names at least, being "female" is not a grammatical property. I find the notion that "Harry" when used to refer to a girl has different grammatical properties to "Harry" used for a boy quite absurd - we were deliberately giving her a boy's name. Mglovesfun seems to indicate that he understands the same to hold for French names, the gender stays with the referent. I am quite happy to agree that poetically, ships, countries (and indeed almost anything else an author would like) can be referred to as female, I don't think that makes their names, or the words that describe them female ("The Thames gently lapping her banks", "The Thames broke its banks" - it's up to the author, not the language). Our usage notes agree with my (possibly naive) interpretation of the situation "# Ships are traditionally regarded as feminine and the pronouns her and she are normally used instead of it." Conrad.Irwin 23:43, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

And part of my point in this discussion is that being female is a biological property, never a grammatical one. So I agree that "being "female" is not a grammatical property". However, being feminine is a culturally and grammatically determined property. This is why I object to "male name" over "masculine name" &co. You do realize that the reason English treats names of countries as feminine is a holdover from a time when English did have complete grammatical distinction, and parallels Latin tendencies to name places with feminine names? Modern English has largely lost the grammatical gender distinction, but does retain it vestigially in its pronouns, in many proper nouns, and a few common nouns that refer to animals. --EncycloPetey 23:55, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that neither "male" nor "masculine" is completely appropriate, "male" because it normally denotes sex, "masculine" because in a dictionary it normally denotes grammatical gender. Given names correspond to social gender, which is another thing entirely. You seem to think that, because English used to have grammatical gender, we can assume that socially gendered given names are a vestigial reflex of that; but I just don't think that's true. —Ruakh_TALK 00:01, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Pairing with certain pronouns is a feature of grammar, not of social gender. Your statements about what I seem to think have missed most of what I've said to this point, and draw an incorrect conclusion about my reasoning, which is from demonstrated grammatical context, not from historics. History implies cause, not current status. --EncycloPetey 00:31, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Ruakh is, to my mind, correct; and I thank him for stating what I feel so clearly. I can quite happily acknowledge that pronouns change their form depending on their referrent, and can quite happily acknowledge that this is due to grammar; I simply have a huge problem with saying that because this Harry is a male, this "Harry" is a masculine word, and that that process is grammar. This may well be due to a lack of linguistic training on my part, in which case thank you for your attempts to explain. Conrad.Irwin 01:07, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

At least do me one courtesy (Conrad and Ruakh): What would you look for in a word (in any language) to determine (1) whether it had gender, (2) which gender it was, and (3) does your answer apply to both inflected and uninflected languages? For your convenience, please note that Wikipedia defines grammatical gender as "classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words." --EncycloPetey 04:29, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

When I was learning French, it seems that the article used would give the gender, from my memories of Latin, the set of endings used dictated the gender - though I can see that this is probably a backwards answer. I suppose you could thus retroactively say that because "he" is used to refer to Harry, and "Harry" must agree with "he", "Harry" is masculine, but that sounds a bit convoluted to me. Conrad.Irwin 22:24, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Name appendices — AEL

I reject the supposition that we can view gender as a property of "a word (in any language)". Some languages have noun classes, and of these languages, some have grammatical traditions whereby the noun classes are called "genders". In most of the latter group, a noun's gender is usually arbitrary, but frequently correlates with semantics (e.g., there may be one gender containing most words for men and another gender containing most words for women; if so, the former will likely be called "masculine" and the latter "feminine"), with phonological properties (e.g., Hebrew words ending in /-a/ are usually feminine, including new loanwords), and so on. But these concepts can't be transferred to languages like English that lack grammatical gender. English has a few gendered pronouns, but it doesn't have gendered nouns: a gender-marked pronoun's gender is not determined by its antecedent noun, but rather by its real-world referent. (Really, I'm not sure "gender" is even the right word to apply to these pronouns, but it's close enough, and I don't know of a better one.) —Ruakh_TALK 02:32, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Ruakh, your argument is tautological. You are saying that names in English lack gender because English lacks grammatical gender. This is akin to a botanical discussion I was party to, where a botanist insisted structures on a certain species couldn't be stipules. When asked why, the botanist stated that members of that plant family don't have stipules, so those couldn't be stipules. He refused to accept that the axiomatic declaration was incorrect, despite evidence to the contrary. It is true that people say English doesn't have gendered nouns, but the evidence is that it does have them, as I have presented evidence that supports that view. True, most English nouns are ungendered, but there are some that are, and these take gendered pronouns of the same gender. This pattern is not limited by referent, as I have provided examples where the referent of the noun has neither sex nor gender.

Again, could you do me the courtesy of answering the question I've asked: "What would you look for in a word (in any language) to determine whether it had gender?" the answer you gave of "there may be one gender containing most words for men and another gender containing most words for women" seems to point to a referent-based argument, but you then rejected that idea. So, what would you look for in a language to determine whether a noun had gender? --EncycloPetey 03:00, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: "You are saying that names in English lack gender because English lacks grammatical gender": Not quite. I am saying that English lacks grammatical gender, so it's meaningless to try to assign genders to names. We can just as well say that "Bob" is a feminine proper noun because it always takes feminine adjectives (which in English are identical to masculine ones). My basis for claiming that English lacks grammatical gender is that I am not aware of any feature of English that is best explained that way.

Re: "True, most English nouns are ungendered, but there are some that are, and these take gendered pronouns of the same gender": No, I don't think so. English nouns are ungendered; most correlate very strongly with a specific "gender" of referent, and therefore tend to co-refer with pronouns of that "gender", but the nouns themselves are without gender. Desk always (presumably?) has an inanimate referent, so goes with it; mother and Anna usually have female human referents, so go with she/her (though they sometimes have female non-human referents, in which case it is also possible); and so on. Not a grammatical property, but a semantic property with secondary grammatical consequences.

Re: "This pattern is not limited by referent, as I have provided examples where the referent of the noun has neither sex nor gender": Sorry, please re-provide them. I can't figure out which of your above comments provides these.

Re: "the answer you gave of 'there may be one gender containing most words for men and another gender containing most words for women' seems to point to a referent-based argument, but you then rejected that idea": What I was saying is that when noun classes exist, the referents of each class of nouns are typically a factor in choosing the terms "gender", "masculine", "feminine", and so on (or in not choosing them). In a language like English, where noun classes don't exist, we can still apply terms like "masculine" and "feminine" and such, but they no longer indicate grammatical gender — and in a multilingual dictionary, that's a confusing thing to do, because usually we use those terms only in reference to grammatical gender (e.g., we call French professeur "masculine", even though it can refer to a woman just as well as to a man).

By the way, even if you wish to maintain that English has a grammatical distinction between masculine and feminine, surely you must admit that there are some languages that do not. Do you suggest that we simply remove "male" and "female" from descriptions of Finnish, Hungarian, Persian, etc., given names, and leave our readers in the dark about the sex of those names?

—Ruakh_TALK 04:10, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I begin to get the feeling that you aren't going to answer my question. You've posted a long reply, but still have not answered my question that has twice been directed to you: "What would you look for in a word (in any language) to determine whether it had gender?" --EncycloPetey 04:31, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

What would I look for in a word? I'd look for its language. If its language is a language with gender, then it has gender; otherwise, it doesn't. There, a simple answer. Happy? —Ruakh_TALK 13:23, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Simple and circular. You still have presented no criteria for actually making a determination, but have merely deferred the question to "How do you know if a language has gender?" Stacking turtles does not solve the problem. --EncycloPetey 16:54, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Not circular at all; I've merely replaced what I consider to be the wrong question (yours) with what I consider to be the right question (which you've now correctly identified). It is meaningless to consider a word in isolation and say that it has gender; gender is a property of an entire language, not of an individual word. Anyway, the answer to the right question is that a language has gender if it has a small number of noun classes, and it is reasonable to label these classes with terms like "masculine" and "feminine" (and sometimes "neuter"), or "common" and "neuter", or the like. (There can be borderline cases where it's not clear if a language's noun classes are best considered "genders" — in those cases, we just have to do our best to reflect tradition and linguistic consensus — but the entire question is moot if the language doesn't have noun classes to begin with.) Next question: "How do you know if a language has noun classes?": A language has noun classes if other words (such as adjectives, determiners, verbs, etc.) change form to agree with the choice of noun. For example, in French, if I refer to something as une chose ("a thing"), then any associated adjectives will be inflected for feminine gender, whereas if I refer to it as un object ("an object") or un truc ("a thingy"), then any associated adjectives will be inflected for masculine gender. Note that this never happens in English; no words inflect for gender, and while we have a few gendered pronouns (he/him/his/himself, she/her/hers/herself, and it/it/itself), the choice of which pronoun to use not determined by its antecedent noun, but rather by its real-world referent. —Ruakh_TALK 18:29, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

RE: "Note that this never happens in English": the experts at Oxford and Cambridge disagree with you on that point. They state that gender is not a matter of inflection, and that English pronouns and some English nouns do indeed have gender. See my lengthy reply below. --EncycloPetey 18:39, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that information; it's very helpful. (To be sure, they do agree with me on the specific point that you quote, but I definitely see what you're saying.) It looks like the CGEL applies "gender" to English in a few different ways, at times using terms like "personal" and "non-personal" (in reference to who, what, which, etc.) and at other times terms like "masculine", "feminine", and "neuter". However, and I think this is important, it doesn't look like the CGEL ever describes any noun as having a specific gender; it seems to apply those terms only to the pronouns. (We can certainly infer gendered nouns from its examples — e.g., it has a King/himself example with the word "masculine" off to the right — but it itself never seems to make that hop.) But please correct me if I'm wrong; I'm one of those lame-os who hasn't bought a copy yet, so am going from the preview on Amazon.com. —Ruakh_TALK 19:24, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, they do in the section entitled "common noun gender classes" beginning on page 489. They also treat the issue of nouns which can associate with either a masculine or feminine pronoun (tutor is used as an example), and they say that because the association with gender of the pronoun is not consistent, the noun tutor has no encoded gender. They classify these nouns as "dual-gender masculine/feminine". However, the discussion you're really looking for begins on page 490 with the section on "single-gender masculine nouns". They say of this class (in part): "This class contains man […] ; various kinship or similar terms involving marriage relations; a good number of occupational terms compounded from man; and names of various social ranks such as duke, count, squire. In all, they list seven noun classes in English. --EncycloPetey 21:51, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Butting in, unindenting and reiterating my question that likely got lost above, to EncycloPetey:

• Q1: Are you saying that "woman", "girl", "fiancée", "baroness", and "actress" have grammatical gender in English?
• Q2: If they do not have grammatical gender, what makes them different from "Anna" for the sake of determination of the presence or absence of grammatical gender? Put differently, what feature, property, or quality that "Anna" has and "actress" does not have makes you think "Anna" has a grammatical gender? --Dan Polansky 09:03, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

The question wasn't lost; I'm just waiting for someone to answer my question in which I'm trying to get at an operational definition of grammatical gender. So far, only Conrad has made a real attempt to answer the question. I'm now waiting for a serious answer from Ruakh, but you are welcome to reply as well. "What would you look for in a word (in any language) to determine whether it had gender?" Once I have an answer to that, then a discussion can continue. Otherwise, we'll keep working past each other. --EncycloPetey 16:54, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

For me, it would depend on the language. In Spanish, I'd look at the article used with a noun and possibly the ending of the word to determine the gender of the noun. (And I don't know any other languages to give examples in them..... and English just uses 'the' for everything) L☺g☺maniac ☃ 17:07, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, but what if there were no article used, and the noun ended in -z? (both are very real possibilities in Spanish, and I am trying to go somewhere with this question; it relates to Conrad's answer above) --EncycloPetey 17:13, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I would look the word up in a dictionary. And if I couldn't find it in a dictionary I wouldn't use the word. :p L☺g☺maniac ☃ 17:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

So the gender of a word is determined by proclamation from a published authority? Really? But we are a dictionary, so we need to know the criteria that a dictionary writer would use in making the determination, and to employ those criteria ourselves. This is what we do when we write definitions based on collected citations. Even if a published dictionary lacks the sense we want to add, if we have amassed evidence for that sense, then we include that sense. My question then is: what evidence do we look for to justify assignment of gender to a noun? Yes, an article pairing can help, and sometimes the ending gives a clue (but can be uninformative or misleading, even in Spanish). So, are there any other things we could look for, and what are they? The other things I would look for are pairings with certain adjectival forms and certain pronoun forms. This is essentially what the Wikipedia definition of "grammatical gender" says, and it's correct. Grammatical gender is determined by the behavior of other associated words.

The Oxford Companion to the English Language says that in languages with gender "these parts of speech when used together must agree in gender". It is the consistent pairings of different parts of speech that marks gender groups. The OCEL also says: "In English, grammatical distinctions of gender are mainly confined to the third-person singular pronouns," and "Some natural-gender distinctions between pairs of nouns show a derivational relationship […] but most have no morphological connection. Some feminine endings are criticized as pejorative and sexist […] In recent years, conscious attempts have been made to use the unmarked or masculine term for both sexes." The OCEL explicitly acknowledges the existence of gender in English, but notes it is largely confined to third-person pronouns, and to a few noun pairs associated with natural-gender distinctions.

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language discusses gender on pages 484-499. It notes that "Gender is not an inflectional category in English. Gender classes can be differentiated only on the basis of relations with pronouns […] " They do point out that " […] some linguists argue that English simply has no gender system, that the category of gender is irrelevant to English. That is not the view we take here: we regard the differences between English and French or German as a difference in the degree to which gender is grammaticalised in these langugaes, not in whether or not they have a category of gender." (link provided solely for entry creation purposes) The CGEL then proceeds to describe and differentiate the gender of pronouns, and the common noun gender classes in English. They do not, unfortunately address the issue of gender for proper nouns, except for the (long-since) aforementioned application of the feminine gender to nations and ships, but their treatment of what constitutes a proper noun (or what they call a proper name) is lacking in other regards as well and sticks principally to descriptions of usage rather than delimitation of defining universal properties.

Thus, linguistics experts in English for both Oxford and Cambridge agree that there is gender distinction in English, and the CGEL unambiguously states that some English nouns have grammatical gender. --EncycloPetey 18:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) I only told you what I would do. I am not a linguistic expert and I don't expect to know what I'm supposed to do to figure out the gender of a word. I'm a teenager and I know that dictionaries usually know what they're talking about. Frankly, I don't care much how they know that, I'm just glad they do. L☺g☺maniac ☃ 19:39, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry if the reply sounded as if it were directed specifically at you and only you. This is the line of reasonig I was hoping someone would point to, and you just happened to be one the first to get there. This was a reply to several questions that had been posed above by several individuals, and it seemed best to express the whole shebang in one go, rather than do it piecemeal or repetitively. --EncycloPetey 21:51, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

If I want to know the gender of a Portuguese noun, I'd look for how it may be substituted or accompanied by pronouns, articles or most adjectives. (The pronouns o, ele, os, eles, seus, esse, aquele, among others, indicate masculine context, so when they refer correctly to any noun, this noun is masculine; and while most adjectives have regular inflectional suffixes that indicate gender, the other adjectives are clearly unclear - that is, they have suffixes which don't indicate any gender.) --Daniel. 18:05, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. Please also read the reply to Logomaniac and Dan Polansky, immediately above your post (at the moment). It agrees with you and adds iformation from expert sources about the nature of grammatical gender in Egnlish. --EncycloPetey 18:30, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so the question was not lost, but you are not yet giving any reply to it.

I only speak Czech, German, and English, so I cannot be sure that an answer that I provide on how to recognize gender applies to other languages.

I see the following effects that the grammatical gender of a gender-bearing noun has on its surroundings:

• (a) choice of a gender-specific article (German: "die Sonne" - feminine, "der Hund" - masculine)
• (b) choice of a gender-specific modifying adjective (Czech: "čisté nebe" - neuter, "čistá studánka" - feminine)
• (c) choice of a gender-specific verb (Czech: "žena běžela" - feminine, "čas běžel" - masculine)
• (d) choice of a gender-specific pronoun

The gender of a gender-bearing noun can be determined from the following context-free markers:

• (e) the ending of the nominative form; this alone often does not suffice ("kočka" f, "předseda" m)
• (f) the inflection pattern of the noun; the set of all its inflected forms ("singular datives "kočce" and "předsedovi" reveal the gender of both)

From the listed effects and markers, English nouns can be speculated to have (d) and in part (e). But for this effect, seen in the sentence "Why can't the actress open his locker?", there is an alternative explanation: it is the gender of all the potential referents of "actress" that guides the choice of the pronoun, not the grammatical gender of "actress". I see no evidence in the given sentence to the contrary. Given that most of gender markers and effects are absent in English nouns, the explanation through the gender of the referents seems more plausible to me than the claim that "actress" is an English noun of feminine grammatical gender.

A conspicuous feature that distinguishes effects of grammatical gender from object gender or referent gender is the disagreement between the two, as in Czech feminine noun "osoba" when applied to a male, or Czech neuter "děvče" and German neuter "Mädchen", both meaning "girl". I am unaware of any such disagreement in English.

Can you now please indicate whether "actress" has a grammatical gender by your account, so we may start "Category:English feminine nouns" or "Appendix:English feminine nouns"? I think there are going to be quite a few. --Dan Polansky 09:42, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I have answered that question in the three lengthy paragraphs above, where I support ny position on gender of English common nouns with information from the OCEL and CGEL. Although many languages do have disagreement between the biological gender of the referent and the grammatical gender of the word, this is not a linguistic requirement. General agreement in this matter determines the choice of category label only, and not the existence or absence of the category. For example, Dutch nouns (since their 20th-century language reforms) are now all considered "gendered" (common) or "neuter", although some traces of masculine/feminine distinction do still exist, such as among the third-person singular pronouns.

As both the OCEL and CGEL indicate, gender in English is heavily reduced compared to other Germanic and IE languages, but it does exist. The CGEL offers seven gender classes of English nouns, although this is a result of simultaneously considering all possible genders a word may have. So their classes distinguish between words that are "feminine (only)" and "masculine/feminine" and "feminine/neuter", etc. I don't think categories based on that level of distinction are needed for our purposes, although an appendix might cover it. A Category:English feminine nouns could be a good idea, though, as there are some English nouns that regularly take feminine pronouns. --EncycloPetey 20:01, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

The word "actress" does not appear in your answer above, so I assume that your answer to the specific question is implied, and that it is that, yes, "actress" is a feminine noun, along with "woman", "girl", "fiancée" and "baroness".

Other than the authority of OCEL and CGEL, I still see no evidence that the fact that the gender of the pronoun is governed by the noun is best explained through grammatical gender rather than referent gender. And even CGEL say, quoting from above "some linguists argue that English simply has no gender system, that the category of gender is irrelevant to English. That is not the view we take here: ...", so this is at least a disputed issue among linguists. I have presented some considerations that lead me to side with those linguists who argue that English simply has no gender system, that the category of gender is irrelevant to English. CGEL takes a different view, but they do just that: take a view, rather than delivering a faultless and indubitable proof.

On another note, I doubt that the social gender rather than biological sex is at stake. Given names are allocated to newborns, who have sex but not yet any social gender; the gender-specific socialization into a group of same-sex people showing gender-specific expectations about the behavior of the group's memebers is yet to happen to the newborn.

If I get it correctly from the web search, "male gender" refers to social gender as often as "masculine gender" does. So it seems untrue that "male" automatically selects the context of biology and biological reproduction rather than social gender and its expected gender role. Searches: google:"male gender role", google:"masculine gender roles". This is unlike in Czech, where the sex of a human person is labeled as "mužský" and "ženský", while the sex of animals is "samčí" (male, of animals and plants) and "samičí" (female, of animals and plants). --Dan Polansky 08:53, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

• Support renaming (with "male" wording, preferably). Ƿidsiþ 00:10, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support renaming Appendix:Male given names/A. Oppose renaming Appendix:Masculine given names/A. By the way, these appendices would be much more useful, and worth the tremendous effort User:Alasdair has put into them, if somebody could create bots:

1.To check all the given names and surnames in given name/surname categories and add the missing ones into the appendices, making the appendix work as an index;

2.To make all the hidden remarks, like [[Aach]] <!-- Frisian, NL, dim. of Agatha --> into [[Aach]] <small> Frisian, NL, dim. of Agatha </small> . The names are defined by country, not language, and there are references to TV personages etc, but I've understood that the CFI for appendices isn't as strict as for actual entries. A preface could be added. In any case nobody can check these remarks as long as they are invisible.--Makaokalani 13:16, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

• Support renaming but keeping the male wording. It's one syllable and easier to say. I don't really care about the grammatical whatnot...... L☺g☺maniac ☃ 17:07, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
• Support male wording per Logomaniac. --Yair rand 18:32, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
• I support renaming to either of the proposed titles.​—msh210℠ 20:20, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Daniel., EncycloPetey, AugPi and BD4212 (and supposedly Yair rand initially, but not currently) prefer Appendix:Masculine given names/A while Conrad.Irwin, Dan Polansky, Mglovesfun, Ƿidsiþ, L☺g☺maniac and Yair rand (and AugPi at some point, but not currently) prefer Appendix:Male given names/A. Apparently, Ruakh stated that neither is appropriate, and msh210, that both are appropriate. This informal vote results up to this date in consensus as everybody supports (either male or masculine) renaming. But as 6-4-2, no consensus, since there are four and six "votes" for each possibility and two abstentions. Personally, I think EncycloPetey presented very good reasons based on grammatical evidence, so I'll take the liberty to rename appendices to the masculine version. Furthermore, please see Wiktionary:Votes/2009-12/Masculine and feminine given names. --Daniel. 23:13, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Most of that paragraph reads like an explanation of why you're about to take no action — and then I get to "Personally, I think […] , so I'll take the liberty to rename appendices to the masculine version". Huh? Please refrain. And if you're going to rename them, why start a vote about it?​—msh210℠ 23:19, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

The vote is intended to reach a decision about the treatment of given names in the whole Wiktionary, not only the 131 appendices discussed here. In fact, no one expressed in this discussion reasons to keep the previous scheme Names male-A, so I concluded that any renaming would be suitable until the vote reaches a specific conclusion. Since you and Yair rand objected my recent action, I've restored the appendices to the Names male-A scheme. Except surname appendices, as Appendix:Surnames/A, doesn't seem objectionable yet. --Daniel. 02:39, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

The renaming that has the majority support in the voting so far, by a narrow margin, is "Appendix:Names male-A" --> "Appendix:Male given names/A". This is a renaming that the proponents of the option with "masculine" should have no problem with, as it does not make things worse from their point of view, only equally bad. --Dan Polansky 09:56, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Your opinion about my opinon is incorrect. Any edit that propogates an error makes things worse. I object stongly on the grounds that male is a primarily a descriptor of biological factors pertaining to sex, while masculine is primarily a descriptor of cultural/grammatical factors pertaining to gender. Names are cultural and/or grammatical, not biological. --EncycloPetey 18:49, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I did not mean to misrepresent you. I do not see how the renaming propagates the error: before the renaming, "female" is there, while after the renaming, "female" is still there, so the number of page titles in which this error-would-be occurs remains constant. I don't see how this can be called a propagation. Be it as it may, I now accept that you prefer no renaming to renaming that uses "female", or that is what I understand from your reply. --Dan Polansky 08:35, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

To jump in a moment – could we also have a “Unisex given names” category, for names like “Francis” or “Jessie” (rather than just cross-listing them in both Male and Female)? There are some such names in English, and they are very common in Chinese and Sikh culture, for instance.

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 04:17, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Misspellings

See Wiktionary talk:Spellings#Misspellings. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:00, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] etait

Isn't this a bad redirect (to était), just like Raised et al? AFAICT our search will allow users to find words with diacritics they can't type. That's what I used to do before I learnt a large number of alt codes. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:54, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

It's a good example of a time to use {{DEFAULTSORT:etait}}, Mglovesfun (talk) 10:23, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Mandarin, zh

Unfortunately, the zh as Mandarin looks bad at WT:LANGTREAT. This language code is officially ISO 639-1 for Chinese, which would make more sense in that list. Since the community seems to not want a Chinese language in any context, my work is done. --Daniel. 21:48, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Because Wikimedia used "zh" for the Chinese Wikipedia (which happens to be written in Mandarin), we have a huge mess: Firstly, "zh" is widely used (here) to denote both Mandarin and Chinese, secondly (perhaps understandably) Chinese is used to mean Mandarin. The only sensible way to proceed is to create a new template ({{zho}} perhaps), to represent Chinese, and then, using {{cmn}} we could (manually) remove all instances of the horribly broken, ambiguous and misused {{zh}}. I do not forsee there being many things for which {{zho}} can be correctly used, as you note at WT:LANGTREAT we treat "Chinese" as a seperate language, (it should certainly not be labelled as Mandarin there). Conrad.Irwin 22:19, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, ideally {{zh}} would be our code for Chinese. According to WT:LANGCODE, {{zhx-zho}} seems a good alternative. I've moved the code {{chinese-language}}, which you created, to {{zhx-zho}} and updated WT:LANGCODE and WT:LANGTREAT. Thanks. --Daniel. 04:29, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Editable policy

I'd like to move Wiktionary:Editable CFI to Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion/Editable and create the shortcut WT:CFIE for it. In addition, the same for WT:ELEE. --Daniel. 14:07, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Seems fine. Wiktionary:Editable ELE was recently created. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 23:36, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Done. Perhaps non-editable WT:CFI should link to WT:CFIE and non-editable WT:ELE should link to WT:ELEE. Unless a vote is required, since they're non-editable. --Daniel. 04:50, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I've edited the header of WT:CFIE to link to WT:CFI. May I do the same at WT:CFI to link it to WT:CFIE? --Daniel. 14:29, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] WT: redirect to Wiktionary:, WS: redirect to Wikisaurus:

I propose that the WT: namespace redirect to the Wiktionary: namespace and that WS: (not yet a namespace) redirect to the Wikisaurus: namespace in the same way that WP: redirects to Wikipedia in the English Wikipedia. I suggested this a while ago in the Grease Pit and I can see no problems with this. The Simple English Wiktionary recently decided to redirect the WT: namespace to Wiktionary: there. --Yair rand 00:18, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Sounds sensible to me. --EncycloPetey 00:28, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes please. Conrad.Irwin 22:10, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I've started the vote here. --Yair rand 23:55, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I like this idea, except that WS: used to be the shortcut fakespace for Wiktionary: and some links still exist (e.g. to WS:BP). I doubt any links exist to WS:foo where foo is something that we're likely to have in Wikisaurus: space, since the WS: pages were fullcaps. But just in case some do, WS: for Wikisaurus: may not be the best idea. Is it possible to analyze a dump for current links to WS: pages? And do we want to worry about old revisions' links?​—msh210℠ 18:14, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

The only old WS: links that I can see that could possibly end up being Wikisaurus entries are WS:NEWS, WS:WIN, WS:cuts, and WS:CAT, all of which are only linked to from User:Dcljr/Sandbox. --Yair rand 20:46, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that eases my mind. How'd you get a list of all linked-to WS: pages?​—msh210℠ 18:36, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I think Special:PrefixIndex/WS: might do it. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:43, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

There should be no, or few, links to WS: pages left. I removed them all in January 2008. (except to WS:OP which was kept as it is linked to in block summaries). Conrad.Irwin 19:36, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Harry Potter terms

The small list Appendix:Glossary of Harry Potter terms includes Veritaserum, which I don't think meets CFI. Should this appendix stick to CFI and list only verifiable terms such as muggle and Voldemort or include universe-only terms such as Aguamenti (spell for creating water), Chaser (attacker position in the sport Quidditch) and Pensieve (artifact for keeping and organizing thoughts and memories)? --Daniel. 04:34, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

If veritaserum is mentioned in three works, then it meets CFI for inclusion in a fictional universe appendix. There are a host of books and articles written about the Harry Potter universe, and published reviews and summaries of the films. I'd be genuinely surprised if veritaserum were not mentioned in three works. --EncycloPetey 04:52, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I see. Then, virtually all spells, creatures, places and items from Harry Potter universe deserve a Wiktionary entry and a place at that appendix. --Daniel. 05:40, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

No, see Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion/Fictional universes. The criteria for a place in an appendix is not the same as for an entry in the main namespace. --Yair rand 05:42, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Understood. Then my statement about "all spells, creatures, places and items from Harry Potter universe" is true only for appendices; and in a more restrictive manner, as places such as Azkaban are not permitted as solely in-universe context. I did not find further restrictions, so perhaps an appendix with 493 Pokémon names multiplied by four official languages would also be possible. Interesting. Thank you. --Daniel. 06:05, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Appendix:Pokémon done, with basic information. References shall be added soon. --Daniel. 09:23, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

You might consider adding links to any WP articles about specific Pokémon. --EncycloPetey 19:50, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Not a good idea. WP has 14 pokemon-specific articles at the moment, a number which changes ridiculously frequently due to disputes about whether there's enough "real-world information" to be an article. --Yair rand 19:59, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

While Wikipedia doesn't contain currently a high or stable quantity of individual articles about specific Pokémon, it does contains valuable information on the subject. As you can see at, for instance, Appendix:Pokémon/E, Wikipedia links were added where appropriate. --Daniel. 15:51, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Change Ido plural category to Ido noun form category

Hello there all. I would like to ask the community if you think that changing the category where the Ido plurals go from Ido plurals to Ido noun form category to standardize it with what the other languages are doing. Is this a good idea? I await your feedback! Razorflame 19:27, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the only noun forms that Ido has is plurals, right? Noun forms is used for highlu inflected languages like Greek, Russian and Latin. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:29, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh, ok. I didn't know that. Thanks for the feedback! Cheers, Razorflame 19:38, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

To expand a bit: if only nouns have plurals, nouns have only singulars and plurals (no cases or states or anything, and no other numbers), and the singular forms are the lemmata, then there's no problem with just "<langname> plurals". —Ruakh_TALK 19:43, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] English plurals

[[Category:English plurals]] is supposed to contain nouns only - this statement is not easily affirmed through intuitiveness, its current talk page, current description nor through analyzing its 67,248 members. This statement may even be incorrect, as there are English plural verb forms and pronouns. --Daniel. 20:17, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Where does it say "[[Category:English plurals]] is supposed to contain nouns only"?

There are only few plural pronouns--"they", "them", "their"--and few verb forms--"are" of "to be". What have I forgotten to list?

The talk page Category_talk:English_plurals says nothing of interest.

The decision for a category to contain something rests with the creator of the category; if the creator decides to exclude plural pronouns from [[Category:English plurals]], I see no problem with that.

What is the problem that you are trying to address, and what solution do you propose? --Dan Polansky 10:42, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Standardizing Finnish noun templates

Hello there all. It has come to my attention that some of the Finnish noun entries use {{infl|fi|noun}} and some of them use {{fi-noun}}. I believe that we need to pick one or the other and stop using the other one to standardize and make uniform our entries. This process could easily be done by bot, using AWB with a preset list of the Finnish nouns and enabling the find and replace function to either find and replace {{infl|fi|noun}} with {{fi-noun}} or the other way around. I thought that I might get others' thoughts on this matter first? Razorflame 10:42, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I know nothing about the Finnish noun entries, and I hope nothing is done along the lines you suggest without input from those who work in Finnish. But I can speak from experience that sometimes I use {{infl}} for an English or Hebrew noun — even though specialized templates exist — because the templates are not quite suited for the particular noun. For example, English pluralia tantum don't accommodate {{en-noun}} well (or, if they do, I don't know how), so I use {{infl}}.​—msh210℠ 18:09, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't plan on doing anything until both Jyril and Hekaheka have said their piece here. I understand that there are particular nouns that don't work with the general template, and we could maybe make a list of those nouns and they would be put on the exception list so that they don't get changed. The whole idea of this was to help centralize and standardize the Finnish entries so that they all are the same without much variation (in terms of layout) so that people don't get confused with why one of the entries is different than the others. Razorflame 18:12, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Again, I don't know Finnish, but I'd assume that if some class of nouns can't use {{fi-noun}}, then that class is open in some sense, and there may be nouns that belong on such a list that no one will think to put on it.​—msh210℠ 19:54, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

So maybe the better thing to do is change all of the Finnish nouns from {{fi-noun}} to {{infl|fi|noun}} then? Razorflame 19:56, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

No. {{fi-noun}} provides conveniences and standardized layout. You can make a horribly un-standard inflection line with {{infl}} as it allows for so many (unnamed) parameters. Language-specific inflection line templates evolve, gradually being able to encompass more and more classes of words. Those that can be appropriately converted from {{infl|fi}} → {{fi-noun}} should be converted and {{fi-noun}} should be updated to encompass more and more classes of nouns. There is no utility in standardizing on the most base template. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 20:48, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I would agree with you there, but I would have no idea about where to begin trying to update {{fi-noun}} to include more and more classes of Finnish nouns as I am not a template person. Razorflame 20:52, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Based on some earlier discussions (probably with Jyril but I'm not sure) I have regarded <infl> -template as the standard to be strived towards, and systematically changed all <fi-noun>'s that I have encountered to it. Now I understand that Razorflame would like to do the other way round. I do not understand the finesses of the template business and I have used both in their basic form only adding an occasional <|p> in plurale tantum -entries, which by the way only works with <infl>. I'm willing to go either way, but let's start by writing down the pros and cons of each. --Hekaheka 05:50, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Currently the main reason why I prefer <infl|fi|noun> is that the robot (or whatever) that creates this page: [[3]] automatically interprets <fi-noun> -entries as not having a declension table. I guess some template-wizard could fix this in no time, but I really would want to get Jyril's opinion on this, because we are talking of something that is pretty much built by him. --Hekaheka 00:25, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] My bot

My bot was blocked by EncycloPetey for using it when the concensus was against it being used about two weeks ago. He has told me that if the community thinks that I am a capable enough bot operator or that there is concensus for me to be able to use a bot, that he would unblock it. Therefore, I would like to ask you this: Am I a capable enough editor that you can trust me with the operation of a bot here on the English Wiktionary?

A few things to keep in mind: I've been running Darkicebot since January 2008 as an interwiki bot and over the years, he has gained the bot flag on more than 50 Wikipedias, as well as gaining the global bot flag about half a year ago. I've been working with Darkicebot since January 2008, and I believe that I am a capable enough bot operator.

My question to you is this: Can my bot be unblocked? I've already told EncycloPetey that I have no intentions of running it unless I am ready to test something out (and by test, I mean 5-10 edits) while I get it ready to possibly use in the future. Do you think I am a capable enough bot operator to handle this responsibility? Thanks, Razorflame 19:17, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with EP that since your bot is blocked, your few test edits should be done through your Razorflame account. The username change should only require a find&replace in your bot code (+ storing new login credentials). --Bequw → ¢ • τ 20:54, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok. I will see what I can do about it. Thanks for the help and opinion. Other opinions are still welcome on this subject. Razorflame 15:53, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Definition layout.

I've created Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2009-12/Definition layout. The underlying proposal is lemma-to-lemma translation; the vote page is an attempt to formulate that in a way we can vote on. Right this instant, I'm not really interested in objections to the underlying proposal; the last discussion was about that, and I expect we'll have another one before the vote takes place (I haven't given it a start-time yet, as I don't think there's a need to rush this). Rather, what I'm looking for right now is help in getting the vote page to really reflect the underlying proposal: is it modifying the right part of the right policy, does the wording convey what it's supposed to, and so on. (I'm also wondering if I'm trying to put too many changes in one vote. The stuff about "a" and "to" feels logically connected, but maybe it's not connected enough to go in the same vote.) Please comment at Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2009-12/Definition layout. —Ruakh_TALK 03:44, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Translingual categories

I find it a little disconcerting that a Translingual entry (eg +) shows up only in Translingual categories and not in the language-specific categories for which that translingual definition is valid (eg Category:Mathematics). When viewing categories like Category:English proper nouns and Category:Mathematics, I'd want some inkling of the content in Category:Translingual proper nouns and Category:mul:Mathematics. Sure, the PoS categories are siblings and the Translingual topical category is a child of the English one, but I think we should do better than this. Here's what I was thining:

1. Working at merely the category level we could edit the category page templates (eg {{poscatboiler}} and {{topic cat}}) to prominently display links in the category description to related extant Translingual categories. This is easy, but might wrongfully imply that all entries in the Translingual category are valid in a particular language.
2. Working at the article level, we could formalize the Translingual entry structure for noting the languages for which a Translingual sense is valid. We could have, for instance, do something like:

===Usage notes===
* {{sense|the plus sign}} {{mul-range|pos1=symbol|topic1=mathematics|en|fr|ja|cmn}}
* {{sense|symbol for and}} {{mul-range|pos1=symbol|topic1=informal|en|fr}}

This would both display for the reader the languages a specific sense is valid in, as well as put the entry into the appropriate language-specific PoS and topical categories. This is more specific than #1 and our coverage would therefore be low for the foreseeable future.

Do either of these ideas, or a mixture of the two, seem appropriate? Does someone else have a better way of relating Translingual categories to others? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 22:36, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Ambiguous category names

Unfortunately Wikimedia hasn't figured out how to allow categories to be renamed, which is really irritating. For example, the categories Occupations, Construction and Drugs are all unusually ambiguous. I'd like to see [[Category:Occupations]] become [[Category:Professions]], [[Category:Construction]], well I don't know but it has a lot of meanings (grammatical, phonological, etc.) and [[Category:Drugs]] is currently at WT:RFDO because the content has to be split, although nobody really know how yet. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:53, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Why change Occupations to Professions? They are quite different things. I.e. an occupation can be a profession but not necessarily the other way around. They're supposed to be generic, aren't they, as they function as hypernyms/umbrella terms. Tooironic 01:51, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] January 2010

[edit] Wiktionary logo vote

The first round is complete, and the top two logos are #59, with 289 votes, and #1 (the "tiles" logo) with 253 votes. These logos will now proceed to the second round, which will last until January 31st. --Yair rand 00:22, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

i do not want to come across as contumelious but please consider (re)casting your vote for the tile logo in m:Wiktionary/logo/refresh/voting as--besides using English--the book logo has a clear directionality of horizontal left-to-right, starkly contrasting with Arabic and Chinese, two of the six official UN languages. As such, the tile logo is the only translingual choice left and it was also elected in m:Wiktionary/logo/archive-vote-4. Beyond this, several Wiktionaries, especially Dutch, have commented that this vote is being forced on the rest of us by the English Wiktionary. A tile logo outcome would bring back harmony between the Wiktionaries in a way that book logo would not because many of us boycotting the vote see the tile logo as the only legitimate choice.

To help explain the relevant context, i borrowed the following table from m:Wiktionary/logo/refresh#nl.wiktionary_vote:

Classic

16 wikis

ca

cs

cy

de

en

es

ga

hi

id

is

ja

no

pl

pt

ru

vo

Tiles

10 wikis

fr

it

ko

lt

ms

nl

oc

sv

vi

zh

Other

1 wiki

gl

Warmest Regards, :)--_thecurran Speak your mind ^{my past} 05:56, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

a) tile logo is ugly as hell b) it has a big red Latin letter W in the middle. Why not Cyrillic, Arabic or Armenian? According to you it too must be considered Anglo-centric. c) no one is going to use a microscope to zoom in and try read stuff on the book logo, to see if its English, left, right or whatever. d) you should not canvass votes for your preferred variant: it's unethical. --Vahagn Petrosyan 06:15, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, that big red Latin letter W in the middle is actually a variable. It displays differently depending on the language of the wikitionary. See for example ko, lt, and zh. Armenian Wiktionary will display a big red Վ. --Stephen 06:35, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, indeed. On the other hand, the English wording "Wiktionary, the free dictionary" of the book logo too will be variable by language. I guess, we should drop the Anglo-centric argument and choose by design, each one according to his taste. --Vahagn Petrosyan 07:12, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

How is it unethical, Vahagn Petrosyan, when well-informed users like yourself are completely unaware that Chinese texts bear no gaps on the left-hand or right-hand sides but, rather, on the bottom? Without any magnification it is abundantly clear that the text on the book logo has gaps on the right. It would have to be at least reflected horizontally for Arabic but it simply cannot work with Chinese. Besides, why are we ignoring the original vote and pushing our views on to the rest of the Wiktionaries in the first place? Warmest Regards, :)--_thecurran Speak your mind ^{my past} 06:59, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Re the second part: "Following [the second round], each language Wiktionary will hold their own vote on whether to accept the winning logo. In the event that less than 60% of the Wiktionaries approve of the logo, none of the Wiktionaries will use the logo." So, no one is pushing anyone. The Dutch can reject the book logo in their local vote. Re Chinese and Arabic: you must surely understand that for languages writing in the wrong direction the logo can be slightly redesigned in minutes. And yes, I said wrong direction :D --Vahagn Petrosyan 07:12, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

If it can be done so easily, please do so within 24 hours for each of the six official UN languages. That gives you four hours apiece, which should be plenty if it takes minutes and since English is already done. While U are at it, can U or anyone else please explain why we are throwing away the original widely-accepted vote?

BTW, aside from yourself (~Armenian?) and Bulgarian w:User:Марио Николов, it seems the book side is almost completely English. Warmest Regards, :)--_thecurran Speak your mind ^{my past} 07:33, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Voila, the Arabic logo: the white gaps are on the left. As for the original vote, I don't know why it wasn't accepted. Hopefully someone else will remember. --Vahagn Petrosyan 07:51, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

JackPotte from French wiktionary has also indorsed the book logo, to my dismay, but as a whole you are right. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 11:57, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The spacing is non-cursive. Are you sure you completely re-created it instead of doing the minimalist horizontal reflection i alluded to above? Warmest Regards, :)--_thecurran Speak your mind ^{my past} 08:17, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Of course I did only a horizontal flip, nothing else. With a little more time and professionalism the text on the page can be made look like Arabic or Chinese. And even if we leave it as it is, it's still more multi-national than the tile-logo: why are there only 9 tiles? Why are Cyrillic, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Chinese, Korean, that other hieroglyph and that stupid face more important than other scripts? I want Armenian, Georgian, Syriac, Cuneiform, Avestan, Pahlavi and Runes there. But I don't write to others agitating for my favorite logo: you should stop too. This is my main point. --Vahagn Petrosyan 08:43, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the proposed book logo, the left page will have to be redone or at least smeared a bit. Prompted by Yair rand, I did a little research and found that the proposed logo includes a barely readable page from the Macmillan Dictionary for Children, which is definitely under copyright. So there will be a bit of work ahead of us if the book logo wins, but any anglocentrism will hopefully be gone by the time Wiktionary deploys a new logo. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 03:58, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

That "stupid face" is the Japanese Katakana character for si, シ, and that "other hieroglyph" is Devanagari for śa, श, as is used by several languages in South Asia. The central character is meant to be Armenian on the Armenian Wiktionary, etc. This is clearly stated on m:Wiktionary/logo/archive-vote-4. Until there is notice of such caveats for the book logo, it is most decidedly not translingual and it is important that Wiktionary admins know this. i have already stopped alerting them on their talk pages but i see no reason not to continue. i would sincerely like at least one person to explain why we have restarted the old vote. Warmest Regards, :)--_thecurran Speak your mind ^{my past} 09:17, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The whole point of the logo vote is to find out which logo people prefer, not which one they were forced to vote for. Stop canvassing, please. L☺g☺maniac ☃ 15:21, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I have no objection to "canvassing" of this sort, since the editor has no personal gain to obtain by raising the issue. On the other hand, I don't particularly care which logo we use. bd2412 T 03:34, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The table you used is quite out of date. I compiled some statistics on its usage about a couple weeks ago. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 21:06, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

L☺g☺maniac, one of my main points in m:Talk:Wiktionary/logo/refresh/voting#Boycott is that this is a vote that many the users of other Wiktionaries feel is forced upon us. Excuse me Minh Nguyễn, does your red URL mean m:Wiktionary/logo? It states:

The "tiles" logo is currently used by the Arabic, Chinese, Corsican, Dutch, Estonian, French, Greek, Italian, Korean, Limburgish, Lithuanian, Malay, Occitan, Persian, Sicilian, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Wolof, and Yiddish Wiktionaries. Additionally, the Simple English and Albanian Wiktionaries use variants of this logo. Together, these 23 wikis represent some 3.3 million entries, or 49.4% of all of Wiktionary, as of 22 December 2009. Please join the discussion at m:discussion on the logo votes on how to proceed from here on.

See also a request to change the favicon for all Wiktionaries.

Warmest Regards, :)--_thecurran Speak your mind ^{my past} 00:39, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see anywhere that says "YOU MUST VOTE FOR A NEW LOGO OR ELSE" or anything suchly demanding. I'm sorry that the other Wiktionaries feel the vote has been forced upon them. L☺g☺maniac ☃ 00:57, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that we already had a vote and it was accepted. Then some upstarts from en WT decided to start it all over again. It seems like a careless, monumental waste of resources. They did not even phrase it as a re-vote. They completely omitted references to the original. If we permit this, what is there to prevent another group from doing the same thing to this vote in another three years? Warmest Regards, :)--_thecurran Speak your mind ^{my past} 01:23, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

What do you think? This vote was started while two logos are being used about equally, one that basically nobody likes, and the other that there is significant opposition to. Under these circumstances, with 71 supporters for starting a new vote, a new vote was begun. If the situation was that there was a logo used almost universally among Wiktionaries, and there was no significant support for starting a new vote, of course the vote would not go through. Does that answer your question? --Yair rand 01:43, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that the canvassing done by User:Thecurran was in fact most annoying overall, and has if anything prompted me to vote in the other direction. Even if I had had any respect for the tile logo to begin with, which I didn't, because my main opinion of it the first time was that it made the entire project look like a dubious, childish game. --Neskaya ^{contribs – talk?} 19:39, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank U for pointing that out. i have responded on your page. Warmest Regards, :)—_thecurran Speak your mind ^{my past} 14:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Vote: Renaming CFI section on genealogic names

I've created Vote: Renaming CFI section on genealogic names, to test how hard it is to get a straightforward cosmetic change to CFI passed.

The proposed change has no effect on inclusion of entries.

I have created the vote to last only two weeks, for the vote's being merely cosmetic and not touching the substance of CFI in any way.

I realize there was no discussion before the vote, but went for it anyway, estimating the change should be wholly uncontroversial. Let's see whether I was right in this.

The vote starts on 8 January 2010, and the wording may be still adjusted. However, let's aim at good enough rather than perfect. --Dan Polansky 15:45, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Vote: Renaming given name appendixes

I have taken my courage and started another vote: Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-01/Renaming given name appendixes.

The vote starts on 8 January 2009 and lasts one month.

The vote is based on an ongoing discussion that has largely proceeded.

While there is at least one person who disagrees with the proposal, I deem the proposal rather incontroversial, as it keeps the terms "male" and "female" in place in the names of the appendixes. Who does not like the use of "male" and "female", insisting that we should deal with grammatical gender rather than object or referent gender, should still, I estimate, accept that the result of the proposed renaming is no worse than the current situation. --Dan Polansky 22:49, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

If there is still time, can I propose altering this vote to run along the lines of

Please vote on which pair of terms you would prefer to describe given names throughout wiktionary.

1. 'masculine name' and 'femininine name'
2. 'male name' and 'female name'

This is then more understandable, and provides a more useful answer. Conrad.Irwin 18:08, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd rather leave the vote phrased the way it is, being specifically about the names of appendixes and not about the names of categories, and being about approval rather than preference. I admit that it is implied that the names of categories are also at stake, but that is not what the vote is about. It is an approval vote, meaning that a voter who gives support in the vote gives an approval to the renaming without saying that he actually prefers the renaming to the alternative with masculine and feminine; the voter thus says that the proposed renaming is good enough, is acceptable. Put differently, it implements the idea that a person who finds the renaming acceptable (can live with it) while he finds masculine and feminine the best possible options approves the renaming anyway, so that we avoid the block or deadlock resulting from the use of 70-75% majority voting scheme to non-constitutional changes in policy, in which a plain majority-50%, or a stable majority-60% would be more appropriate. The renaming option that I propose for approval is the one that has so far gained a plain majority of supporters. The voter can approve in the "I can live with it" way by abstaing, that is, by avoiding the oppose option. --Dan Polansky 11:29, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

In this case, as my vote is merely a preferential one, it is not trying to change existing policy (of which we have none on this matter), merely clarify opinion. I see no reason why even the preference that wins by one vote would not be acceptable, so long as that is made clear from the offset (this is all complete bikeshedding anyway). The vote is currently tangential, there is no opposition to renaming the appendices, there is only disagreement as to the preferred title. I think it sets bad precedence if we are to vote on every time we rename a group of appendices, and would prefer that the underlying issue is cleaned up instead of ignored. That said, I could just open the other vote on a similar topic which seems to be more what I want, and then we could let this vote run to completion (and presumably pass, but if it fails, then what?). Conrad.Irwin 11:43, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I admit that it is not really a policy vote but an executive vote; it concerns the executive branch of Wiktionary government rather than the legislative branch. But the choice of the name of the appendixes has generated a lot of discussion and disagreement, and is controversial enough that no one up to now dared or bothered to rename the appendixes to the name that was so far informally preferred by the majority.

The preferences of the voters should be clear from the vote even with the current phrasing, as each voter will (a) enthusiastically support the vote by voting "support", or (b) vote "support" with a comment to the effect of "I prefer 'masculine' but I can live with 'male'", (c) vote "oppose", (d) vote "abstain" with a comment to the effect of "I prefer 'masculine' but I can live with 'male'", or (e) vote "abstain" without a comment.

It seems that a vote is needed because an informal consensus has not been achieved in the previous discussions. Votes do stand in a contradistiction to an informal consensus, and there is not way around this fact, not even by raising the bar to 70-75% majority voting scheme. The idea that every decision concerning a wiki should be made by consensus is flawed I think. --Dan Polansky 12:35, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Wiktionary as a mathematical lexicon

Well, maybe there was already a discussion here about "Wiktionary as a lexicon", in general; in print, it is common to distinguish between those two.

Though, I have not found even a single source in the net that translates well between concepts, terms and phrases of mathematical languages in different spoken languages; trying to read a math article in Deutsch, for example, I find myself going to Wikipedia (DE) again and again to see what a term means in English (same with Hebrew).

Wiktionary can solve this, if we allow entries for mathematical terms and phrases. I'll give here a few examples:

• degree. This example is more or less already done well in Wiktionary: degree can be translated (arguably) to דרגה in Hebrew and to Grad or to Valenz in German, when in Graph Theory context; it can be translated to מעלה in Hebrew (and still to Grad in German, but not to Valenz) when in Polynomials context.
• More ambiguous are the terms regarding different types of convergence or continuity. Here are a few examples:
  • uniform means אחיד in Hebrew, but uniform convergence is התכנסות במידה שווה (which does not include the word "אחיד" in it). In german, uniform might be gleichförmig, while uniform convergence is Gleichmäßige Konvergenz.
  • So while אחיד means uniform, רציפות במידה אחידה which is based on "אחיד", is not uniform continuity, but equicontinuity; the former (uniform continuity) is Gleichmäßige Stetigkeit in German, and the latter (equicontinuity) is Gleichgradige Stetigkeit.
• a ring in common language is translated to טבעת in Hebrew, but to חוג in an algebraic context; while "חוג" itself is translated back to English as class or group in everyday context. group is translated in everyday context to קבוצה, which in mathematical context is translated back to a set; but in mathematical context a group would be translated to חבורה, which in everyday context will probably be translated to a gang, or a clique, which also has a completely different mathematical meaning (which will be translated in that context to קליקה in Hebrew, and so on). A class in a mathematical context would be מחלקה in Hebrew, which will be translated in everyday context back to department or division (which - again - means something completely different).
• Even general fields of interest have really different names in different languages, that cannot always be literally translated; a few examples:
  • calculus is Infinitesimalrechnung which is quite similar to חשבון אינפיניטסימלי, which is also called חשבון דיפרנציאלי ואינטגרלי.
  • set theory is תורת הקבוצות which is quite similar ("the theory of sets"), but in German it is Mengenlehre, which means more or less "the doctrine of sets", but a "set" here is Menge, which means "quantity" in a general context.
• One might also find a lot of theorems which have different names in different languages, leaving no way of literal translation. For example:
  • The Squeeze theorem is in Hebrew כלל הסנדביץ' (which means: the law of the sandwich), and Einschnürungssatz in German (which means more or less the constriction theorem).
• And, at last, there are some common expressions and phrases used in math, which are not literally translated from language to another. I can think of a few examples in Hebrew and in English, but in some cases I don't even know the proper way of saying this in German. Examples:
  • to prove by contradiction, which is sometimes called Reductio ad Absurdum, is להוכיח בשלילה. It gets complicated when you try to translate conjugations of this (for example, "נניח בשלילה" - something like "let us negatively assume", which is not a correct usage)

and so on.

The list can be really wrong, but the important thing here is my general question: do you think that Wiktionary should do that job? If the answer is yes, I am ready to make the effort, and start a "Wiktioary Project" dealing with this. If the answer is no, I believe I should establish a new platform that will handle this, since I find it crucial.

Thanks for reading, waiting for your replies. Peleg 13:09, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Wiktionary functions as a lexicon for all areas of knowledge in all languages. Fell free to add missing mathematical senses of words (marked with appropriate context labels) and a properly glossed translation. It would be the best to focus on the normal entries in the main namespace rather than on a specialized appendix (although the approach of a giant comparison table has its own merits) because that's where most of the people will look it up. Starting up a wikiproject might be an overkill since this project is seriously undermanned, but that might even work given that there are several mathematically inclined regulars around here. --Ivan Štambuk 16:13, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. If so, I'll start doing it here in Wiktionary, in an organized way. The project page will be here: User:Peleg/Mathematical Multilingual Lexicon.

Thanks for working on this! bd2412 T 01:07, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

It is my pleasure :) You can help by letting people you know know about this project, and where it is located at the moment. In the meanwhile, I'll work slowly on it. Peleg 19:45, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Hidden categories

Is there any sort of logic to which categories are hidden or not? For example, requests for deletion. IMO categories that are related to maintenance and are not lexical or topical should be hidden. For example, we are very inconsistent on [[Category:<langname> words needing attention]] if they are hidden or not. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:49, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Support the proposal categories that are related to maintenance and are not lexical or topical should be hidden, including [[Category:<langname> words needing attention]]. --Daniel. 11:16, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Of course, only regular editors will see hidden categories (and only some regular editors). So the idea i think is to hide any category that we don't want readers (who are not usually editors) to see in an entry. The "Requests for" categories (except deletion, verification, autoformat, and perhaps a coupla others) I think should be visible, so that even such readers can see that something should be added, and maybe they'll add it. No harm in it, and it can certainly help the entries, especially (but not only) for languages in which no regular editors are proficient. Some of the other categories perhaps should be hidden, though, including "Languagename words needing attention" and "Translations to be checked (Languagename)". Just by way of comparison, enWP hides maintenance categories except for its stub categories and its "uncategorized" categories.​—msh210℠ 17:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Numeral categories

I'd like to create [[Category:Portuguese cardinal numerals]] and [[Category:Portuguese ordinal numerals]]. --Daniel. 10:58, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I was hoping someone would open this can of worms. Would their parent be [[Category:Portuguese numerals]] inside [[Category:Portuguese parts of speech]]? --Vahagn Petrosyan 11:04, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. --Daniel. 11:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

This would need quite a bit of discussion. Currently, "cardinal number" is considered a topical category, not a lexical one. -- Prince Kassad 11:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm for deleting [[Category:pt:Cardinal numbers]] in favor of [[Category:Portuguese cardinal numerals]]. Numerals are considered a part of speech in all languages I work with. --Vahagn Petrosyan 11:20, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Note the important distinction: number ≠ numeral... there are words which are one but not the other, I've been told. -- Prince Kassad 11:25, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Using this search for "numeral" I have found the votes and discussions; and more:

• Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2006-10/Number versus Numeral.
• Wiktionary_talk:Entry_layout_explained/POS_headers#Number_versus_Numeral, October 2006
• Wiktionary:Beer_parlour_archive/2007/April#Numerals_and_their_categories

--Dan Polansky 12:29, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

From what I see on current categorization scheme, number is a numerical symbol or group of such symbols (for instance, the contents of [[Category:Khmer numbers]] and [[Category:Japanese numbers]]), numeral is a numerical word, when not considered of other part of speech (such as [[Category:English numerals]] which doesn't contain the adjective second). Finally, ordinal number and cardinal number are topical categories that specify types of numerical words. However, this scheme is not exactly suitable for Portuguese, because "cardinal" and "ordinal" are distinct grammatical classes in this language — that is, both ordinal numerals and cardinal numerals have a set of different characteristics from each other and from other parts of speech; these characteristics include position in sentences, presence or absence of a distinct feminine form and pluralization. --Daniel. 16:19, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Number is polysemic and refers to (a) the number of pieces in a group (or elements of a set) such as the number of * in "*****", (b) a numeral such as "345", "two hundred" or "fifth". Numeral is polysemic too, and includes "345", "two hundred", "1st" and "fifth". The decadic numeral "15", the numeral "fifteen" and the binary numeral "1111" all denote the same number in the sense (a). A numeral is a syntactic object, while a number is a semantic object, a meaning of a numeral.

Not only Portuguese but also English cardinal numerals and ordinal numerals are grammatically or syntactically distinct: two (cardinal), second (ordinal); three, third; four, fourth; etc.

The term "ordinal number" is ambiguous and refers to (i) ordinal numeral such as "fifth", and (ii) the set-theoretic or order-theoretic concept that includes such individuals as omega, omega + 1, and epsilon zero.

This acount is still simplified in that it omits further meanings of "number" and "numeral".

In any case, the term "ordinal number" means in one of its senses the same as the term "ordinal numeral", but for this purpose, "ordinal numeral" is less ambiguous. However, "ordinal number" is possibly more commonly used than "ordinal numeral" in English grammar.

--Dan Polansky 18:48, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Addressing several comments above: The Category:Portuguese numerals (and the like for other languages) is intended to be the POS category for all the numerals. The problem with categorizing Cardinals and Ordinals as parts of speech is that, in many languages, not all the cardinal numbers function as numerals grammatically. In English, for example, hundred is a cardinal number, but it is not a numeral; it is a noun. Similar situations occur in Spanish and Latin, and presumably in other related languages. In most modern romance languages, the ordinal numbers are functional adjectives, not numerals, despite being numeric and relating to a cardinal. So, the compromise we currently use is to have the Category:pt:Cardinal numbers and Category:pt:Ordinal numbers, so that we can list all those words in one place regardless of the part of speech it actually is. These categories also allow us to include nonfinite cardinals, such as aleph-null within a subcategory of mathematics, even though the word does not function grammatically as a numeral. To summarize, I see no advantage to the proposed change, but see several logistical headaches, such as having no category for a language that includes all the cardinal numbers because they would be sorted by grammatical function instead of by topic. --EncycloPetey 03:45, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Seeking examples of types of flawed definitions

I am interested in accumulating examples of types of flaws in definitions for purposes of Wiktionary:Definitions, Wiktionary:Improving definitions, or some associated page(s). Examples that come to mind are: unsatisfactory technical definitions, unnecessary hyperspecialization, and "An X is when..." definitions (of "X").

The associated talk pages or the body of the Wiktionary pages would be good places for such things.

These Wiktionary pages are intended to provide something more comprehensive than Help:Writing definitions. They would allow that page to be more explicitly simplified for the benefit of new users. Ideas about and contributions to these pages are desired. At this stage, additions are preferred to deletions. Restructuring and massive revision are likely if the effort does not peter out. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 16:07, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• I have an sort of essay at User:Msh210/specificity, but see also its talkpage.​—msh210℠ 16:38, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Much needed, but spreading this info out across a bunch of different pages is not a recipe for success IMO. Given our limited editorial resources, could we concentrate this at WT:STYLE until/unless the volume of data becomes unmanageable? -- Visviva 17:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I didn't realize we had such a thing. It looks good. I have been reading Landau and realized that all dictionaries have a style manual of some considerable length. I doubt that we could get a copy of a modern one, but perhaps someone has some headings that would be a useful partial model. I will attempt to not duplicate or be inconsistent with WT:STYLE.

I suppose I view Wiktionary:Definitions as a comprehensive and verbose repository of every generalization about definitions from which we can extract the important for WT:STYLE, the essential-for-newbies for Help:Writing definitions, and certain items for Wiktionary:Improving definitions.

I was intending "Improving" to be narrow in focus. It is to provide the rationale and structure for checklist-type tasks that were less format-oriented than many of our current cleanup lists and more aimed at laying the groundwork for revising definitions. I got started writing it and realized that I was not close to ready. That is when I turned to the more general "Definitions".

Help:Writing definitions needs to be simplified so that it would be actually read by a newbie will waiting for his/her block to expire. Simplification and updating might be good for all of our Help. We need more contributors who can help us update and expand Wiktionary, including English definitions. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 22:31, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• For a good example of a bad definition, how about our former one for apricot: "A stone fruit"? Circeus 13:51, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
• I would say that definitions that consist only or primarily of a list of synonyms are bad definitions also. —Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 23:37, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
  • In some cases we do that (using a single synonym) to avoid recopying the first definition, esp. when one term is more common than the others. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:16, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Single-synonym definitions sometimes seem appropriate for words that are obsolete. But if the defining synonym is polysemous, it would seem necessary to say which sense applies, in which case a full definition seems necessary. Multiple (>3) synonym definitions are especially suspect to me, especially when the defining words are polysemous. It may be possible for a native speaker to locate the common sense among the synonyms, but I thought we were trying to serve other types of users too. DCDuring TALK 12:21, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed Wikisaurus style changes

Wikisaurus doesn't really put up a good appearance, not having a small logo like most Wikiprojects on WP, or even a real main page like other Wikimedia sub-projects, Wikijunior and Wikimedia cookbook. Also, the Wikisaurus doesn't have much of a style in it's entries. Thus, I propose the following:

• Using the top section of this as the Wikisaurus main page, with the current Wiktionary:Wikisaurus being moved to Wiktionary:Wikisaurus project page or similar.
• Using the bookglobe logo designed by commons:User:Ephemeronium as the Wikisaurus logo, to be used in Template:Wikisaurus-link and external interwiki links to Wikisaurus. (To the best of my knowledge, no other Wiktionary has a logo for Wikisaurus, so this doesn't have to be a huge multiple-Wiktionary issue.)
• Changing the templates {{ws header}} and {{ws}} to the designs shown, again, on this page
• Adding the header shown on the same page to Wiktionary talk:Wikisaurus, which could hopefully become a proper discussion room, perhaps with a link from Wiktionary:Discussion rooms.

If there is consensus for these changes, what are the chances this could be done without the usual mess of bureaucracy (read: votes) which wastes a huge amount of time? --Yair rand 19:25, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Distinguishing the portal aspects from the project aspects is useful. Your changes seem good. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 08:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Separating a portal page from a project page for Wikisaurus could be okay, but I really do not see a need for doing so. I don't believe creating a flashy portal page will help us (or help me :p) build Wikisaurus. The project page "Wiktionary:Wikisaurus" contains the essential information for starting contributing to Wikisaurus, all in one page.

I disagree with the proposed style: User:Yair_rand/WS-main. While I admit that it looks superficially nice, it sacrifices the function of Wiktionary:Wikisaurus to flashiness. Instead of organizing information by sections, it uses a tabular layout, which makes it harder to find information, for me anyway. It distracts the attention by excessive flashiness.

Wikisaurus entries: I disagree with making the changes to appearance of Wikisaurus entries that are shown in User:Yair_rand/WS-main, including the putting of a small logo at every bullet, which I deem wholly non-functional and unduly flashy.

Logo: I still think that Wikisaurus does not need any logo, being a namespace and subproject of Wiktionary rather than a standalone project. The problems of building Wikisaurus are not tied to a logo or appearance; someone has to do the real work of finding the best headwords and term and concept structures, and idetifying the semantic relations between words—the one that does not consist of setting up flashy CSS-styled boxes.

Discussions: I disagree that discussions about Wikisaurus should be channelled to a talk page rather than to Beer Parlour, based on my experience with trying to find out information in

1. Wiktionary:Thesaurus considerations -- starting in 2002 and 2003, getting more traffic in 2004, with most discussion ended by the end of 2006
2. Wiktionary:Wikisaurus/Improvements 1 -- created in February 2005, and stopped immediately; a surge of activity appeared in July 2008
3. Wiktionary:Wikisaurus/Improvements 2

Searching in Beer Parlour for Wikisaurus-related discussions is fairly easy, using the keyword "Wikisaurus" in the namespace "Wiktionary:".

Wikisaurus-link: I oppose the use of {{Wikisaurus-link}}; I encourage to link to Wikisaurus through "Synonyms" section, as (a) Wikisaurus is not a standalone project like Wikipedia or Commons, and (b) "Synonyms" section is the one where people come looking for synonyms. --Dan Polansky 10:55, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I was not in any way advocating the use of {{Wikisaurus-link}} (though I do use it myself sometimes). The main page design on User:Yair rand/WS-main is, well, not really supposed to be useful for finding information itself, the current Wiktionary:Wikisaurus is far better for that, which is why it's linked to from the my design. What a main page is supposed to do is really show the reader a nice design, give a bit of a "visual identity", show a short outline and a couple of useful links, and showcase either a "featured" piece of content or some new content so that the reader can tell what it's supposed to look like, and show a bit of what people can do to help. As for the bullet, maybe that was a bad idea, but I still like having the header be more than just a block of text and a search box. --Yair rand 18:15, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] More Integration with Wiktionary

I think that Wikisaurus should be more integrated with Wiktionary, not less. In my opinion, the best scheme would be to make the regular Wiktionary entries act as a index to a "keyless" Wikisuarus entry, like in Roget's International Thesaurus by Harper-Collins. (RIT uses numbers for their thesaurus entries but we can hide those numbers within the software.)

For example, the regular Wiktionary entry for immigrant would have a Wikisaurus index section like:

• WIKISAURUS FOR Immigrant
  • migrant
  • incomer
  • citizen
  • settler
  • newcomer

Clicking on "migrant" would bring up this Wikisaurus list:

Noun

• migrant
• migrator
• trekker
• immigrant
• wetback (informal)
• etc.

See Also

• Traveler

Clicking on "immigrant" would bring you back to the regular Wiktionary entry for immigrant. Clicking on "trekker" would bring you to the Wiktionary entry for trekker, which would have a WIKISAURUS FOR Trekker index (which, in turn, would include the entry for "migrant", among possibly others) and so forth.

Clicking on "incomer" in the original WIKISAURUS FOR Immigrant entry would bring up:

Noun

• incomer
• entrant
• visitor
• immigrant
• etc.

Clicking on "Traveler" in See Also would bring up a super-index of:

Nouns

• traveler
• wanderer
• vagabond
• nomad
• migrant
• etc

See Also

• Places

Clicking on any of these would bring up the appropriate lowest-level index. Clicking on "Places" in See Also would bring up a super-super-index of:

• Space
• Location
• Displacement
• Traveler
• etc.

Software (probably a template) would have to be developed so that, when a Wikisausus index is added to or removed from a word entry in Wiktionary, the software would automatically change the Wikisausus page. We would need editor software to change the order of the Wikisaurus word entries. The first entry would be the index tag (in the first case above, "migrant") of the reguler Wiktionary page. We would also have to edit the "See Also" entries and the usage notes (like "informal").

This is just an idea and I apologize if it's been proposed and slammed before. It is a big change but it does seem to be a method for including virtually all words in Wiktionary in one or multiple Wiksaurus entries. I put it into a separate sub-section because I think it relates to the Proposed Wikisaurus style changes but it's a somewhat different line of thought. --RoyGoldsmith 14:44, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I am very confused. How does this relate at all to the proposal of having a portal-like page and logo for Wikisaurus? --Yair rand 23:29, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't, per se. But after you reach the Thesaurus (by whatever means), the contents of the thesaurus would be (I hope) more organized. Rather than having an alphabetic list of terms (some of which overlap -- see copulate, sexual activity and sexual intercource, for example) you would be presented with a number of highly-abstact concepts: The Body, The Senses, Feelings, Places, etc.

Click on, say, The Body, and you would be presented with another list of more-refined conceptual terms: Birth, The Human Body, Hair, Clothing, Nutrition, etc. Click on Birth and you would get: NOUNS birth; VERBS be born, give birth; ABJECTIVES born. Click on (say) give birth and you would be presented with the actual words that relate to the concept of giving birth: give birth, bear, have young, have a baby, bear a child, whelp, litter, labor, etc. Click on one of these and you would be redirected to the actual Wiktionary entry. This entry would then have a reverse link to the lowest level of Wikisaurus.

Thus there would now be two main entry points for Wikisaursus. The first is from the top down, through the current way or your portal or something else entirely. The second would be from the bottom up, through the entry in Wiktionary (via the new "WIKISAURUS FOR xxx" section or something akin to it) up through a list of highly related terms (give birth, have young, etc.) and from there up to even more abstract concepts: for example, Birth in general and from there to The Body.

That's all I'm saying. You gave a new method for accessing Wikisaurus from the top; I'm giving a new method of accessing Wikisaurus from the bottom. (Of course, my method changes the entire structure of Wikisaurus and is therefore much harder to implement.) If you would prefer to have my proposal treated totally separate from yours, simply change the header "=== More Integration with Wiktionary ===" to "== More Integration with Wiktionary ==" (two equal signs on either side instead of three) at the top of this subsection and, magically, it will be transformed into two, independent proposals. --RoyGoldsmith 15:08, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Preposition forms and prepositional phrases.

A number of languages have what are called "inflected prepositions". The details vary from language to language, but the general idea is that certain preposition+pronoun combinations are expressed by inflecting the preposition to incorporate the pronoun. There are a few minor examples of this in Romance languages (such as Spanish conmigo (“‘with me’”), which historically results from roughly con + mí + con, but nowadays amounts to a special form of the preposition con that incorporates the first-person singular personal pronoun mí), but in some languages, such as certain Celtic and Semitic languages, it's very pervasive: for example, all Hebrew prepositions are inflected in this way, though some prepositions are defective (meaning they can't take certain objects) and/or suppletive (meaning that not all of their forms have descended from the same ancestral preposition). Incidentally, Hebrew doesn't even have stand-alone object forms for the animate personal pronouns, since they're always expressed via an inflected form of whatever they're the object of.

From one perspective, these are forms of prepositions; but from another perspective, they are complete prepositional phrases (since the preposition's object is built-in), so they don't behave quite like English's transitive prepositions. Header-wise, this makes for a bit of a conundrum. As I see it, we have a few options:

1. ===Preposition===. This is what I've been using.
2. ===Adjective=== and ===Adverb=== (with identical or nearly-identical information under each). This accords with how we've been handling prepositional phrases in English.
3. ===Idiom=== or ===Phrase===. Either of these would be misleading, since these are one-word forms; even in cases where the pronoun was a separate word in some ancestor language, it's not one now.
4. ===Contraction===. A bit better, but still misleading, since conmigo is longer than *con mí, and since in Hebrew it's not clear what they're contractions of (since the personal pronouns simply don't have standalone object forms).
5. ===Preposition form=== (currently not sanctioned by ELE). This is the most explicit and the most precise, but I'm not sure how much clearer it actually is for an English-speaker, even one who speaks an affected language. And we avoid headers like "Noun form" and "Verb form", so this would introduce some inconsistency.
6. ===Prepositional phrase=== (currently not sanctioned by ELE). This is still a bit misleading, what with the word "phrase" in there, but overall, I think it would work pretty well. It could also be used for other kinds of prepositional phrases, which would be a bit clearer and more accurate than our current ===Adjective===/===Adverb=== approach (especially for languages where true adjectives inflect for number and such). Admittedly, there's still a bit of inconsistency, in that we avoid "Noun phrase" and so on, but I think it's clear that a noun phrase is noun-like in a way that a prepositional phrase is not preposition-like, so hopefully that's O.K.

All in all, I think my preferred option is to start allowing ===Prepositional phrase===, and to use it for object-including preposition forms as well as for regular prepositional phrases; but what do y'all think?

—Ruakh_TALK 21:55, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I certainly see the advantage of Prepositional phrase as a PoS-type header for English: eliminating low-value duplication of senses in Adjective and Adverb sections at no additional (possibly even less) user confusion. Category:English prepositional phrases would make it relatively easy to rapidly transition to such a header. The simple nature of English prepositional phrases would make it easy to find omissions, too. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 22:48, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I, too, like the idea of "Prepositional phrase" for English. I'll keep out of the conversation w.r.t. Hebrew though, at least for now: having thought about it and discussed it (elsewhere), I'm really not sure what's best. Ruakh, if you have the time and inclination, how do Even Shoshan and his counterparts list לי?​—msh210℠ 17:24, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Aside from Wiktionaries and Wiktionary mirrors, I know of no dictionary, online or in print, in any language or between any pair of languages, that has entries for individual word-forms. Online dictionaries will sometimes just redirect you to the main entry for the lexeme, and print ones will sometimes do the print equivalent for forms that are extremely irregular or appear very far away in alphabetical order (like, between the entries for sommer and sommet, you might find "sommes see être"), but so far as I know, our informative soft redirects are without precedent. So I think we're on our own for this. —Ruakh_TALK 20:54, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

At least "prepositional phrase" is a term that seems to be used in English fairly consistently in virtually every vintage and level of grammar book. We should try to anticipate problems and make sure that we have supporting material (glossary definition, entry, category text, Appendix) of good quality to support the idea. We might discover problems as we try to prepare such material. One small problem I can anticipate would be with the "postpositions" (eg, "notwithstanding", "apart", aside") if they head any CFI-meeting phrases. It may also lead us to face the question of whether to analyze some terms (eg, with regard to) as "compound prepositions" (Quirk et al, en.wikt) vs. elements of layered prepositional phrases (per CGEL) and also such odd cases as to do with. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 22:11, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Postposition is an ELE-approved POS header, so I don't see any problem with having Postpositional phrase if we have Prepositional phrase. The only issue would be where to put such an (English) phrase, and we can, I think, cross that bridge when we come to it.​—msh210℠ 17:52, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

We don't really want the Postposition header in English, whatever value it has for other languages. Few normal people notice or are bothered by "preposition" being a misnomer etymologically when applied to the few terms that are atypical in this regard. Stranded prepositions are always postpositive anyway, without the name being what upsets most of those who complain about such things. In any event, the position of a preposition relative to the rest of the phrase it is in is not the important grammatical feature of a preposition, nor is it unique to prepositions ("The" is prepositive.).

My point was only that, given that we don't want the Postposition header, any includable prepositional phrase that uses one of these oxymoronic normally-postpositioned prepositions may look funny and cause comment. DCDuring TALK 19:03, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

O.K., strike my earlier comment. I totally should have checked before writing it. I'm sorry. I was totally wrong. It turns out that Even-Shoshan does include inflected forms for some of the really basic prepositions. In general, it doesn't give any definition at all for these, or only a definition like "רְאֵה מִן" ("see from"), but for לִי (li), “‘to me’”) it actually goes all out for some reason, defining it as "אֵלַי, לְעַצְמִי וְכוּ׳" ("toward me, to myself &c."). For most of the preposition forms I looked at, it gives the POS as מ״י (M.Y.), “‘prep.’”); the only one for which it gives a different POS is לוֹ (lo), for which it gives מ״ג (M.G.), “‘pron.’”). I'm inclined to regard that inconsistency as a mistake, though. —Ruakh_TALK 02:05, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks.​—msh210℠ 17:52, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Update: since no one seems to have any objections, I've set up a vote at Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-01/Allow "Prepositional phrase" as a POS header, to start in one week. If anyone does object, please speak up before then! —Ruakh_TALK 21:09, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

So, I don't understand why you object to using ===Contraction=== and then labelling the function on the inflection line or in the usage notes. The problem with ===Prepositional phrase=== is that it isn't a full description of the term, nor is it the functional part of speech. Prepositional phrases are prepositions plus an object, so a label that emphasizes only the prepoisiton part is misleading and focusses on what is usually the minor particle in the combination. Also, prepositional phrases tend to function as adverbs or adjectives, and not a prepositions, so the label doesn't describe the word's function either. For the aforementioned Romance languages, I prefer ===Contraction=== for these situations, since that at least avoids giving the impression that the term somehow is a preposition. That doesn't mean this would necessarily be ideal for Hebrew or for other languages, but I haven't seen a convincing reason for ===Prepositional phrase===, and that was a header we tried to deprecate before. --EncycloPetey 03:35, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I thought I explained why I object to using "contraction": it's not accurate. Spanish conmigo is not exactly a "contraction" of *con mí, because it's actually longer than said; and Hebrew לי is not a "contraction" of anything, any more than English babies is.

"Prepositional phrase" focuses on the preposition part because that's the part that determines the grammar, no? I don't understand your statement that "prepositional phrases tend to function as adverbs or adjectives, and not a prepositions, so the label doesn't describe the word's function either". I agree that "preposition" doesn't describe the function of a prepositional phrase, but surely "prepositional phrase" does?

Re: "For the aforementioned Romance languages, I prefer ===Contraction=== for these situations, since that at least avoids giving the impression that the term somehow is a preposition": I don't understand. Are you saying that the header "prepositional phrase" gives the impression that the term somehow is a preposition?

—Ruakh_TALK 04:17, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

BTW, I should say that while I'm not a big fan of the ===Contraction=== header for terms like conmigo, I do at least consider it to be an O.K. approach for those. It's not ideal, but it's not the end of the world. —Ruakh_TALK 04:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, then the Hebrew term you're concerned with is not actually a prepositional phrase, since it's written as a single word. Phrases are inherently multi-word, so a label of "X phrase" would be inaccurate on that count alone. And no, "prepositional phrase" does not describe the function because prepositional phrases can have many different functions. Most often, they function as an adjective or adverb, but they can appear in other functions as well, such as an interjection or even as the subject of a sentence. --EncycloPetey 17:22, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: "Phrases are inherently multi-word, so a label of 'X phrase' would be inaccurate on that count alone": Yes, as I said.

Re: "And no, 'prepositional phrase' does not describe the function because prepositional phrases can have many different functions. Most often, they function as an adjective or adverb, but they can appear in other functions as well, such as an interjection or even as the subject of a sentence": Yes. That's why it's problematic to try to cover them in "Adjective" or "Adverb" sections: they're not really adjectives or adverbs, and their range of functions is not the same as that of adjectives or adverbs. Hence my suggestion that we give them their own POS header.

—Ruakh_TALK 22:28, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

So, you want to use a POS tag that describes neither the structure nor the function? I don't understand how that could be a good idea. --EncycloPetey 23:56, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

If by "neither the structure nor the function" you mean "both the structure and the function", then yes. ;-)

It may not describe the structure perfectly, but it describes it better than anything else besides "preposition form", which you don't seem to be advocating. And it does describe the function perfectly. You seem to be contradicting yourself, simultaneously arguing (1) that prepositional phrases have their own set of functions, not exactly the same as those of adjectives and adverbs and (2) that "prepositional phrase" doesn't describe their functions.

—Ruakh_TALK 03:49, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

You are misunderstanding, so let me try to explain it this way: Why not use the POS "Word", which would "perfectly" describe the function? The answer is that word is too broad a description encompassing too many possible functions. Likewise, a "prepositional phrase" has many possible functions, so that such a label does nothing to distinguish which possible functions an entry might have. This is why we use Adverb, Adjective, etc. as POS headers for prepositional phrases, since such phrases as a group could have any of quite a number of functions, but individually they have one or two of those functions only. So when I said that the header you are proposing describes neither the structure nor the function, I meant exactly that, and was not using the "opposite-speak" you have credited me with. --EncycloPetey 05:03, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks; if that's true, then it makes sense as a reason. But do you have any evidence for your statement that any given prepositional phrase is only used in a few ways? That's not obvious to me. (In Wikipedia terms, [citation needed]. :-)   —Ruakh_TALK 05:11, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I should clarify that those which are used in more than one way have a different meaning when so used, so there would be separate senses functioning in different ways (as diffeent POSes) and with different meanings. Do you have evidence that individual prepositional phrases can regularly be used in both an adjectival and adverbial sense? I have yet to see more than a tiny handful that can. --EncycloPetey 07:42, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The use of Adjective and Adverb headers, jointly or separately, for prepositional phrases is not perfectly accurate and requires duplication of essentially the same meanings.

The duplication of content argument has been used as part of the justification for excluding PoS sections for attributive use of nouns and common noun use of proper nouns. I would extend it in English to exclude some similar duplication in the case of -ing forms in English.

In English the accuracy issue arises from prepositional phrases not normally meeting tests for the adjective and adverb PoSs. For example, they normally do not accept modification by "too" and "very", sometimes accept modification by "right" and "straight", and cannot serve as the complement of "become".

One departure from the pattern is instructive. A prepositional phrase modified by "very" or "too" prefers to be distinguished by its stress pattern or orthographically by quotes or hyphens. "It was very in-the-moment". "He was speaking in-the-moment." "It was a very in-the-moment speech." DCDuring TALK 12:00, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] International Wikisaurus

I'm not really sure about the state of Wikisaurus, but I'm sensing that it's not in any way interconnected across language versions... which is too bad, because synonyms have to be in the same language as the given term, and therefore the words should be exactly the same way under all the wikis. There has to be some way to take advantage of that -- otherwise, you end up doing the same work for the gazillion language version there are, or some people are missing out. By the way, I'd really like other language synonyms in the wikisaurus... —This unsigned comment was added by MirekDve (talk • contribs).

Wikisaurus is not multilingual, meaning that the English language Wikisaurus only included entries for English words. The reason for this is, as you pointed out, we would end up doing the same work for the gazillion language version there are, with no benefits, because anyone could easily look up the word in the Wikisaurus of that language. --Yair rand 02:17, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I assume that the subject of this thread is "Multilingual Wikisaurus", meaning whether Wikisaurus in English Wiktionary should contain non-English entries.

It has not yet been decided whether Wikisaurus should be multilingual. I support its being multilingual, but have so far not pushed the idea very far, as there has been some opposition, and I am trying to build up the English section of Wikisaurus first.

A model non-English page in Wikisaurus is Wikisaurus:příbuzný.

See also:

• Wiktionary:Wikisaurus#Multilingualism
• Wikisaurus - non-English entries - Mar 2009
• Wikisaurus_talk:juoppo - result of a RFDO - request for deletion of other - on a non-English Wikisaurus entry.

--Dan Polansky 11:56, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

To be most useful, each Wikisaurus entry should include comments (in English) when needed, e.g. about how senses are slightly different between words. Also remember that a thesaurus is not only about synonyms, but should include all words readers are likely to need when reading the entry, all words which come to mind when addressing the subject (e.g. kennel in the entry for dog, look at Roget's thesaurus for other such examples). Therefore, the entry should be organized into several sections (with section titles in English). This means that a good thesaurus cannot be common to all wiktionaries, and that there is no reason to limit Wikisaurus to the English language. But the titles should always be in English: Wikisaurus entries are not about a specific word (whatever its language), but about words of some language relating to something. Good titles could be something like Wikisaurus:dog (English) or Wikisaurus:dog (Dutch). Lmaltier 22:47, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikisaurus entries stand for senses AKA meanings rather than terms; right.

Non-English entry titles in Wikisaurus can be designed using various approaches. The current approach is (a) that the headwords should be in the given language: "Wikisaurus:příbuzný". One alternative proposed was (b) that the language should be indicated using its code before the term: "Wikisaurus:cs:příbuzný". If the codes are disliked, (c) the disambiguation can proceed in natural language: "Wikisaurus:příbuzný (Czech)". And there is also the option of (d) using English headwords: "Wikisaurus:relative (Czech)".

I tend to favor the approach (a), given the current state of discussion. There are level-2 headings for "English" in Wikisaurus entries already in place for the cases where more languages occupy one headword. The approach (d) would cause some complications in linking between Wikisaurus entries using {{ws}}: in a list of hyponyms, the template links a hyponym not only to mainspace but also to Wikisaurus. So if there is the hyponym {{ws|ďítě}} of "příbuzný", the template is automatically looking for a Wikisaurus page entitled "dítě" rather than "child (Czech)". It would be necessary to tell explicitly to the template where to look for the Wikisaurus entry, like {{ws|dítě|child|ws=child (Czech)"}} or {{ws|dítě|child|ws=child|lang=cs}}. Alternatively, it could be assumed that the gloss (the second parameter of ws) matches exactly an entry headword, so it would suffice to enter {{ws|dítě|child|lang=cs}}, but this assumption would be made only if the language is not English. In any case, (a) can be tried immediately without further technical adjustments. --Dan Polansky 10:37, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Delinking {{io}}

Hi there all. I would like to ask the community what they think about me requesting for {{io}} to be delinked due to the size/amount of entries that have been made in Ido so far. I believe that it is starting to become more used on here, and that having it linked isn't necessary any longer because of the popularity of the language. Ido is very similar to Esperanto, and Esperanto is not linked, so I think that on that basis alone, {{io}} should be delinked. Thanks, Razorflame 16:49, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

From the old discussions at Wiktionary_talk:Translations/Wikification, it seems as though such changes have been made by any interested editor after a warning at that talkpage, allowing objections to be voiced, assuming none were.​—msh210℠ 17:44, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I see no advantage in doing it, at all. Mglovesfun (talk) 01:19, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Usually, headers aren't supposed to be wikilinked, although that might not hold true here. Anyways, I'd like it to not be wikilinked, as that is what I am most used to. There probably isn't any disadvantage with doing it, and there doesn't seem to be any advantages to not doing it, so we might as well do it :) Razorflame 01:22, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Then don't link the headers. However, please do not remove the link from {{io}}, as that template is primarily linked there for Tbot in dealing with Translations sections. We decided long ago which languages should and should not be linked within the Translations sections, and our ISO templates have been set up accordingly. If people are using the ISO templates to insert headers, then that is fine, but that's not their primary function. Frankly, the commonness of a language on Wiktionary is not a consideration in deciding which language templates are linked. It's based on recognition of the language name by the general population and whether the name of the language sufficiently resembles the name of the country where the language originated or is principally spoken. Ido is a language I would never have heard of if it weren't for working on Wiktionary. --EncycloPetey 03:28, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I should point out that WT:ACCEL uses those templates for headers, and that's probably the reason Razorflame requested de-linking it. --Yair rand 03:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. I've now fixed WT:ACCEL not to linkify language headers. —Ruakh_TALK 04:30, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Audio requests

This month, I'm going to be working on clearing the backlog at Category:Requests for audio pronunciation (US). However, I cannot record British English. I need the help of a person who is able to record UK English. Thanks, The New Mikemoral ♪♫^WT:APR 03:41, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Numbers (year?) preceding definition

What are the numbers preceding the noun definitions of boob? __meco 16:43, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

There was a reference to them in the Etymology section. I've cleaned it up. WT:RFC may be better, incidentally.​—msh210℠ 18:22, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be request for comments? I'm not sure I understand the delineation between these pages. __meco 18:40, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

This page is for matters of "policy" that span some class of entries. We have at least two places for similar matters relating to individual entries. If you were asking an informational question you could have taken this to WT:TR, inserting {{rft}} in the entry. If the question was really a request for action, you could take it to WT:RFC (cleanup), using {{rfc}}. HTH. DCDuring TALK 18:58, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I was considering that this was in adherence with guidelines, and if that was so, the guidelines needed to be changed since it was confusing. I guess I didn't know how to check whether it was complying (i.e. with which guideline). __meco 19:21, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Bing

Have you tried Bing, the new Microsoft search engine (http://www.bing.com)? It's really incredible. With default settings (for France), I tried a few French and English common words. Here are results I get for the Wiktionnaire:

• manger: 1st page (1st hit)
• pain: 1st page (2nd hit)
• eat: 1st page (10th hit)
• bread: 1st page (3rd hit)
• football: 1st page (8th hit)

Do you get the same kind of results in other countries? Lmaltier 09:28, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

No.

• manger: 16th hit
• pain: not in first 6 pages
• eat: not in first 6 pages
• bread: somewhere on th 5th page
• football: not in first 6 pages --Vahagn Petrosyan 12:51, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. This must have something to do with the country... But I would have expected similar results in other countries (with the local language dictionary instead of fr.wiktionary, of course). Lmaltier 16:38, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

My country's local language wiktionary is brain-dead. Maybe that has something to do. --Vahagn Petrosyan 17:44, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification or revision of WT:QUOTE#How to format a quotation

Formatting note 1 states “The year is always in bold face, the title of the work in italics or, for shorter works, quotation marks.” (my emboldenment). Really? I never see the use of quotation marks for this purpose, and it would be more consistent to allow only italics, per the de facto standard (note that the rest of the page uses only italics). Or is this meant to apply to works published as a part of a compilation (e.g., an essay in a multi-authored book or an article in a journal)? Could we get some clarification or revision of this point, please? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 19:39, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

My understanding is that this clause, if you will, exists because that is the standard form used for citing poetry in essays, as shown by the MLA format (outlined here and in many other websites found in a typical Google search). Cdhaptomos 19:43, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

That looks like it’s talking about poems printed in anthologies; i.e., it’s “meant to apply to works published as a part of a compilation”. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 19:52, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't look like the best example, having read it thoroughly. This is better. Cdhaptomos 20:13, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

That talks about quoting poetry in an essay, not citing it in a dictionary; lexicographical practice is likely to be very different. Does anyone know the OED’s practice in citing poetry? Or can someone offer a rationale for departing from our usual standard? I don’t see why we should have different formatting standards for quotations from poetry from those that hold for those from prose. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 20:41, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The is the norm for citing just about anywhere in English. Shorter works such as scientific articles, short poems, and newspaper articles should have their titles in quotes. Longer works, such as epic poems, journals, novels, and other books should have their titles italicized. This is the norm here, as well as on Wikipedia, because it's standard in most style and publication guides. --EncycloPetey 21:17, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

This was totally unknown to me. Could someone please update the policy page to state this fact more explicitly? Cdhaptomos, do you care to do the honours? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 22:41, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I have tried, as you can see. I don't know how well I've done at wording it, though. Cdhaptomos 23:58, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is accurate. Shorter works do usually appear in quotes, but that's because they are part of larger works, which appear in italics. "Article", Newspaper. "Scholarly article", Journal. "Poem", Anthology. Length doesn't factor into directly AFAICT. Consider for example Frankfurter's On Bullshit. It is considerably shorter than many journal articles, yet its title is always italicized, because it is published as a freestanding book.

I would tend to limit quotes-only to special cases where a very small work appears in isolation, such as broadside ballads, or poems that are known to have been written down long before they appeared in print. Usenet posts would also qualify, the de-facto-standard "Post title", Usenet format notwithstanding. -- Visviva 03:34, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

This is my understanding also. Except that when citing poems, it's fairly common to do so in isolation, since they were usually first published in a magazine or elsewhere. Ƿidsiþ 06:21, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Most shorter poems are able to be recognized as separate works, regardless of publication in an anthology or whatever. Fair enough, you could put "Poem", as published in Anthology, but at the end of the day, a poem is a poem. Cdhaptomos 18:56, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

My belief was pretty much as Visviva explains. I regard the citation information we give as the means of verifying the existence of the quoted extract, ideally in the place it first occurred; if the work in question does not occur independently, but rather only as part of a larger work, then that justifies the use of quotation marks, whereas italics should be used otherwise. Presumably, no one publishes individual poëms or scholarly articles, hence they always appear as parts of larger works only, hence they are always cited using quotation marks, not italics; the fact that the stubby On Bullshit and the epic Iliad are cited with italics, and not quotation marks, supports this. In no way would I recommend that we depart from established citational practice, only that we work out properly what the rational distinction being made is. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 00:43, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I've been doing some investigating, but unfortunately do not have access to a copy of the book from which I first learned this convention. The books I have been able to examine either give no complete set of rules (the Chicago Manual of Style is frustrating in this respect), or do tend to support the idea of quotes used for portions of a larger work (this is noted in Peyton Hurt's book Bibliography and Footnotes: A Style Manual for Students). --EncycloPetey 01:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you know if/when you will gain access to a copy of that book? (What is its title, BTW?) Do you want to wait until you’ve checked that, or shall we take Peyton Hurt’s lead on this matter? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 03:59, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I don;t expect to obtain a copy, in part because it was a school text whose appearance I would recognize, but whose title and author were of no interest to me at the time. So, I do not know the bibliographic information needed to track it down quickly. --EncycloPetey 05:24, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

OK. Well, in the absence of the availability that authority which states the contrary, I believe we should amend our policy page to prescribe formatting in line with what Peyton Hurt states. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 02:58, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Titles for rhymes pages

Are there any norms for the titles of rhymes pages? For example Rhymes: -e (French) could be enormous, isn't it better to use that as an index page for Rhymes: -be and the other consonants we can put ahead of it? What about more syllables than just one? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:31, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The rhymes are all named according to the IPA symbols beginning from the vowel (or diphthong) in the stressed syllable through to the end of the word. So, if there are a lot of French words ending in /e/, and with the stress on that final syllable, then yes there could be an enormous page as a result. You could conceiveably choose to arrange the contents of the page differently for French (in English we group according to the number of syllables), but I wouldn't recommend using a different page naming scheme. --EncycloPetey 01:10, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Technically, Rhymes in French are not stress-based: all meaningful words (i.e. minus prepositions, pronouns...) in -/e/ are considered to rhyme! The French tradition is different and "length"-based. A rhyme based on only a final vowel is "poor" based on a final vowel and the preceding sound, or a vowel+consonant coda is "sufficient", and one with three or more phonemes is "rich". Some school of poetry have at time held that poor rhymes were not valid (so that marée and allée are not considered to rhyme)! Circeus 14:01, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it should be language-dependent. Different languages have different traditions of what's considered to rhyme. See, e.g., oldish discussion at Wiktionary talk:About Hebrew#Rhymes.​—msh210℠ 17:28, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

French (according to WT:AFR) isn't stressed, so I think Circeus is right. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:50, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

You're right; I forgot about the absence of stress in French. Perhaps the entries could use /e/ as a navigational page then, and French rhymes could be grouped according to sequence beginning from the first vowel in the word. Thus, the /e/ listing page would itself include only French words with a single terminal vowel sound. --EncycloPetey 05:22, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] RFD and RFV request

I'm trying to archive these pages, it would greatly facilitate the process if when listing multiple terms for one discussion you used the seperate level three headings (even if all discussion happens only under one of them) instead of the comma-separated level two heading format. Additionally, when closing such discussions (striking the heading, and removing the {{rfv}} or {{rfd}} from the page), if you say one of the following "magic" words it will be picked up so that I don't have to manually intervene to tell it which template to use.

• '''passed''', '''kept''', '''cited''' {{rfv-passed}} {{rfd-passed}}
• '''failed''', '''deleted''' {{rfd-failed}} {{rfv-failed}}
• '''striking''' {{rfd-archived}} {{rfv-archived}}

Common variations on the above are also matched, providing they are emboldened ('''RFVFailed''', '''rfd passed''' etc.) . This is really a request for things to "stay as they are" as the code for this detection was written based on what normally happens on those pages - certainly if it would be a hassle to do, don't bother, I can do it for you. Conrad.Irwin 19:15, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Reverse index

Would it make sense to create a reverse index by language? A reverse index (I don't know the proper English expression) is similar to the current index except it's sorted by a reverse order of the letters, starting with the final letter. This index may also serve as a rhyme dictionary for some of the languages. --Panda10 23:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

For some languages, this is highly useful. Latin and Ancient Greek make use of such lists often, particularly by those working with inscriptions or old manuscripts where the beginning of a word has been damaged beyond recognition. --EncycloPetey 05:19, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Is "idiom" still a valid header?

Noting our to do list, if ===Idiom=== is no longer a valid header for English, why should it be for other languages? Idiom is not a part of speech in the same way that verb and noun are. Shouldn't we keep the categories <langname> idioms but remove the header? Mglovesfun (talk) 17:22, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

1. Each language could come to its own conclusion until such time as there is a clear benefit from PoS standardization. Is there any clear benefit from amending WT:ELE to remove it? I would like to hear from those active in other languages why it was useful so as to know whether it would be something to discourage or deprecate or whether it should be explicitly "legislated" by each language.
2. Several other permitted PoS headers are also not "parts of speech" (Proverb, Phrase, the 3 abbreviations headers, Contraction, Symbol, Letter, Number). Note that they are approximately equal in number to the number that are actual parts of speech. DCDuring TALK 18:16, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh I agree, I think "phrase" and "contraction" are only to be used when nothing else fits. Personally I'd always advocate replacing "Idiom" with "Phrase" at worst. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:26, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

From the standpoint of Portuguese language, I say the "Idiom" header is not necessary at all. The current practice of labelling English idioms as other parts of speech or as phrases also works well for Portuguese. --Daniel. 04:46, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Likewise for Latin. The are a few entries currently categorized as Latin idioms, but I don't see "Idiom" as a necessary or desirable PoS header in Latin. --EncycloPetey 05:17, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] euphemisms

Interesting that Category:Euphemisms and euphemism define them as terms used to indirectly refer to something unpleasant, controversial or vulgar. Considering entries like I am thirsty, blessed event and disabled person are tagged as euphemisms perhaps we should rethink this definition. After all, is it really unpleasant, controversial or vulgar to be thirsty, born or have a disability? Tooironic 05:00, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I think all three are unpleasant in some way. But yes, point taken. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:16, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] My bot (continued)

Earlier in the year (December 2009), I posted a request for Darkicebot to be unblocked. I was told that I should do the few test edits for my bot through my main account, which is what I have done. I have made all the forms of the verb frapar and batar using my bot code through my main account, and I was wondering if maybe my bot could run for the bot flag again now? Thanks, Razorflame 08:19, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd imagine you can run for bot flag as often as you like, the question is if there's no chance of you getting it, why bother? It will only hurt your feelings. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:59, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Why do you say that there isn't a chance of me getting it if I've proven that I know the language? I updated the Ido verb conjugation charts to include all of the possible form-ofs for verbs, and I've written the program to be exactly like the one I used for Esperanto, so I honestly don't see what the big deal is? Razorflame 13:02, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

At this point in time, it's obvious that the community doesn't have the trust in you to grant the bot flag, Razorflame. I would suggest a longer period of time doing manual edits and other things that would convince people that a bot flag would actually be used rather than misused. --Neskaya ^{contribs - talk?} 09:30, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

By manual edits, you mean using the bot program through my main account, like I have been doing to prove that it wouldn't be misused? Razorflame 09:32, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Not really but I don't have the energy to explain right now. --Neskaya ^{contribs – talk?} 09:44, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, how can I begin to regain the community's trust if I don't know what to do to start working towards it? Razorflame 09:49, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

It's easy, just make some high quality edits over a long period of time (Note that "lots" of edits doesn't help, "time" is the key and "quality" is important). Conrad.Irwin 13:10, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Italian plurals

After going about my business, editing Ido and Esperanto, I've noticed quite a few Italian plural entries for both Adjectives and nouns that do not include the |p in them. My question is this: Why aren't they included, and shouldn't we include them? All opinions are welcome :). Cheers, Razorflame 12:50, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't matter a great deal as the definition says […] Plural form of […] Note that on the French Wiktionary a decision was made not to put {{m|p}} (etc.) as it duplicates the definition line. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

All of our Spanish entries already automatically add the p, so I don't see why Italian shouldn't if we already use it for Spanish, yeah? Razorflame 13:00, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Or we could remove it from Spanish, or we could leave it alone. The fact that we do things one way for one language should not necessarily be a guide to how other languages are done. --EncycloPetey 05:14, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, of course we can just leave it alone. I just thought that maybe people might think that it should be the same as the other languages, but I guess not. Cheers, Razorflame 23:32, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] ſ (long s) typographic variants

Below is a discussion at Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion#.C5.BFeveral:

This is defined as an obsolete spelling of "several". In fact, it is nothing of the sort. That is simply what s looked like before the nineteenth century except at the ends of words. Unless hundreds of thousands of other such "spelling variants" that use the non-terminal s are to be admitted, it makes little sense to allow this one. At the moment ſeveral is the only word listed among English obsolete spellings. Also allowing this entry would by implication disqualify any entries that have only been recorded with the ſ. --82.0.9.23 17:06, 14 January 2010 (UTC) I broadly agree, we should probably have a policy against these, in the same way that we have equus, but not EQUUS, EQVVS, or even eqvvs. Possibly move this to the Beer Parlour, then delete it when it is official a 'bad entry title', unless we already have such a policy. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:11, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I suggest this should indeed be regarded as a bad title. --82.0.9.134 17:29, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

What do we do about words in e.g. Arabic that have a different spelling when they are "final forms" (if that makes any sense — I don't know much about it)? This seems possibly analogous: it's a typographical variant rather than a different word. Equinox ◑ 17:33, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe that Arabic final forms in fact stay, as do Hebrew final forms, because while those may be a typographical variant, they are in fact a fairly universally recognised standard. In Hebrew, you simply don't use נ at the end of the word, and you do not use ן at the beginning or in the middle. I'm thinking that the Arabic form-letters are the same. This is very different from the English nonterminal S, because in English now, around the world, we don't actually /use/ it. --Neskaya ^{contribs – talk?} 09:34, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

• My feeling is that typographical variants should be hard redirects. (At least in the case of long esses; conceivably other cases might be different.) Ƿidsiþ 17:44, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

As I mention in the RFD discussion, I think we should redirect.​--msh210℠ 23:05, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

• I am also of the opinion that typographical variants with ſ should be redirects. There is very little use in spending effort in maintenance of such a large class of typographical variants. The way I see it, the only conceivable way that a user might want to know what ſeveral means is if they copied and pasted it from a web site, not knowing that ſ means the same as s. In such a case, they'd figure it out just as easily if they were redirected. --Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 03:56, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

• Vahag too thinks these should be hard redirects. --Vahagn Petrosyan 05:13, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
• Agree. FWIW (I seem to recall it came up at some point) I'm also in favor of hard redirects to French words using œ. Circeus 05:59, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
• FWIW I have created some words like coeur as "nonstandard spellings" in French. AFAICT œ is disappearing from French as it doesn't appear on an AZERTY keyboard. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:31, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

• Question: are there cases where hard redirects would cause problems, such as an orthographic variant for one word in one language being a valid spelling for another word in another language? If so, then redirects will not solve this problem. Answer: YEs, there are many such situations, especially where Latin and its derivatives are concerned, such as Latin iuncus which cannot be redirected from juncus, since that is a valid English word. Likewise the pairs io / jo and iota / jota have this problem as do many more words. Additionally, such hard redirects would break the capitalization redirects currently in place when someone typing "justus" would be redirected to iustus and not Justus. The proposed solution simply creates different problems instead of solving the current one. --EncycloPetey 05:05, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

  It's true that in Latin hard redirects can't be the solution, however, I think i/j and u/v are the only real cases where an orthographical variant has gone on to become a separate letter in its own right. Certainly in the case of long esses, they are no longer used in any language. So I see nothing wrong with taking this on a case-by-case basis. Ƿidsiþ 06:45, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

  So, what do you advocate for an extinct language that did regularly use long esses, like Middle English? You can't use the "redirect because it's no longer used" argument because none of the words in the language are being used now. The issue can't be handled on a case-by-case basis because this one decision can affect whole languages. --EncycloPetey 16:45, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

  But a redirect is only a problem if these other language, such as Middle English, treated the two esses as semantically different. I don't believe they did, but I could be wrong. If it was still a typographic variant in those languages, a redirect is fine (not the case for the u/v i/j in Latin since other languages treat the letters as semantically different). --Bequw → ¢ • τ 06:14, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Can someone explain what problems are caused by having {{obsolete spelling of}} entries for terms written with the long ess? In re Neskaya’s point: I don’t see why present currency matters; we catalogue all manner of obsolete and extinct language forms. Text written with long esses remains written with long esses irrespective of when it is read. If these are to be hard redirects only, how will we explain to baffled users (the ones Internoob alludes to) what they just saw? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 05:22, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

People who come across the long ess will generally come across many of them within the same short text. It would nearly always be self-explanatory. An editor wishing to quote a single word will use modern typographic conventions. The problem is, there are tens of thousands of such typographic variants (probably hundreds of thousands if foreign entries are to be accepted). Unless a large proportion of these is added, it's very unlikely to help anyone. I suggest a much better solution would be to supply example quotations in the redirected entries that use the long ess. Besides, presumably this sort of rationale could be used to justify the creation of separate entries for script a like "ɑbɑcus". "Text written with long esses remains written with long esses irrespective of when it is read." - But not really, surely. Modern editions of Milton or Shakespeare don't retain their long esses. --81.108.129.94 14:25, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, I don’t see what harm their presence causes, only that done by their exclusion. FWIW, I wouldn’t mind soft-redirect entries for terms written with ɑ (as long as they’re attested), though I think they’d be virtually useless, since they’re so ordinary-looking as not to be registered as distinct by most readers (something which is patently untrue of ſ). Besides, use of the long ess does not seem to be a purely typographical consideration; for the sake of example: an s occurring at the end of a non-terminal morpheme of a compound word will, in many cases, not be written as ſ; also, note the unusual usage in Ralph Cudworth’s True Intellectual System of the Universe wherein hypostasis is written Hypostaſis in the singular but Hypoſtaſes in the plural. Whether people read modernised editions of many early works does not change how the original works were written (i.e., those ancient dead-tree editions in libraries aren’t magically updated in accordance with the development of our typographical conventions). † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 03:29, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

They're only ordinary looking for native speakers. Try reading Cyrillic in both a standard font and italics, and you'll quickly become confused, since the italicized (or script) versions sometimes do not resemble their standard printed counterparts. I can find The or THE used in the titles of books and articles, and we assume that a reader will know to decapitalize to find the entry. We need not create redirects for such typographical variants, and the same is true for other variant script forms. --EncycloPetey 16:29, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Let’s consider, in practice, what most readers first encountering the long ess are likely to think: read the Edward Lisle quotation at cyons, and consider the likely consequences of the passage being read by someone unfamiliar with ſ. I’d guess that the same confusion arises far less often with a and ɑ (in which case the latter might, on the rare occasions that it is misread, be confused for o, I suppose). As for the case of Cyrillic, is it as closely analogous that there are separately-encoded glyphs for its italic forms? If so, it seems entirely reasonable to have soft-redirected entries for {{form of|Italic rendering|word|lang=ru}}. Are there any search statistics we can draw on for guidance here? I was thinking of the search frequencies of terms that are searched for where substituting their ‘f’s for ‘s’s yields legitimate terms in languages that use or once used ſ and of the search frequencies of terms that are searched for where substituting their ‘o’s for ‘ɑ’s yields legitimate terms in languages that use or once used ɑ; were we to have that information, then perhaps we could starting making some reasoned decisions informed by evidence. Of course, we’d have to correct the relative frequencies, given the fact that ɑ, in absolute terms, will be encountered far more often than ſ by a general audience. Do we have these statistics? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 19:59, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

All the Middle French texts I have read use the long s, but I always enter with with a 'modern s' because, well, I don't even have to explain, do I? Mglovesfun (talk) 14:30, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Are they attestable in Middle French written without long esses? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 03:29, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, I read the 'unicode' versions. It depends how you turn the printed/handwritten original into something computer readable. That being said, not really, no. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. Well, it seems at variance with our descriptive ethos for us to have terms listed spelt in ways that would never be encountered in that form in the original corpora, even when there are no technical restrictions upon faithfully representing the original forms; it is, IMO, analogous with listing Ancient Greek terms using (perfectly bijective) Roman transliteration. I see the merits (though not always the primacy) of lemmatising the easier-to-input spellings (i.e., with s substituted for ſ), but not to the point where the real forms actually encountered in print are reduced to imperceptible redirects, or worse, are completely banned from being listed. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 20:23, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

But do we list Ancient Greek terms in all capital letters? Wikipedia says "Modern editions of Ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks, interword spacing, modern punctuation, and sometimes mixed case, but these were all introduced later." Is that the tradition we're following here?--Prosfilaes 01:40, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

IMO, we should list the forms as are actually used in the original works, given that those are the forms that would actually be encountered in the corpus. That said, we should lemmatise the standardised forms. By the same reasoning, the standard laid out at Wiktionary:About Latin#Orthography for Latin entries is just fine, and I’d support that kind of standardisation to make page titles easier to guess; however, I think it goes too far in disallowing even redirecting entries for the numerous variant forms that exist (especially those from Mediæval Latin). † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 14:48, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I think ſeveral meets several of our criteria for inclusion. It's a word in a language, it's attestable with a given meaning. There are other pretty similar cases; notably ligatures, variable capitalization. These are better described as typographical variants rather than spelling ones. However Doremítzwr makes a good point. These forms are used in print, and people may want to know what they mean. So do we exclude them, keep them, or keep them only as redirects? æ seems about the same as ſ is this context. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:47, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

They’re not exactly analogous; consider Æsir and the aer- words. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 20:54, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I didn’t have the time to explain this fully earlier… The relation between æ / œ and ae / oe is not bijective, in fact, it is neither injective not surjective. In layman’s terms, this means that not all cases of æ / œ can be written as ae / oe and not all cases of ae / oe can be written as æ / œ. For examples of the former, neither the aforementioned Icelandic-derived Æsir nor the surname of the Norwegian deep œcologist Arne Næss can be correctly written digraphically, as *Aesir and *Naess, respectively; the same is (or at least was) the case with œthels taken from French — à contrecœur and coup d’œil, for example, ought not to be written with their œthels supplanted with oe digraphs. Vice versa, for Latinate and Græcian words, æ and œ can only be used for Latin ae and oe diphthongs and for Ancient Greek αι (ai), “‘alpha-iota’”) and οι (oi), “‘omicron-iota’”) diphthongs; in cases where the Latin ae or oe represent two distinct vowels (as in aëneolithic and poëm) or the digraphs derive from any of the Greek digraphs αε (ae), “‘alpha-epsilon’”), αη (aē), “‘alpha-eta’”), οε (oe), “‘omicron-epsilon’”), οη (oē), “‘omicron-eta’”), ωι (ōi), “‘omega-iota’”), ωε (ōe), “‘omega-epsilon’”), or ωη (ōē), “‘omega-eta’”), using a ligature is impermissible; in old-school typography, those various diphthongs that represent vowel pairs rather than diphthongs were written with disambiguating diæreses on the e as aë and oë. (I don’t really know whether all those digraphs actually occur in Ancient Greek, but that’s irrelevant to our considerations, anyway.) That whole spiel’s just a long and drawn-out way of saying that the use of the æsc and œthel ligatures in English is far more an etymological spelling consideration than it is a typographical one. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 02:08, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Please note that sometimes long ſ actually contrasts with round s (i. e. they refer to semantically different words). There are several examples in German language. -- Prince Kassad 21:01, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

In such cases, when spelling is involved, they should be accepted. But in most cases, it's only a typographic issue, not a spelling issue. It's the same for ligatures: some are typographic issues (e.g. the ligature between s and t, very common in old books), some are spelling issues (e.g. in French, you spell œil (ligature between o and e), but moelle (using a ligature would be a misspelling)). Lmaltier 21:13, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

In formal terms, then, for German (and some other languages?), ſ and s (as formerly distinguished) exist in a surjective relationship with the present-day use of s only; this means that conversion from ſ + s to only s results in a loss of information. As you’ve said, where this distinction exists, the long ess should be accepted, so we’re already agreed on that. The question is, what shall we do in cases where there is a word written with ſ in a language where the distinction is merely typographical which is spelt identically with a word written with ſ in another language where the distinction can be semantic, as in the case with German? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 02:08, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I propose to include words as they are spelled. This principle is simple. If spelling is not involved in a typographic variant, this variant should not be included (but it may be useful in some cases to comment inside the page), except possibly as a redirect. Lmaltier 19:00, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Please explain the implications of what you wrote; I do not understand what you mean. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 21:53, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

It's simple: I propose not to create pages such as ester with a ligature between s and t, because this ligature is purely typographic, and the actual spelling is E + S + T + E + R. But to create œil and moelle with the ligature in œil but not in moelle because they are the actual spellings, and spelling another way would be an error. The long s falls in the first case (pure typography), as far as I know, because it's the same letter as s, and does not deserve entries (except if there are rare exceptions where writing with an ordinary s would be a misspelling, but it seems surprising). Lmaltier 22:13, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

But as Prince Kassad has already noted, the long ess sometimes makes semantic distinctions in German, so it falls into the second category, not the first. By contrast, ſt, ff, fi, fl, ffi, and ffl are genuinely examples of your first case, being ligatures purely typographical in nature. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 01:20, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't really understand what "it makes semantic distinction" means. If this dictinction was only in printed works, not in hand-written works, then it may be considered as purely typographic, and not a spelling issue. In such a case, it might deserve an explanatory note, not a normal page. Lmaltier 06:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

An example is the German Wachstube, which can be spelt Wachſtube only in the sense of guardhouse, because the s in Wachstube (“‘tube of wax’”) is the last letter of a component word of the compound word. I see no reason why the same distinction would not be / have been made in handwriting, and it’s quite likely that some English writers made such a distinction for compound words as well. Of additional import is the fact that ſ is not entirely obsolete in German (at least not in fraktur typefaces), retained as it is in the proprietary name Jägermeiſter, on this sign in Berlin, and so on. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 11:01, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, typographic rules were taking such differences into account, for printing. But this does not make a difference in spelling. Lmaltier 22:12, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it does; the distinction is etymological, not typographical. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 22:21, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The typographic difference is linked to the etymology, OK. But the spelling is the same, and has always been the same, I think. In Wachstube, I would remove the "Alternative spellings" section and add a note explaining that, when the long s is used in the typographic style of the text, the meanings can be distinguished by typography. Lmaltier 19:09, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

What about the analogy with u–v and i–j? Those used to be typographically indistinct, but they became distinct with time. And what about s–c–k? Some (of the more extreme) spelling reformers want to change all uses of c (except in ch, I think) to s (when pronounced s) and k (when pronounced k); in such a case, any traditional uses of c would be etymologically-based typographic differences. Is *ivstise a mere typographical variant of justice? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 14:25, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

No it doesn't. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:23, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Is this a reply to Prince Kassad’s post (timestamped 21:01, 31 January 2010)? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 22:32, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I was replying to you, but you've inserted some more text in between. —This unsigned comment was added by Mglovesfun (talk • contribs) 14:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC).

Well, due to the confusion wrought by the ambiguities of indentation, I have no idea what assertion of mine your posting is meant to be in response to. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 16:48, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes it does. -- Prince Kassad 05:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] ſ (long s) typographic variants (section 2)

Random section break for easier editing and reading. While we accept "all words in all languages", we don't necessarily accept all typographical variants. I like EP's point, The does indeed seem to be a typographical variant of the when the first word of a sentence. Are we ready for some sort of vote? AFAICT the long s is not used in any language currently. Could we therefore eliminate it all together? What are the other options? Allow anything that's attested, or have them all redirect to a message explaining what the long s is. Frankly, I feel uneasy about all three of those. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

As I said above (in my post, timestamped: 11:01, 4 February 2010), “ſ is not entirely obsolete in German (at least not in fraktur typefaces)”. However, even if the long ess were not used at all nowadays, it was used in many languages, and given that we document not only current languages, but also ancient, extinct ones, our self-imposed duty to describe language accurately as it is used would seem to require us to include the long ess in the entry titles of, for example, Middle French words (cf. EncycloPetey’s post, timestamped: 16:45, 17 January 2010) — this counters your point that “AFA[Y]CT the long s is not used in any language currently”. I imagine that this argument could be applied to other typographical variants, but in practice ſ is just so palpably different as to make it exceptional simply on the basis of its unfamiliarity. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 16:48, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not as it is used; modern publication of Middle English never uses the long-s. The long-s was but one of many, many alternate letter forms, ligatures and scribal marks used in the manuscript tradition; when transcribing that into modern typeset material, it is most faithful to merge the distinction between ſ and s the same way the distinction between õ and on is merged. Given that any word ending in "on" or "om" could be written with õ if space was needed on the line, it seems pointless to record those and anyone who can read the scribal tradition already knows this, and would silently convert the long-s.

More importantly to me, roughly one third of the words from the Unix words file would use the long-s. If we assume that the 42,000 entries in Johnson's dictionary represent the entirely of pre-1800 English, then there should be 14,000 English entries using the long-s. They're so low value that I hate to see a half-assed job; it serves no goal.

I can speak for English and Middle English, and I suspect the same is true for Middle French. As for German, where the usage of long-s was more complex and computerized use exists, I think the right answer might be different.--Prosfilaes 01:36, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

What about the original texts (they’re the primary sources)? What about people who don’t know the scribal tradition? –The further we depart from how a text appears, the more difficult it is for a user to use this resource in conjunction with it.
It may be a lot of work, but so is creating form-of entries for inflected and conjugated forms. And whereas no one (past a few weeks’ learning) has difficulty with English’s present participles or whatever, even native speakers can be tripped up by ſ.
What are your thoughts about how we should treat ſ in German? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 14:48, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Pre-English section stuff

When most people search Wiktionary for a word, they're probably just looking for a bit of information on the English word. Right now, we have quite a few things that are before that section:

1. The "Table of Contents" box. Nobody uses this, and it gets new users really confused. People arrive at a page, and all they see is a huge block of text on the left, sometimes a WP link, nothing to help them find the information that they're looking for. I know that users can click "hide" to shrink it, but that's not clearly visible, and no one bothers to click it anyway. I think that either the Table of Contents box should be collapsed by default, or it should be removed entirely. (I don't know technically how either of these things could be done, but there's probably a way.)
2. The ==Translingual== header. Generally, nobody's looking for this. I really think that this should be placed below the ==English== section, before the other languages. (English > Translingual > Aari > Aasax, etc.)
3. Interwiki boxes, images, and other random pieces that are really language-specific and should be placed in one of the sections. I seem to recall someone proposing a bot to place these correctly, but I don't remember what came of that.

Should these be fixed, the information on the English word will be visible as soon as the page loads, right near the top, which is generally where people would expect it to be. --Yair rand 22:41, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why you think nobody uses the TOC, and certainly not why you say it's "nothing to help them find the information that they're looking for": a TOC is precisely something to help them find the info they seek. (Perhaps we should do an analysis of the feedback clicks, figure out what the best and worst pages had in common; for example, does a longer/short/nonexistent TOC affect, statistically significantly, the feedback?) I also don't know why you say nobody's looking for Translingual. The translingual definitions are used in English, so people interested only in English should be interested in them, too, as should those interested in any single language, which is why it's best first. (Also, imagine if we put Translingual in its alphabetical order at "T" among the languages (which is not what you proposed, Yair, but is how I recently saw a newbie "fix" a page): everyone looking for "Germany" at [[de]] would add it to the English section, not thinking to look further down the page.) As for the (e.g.) Spanish-specific boxes in the English section, yes, those need fixing.​—msh210℠ 23:12, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

A feedback from me: I never use TOC, am terribly annoyed and distracted by it. --Vahagn Petrosyan 23:29, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that left-hand side ToC is a terrible waste of precious screen real estate. Have you tried right hand side ToC? We have had an effort to eliminate the barriers to making rhs ToC the default.

The material on the right-hand side generally doesn't seem too bad and sometimes in useful. Sometimes a picture constitutes an ostensive definition, superior to words. OTOH, I usually put all sister project boxes under the See also header, except for a link to a WP disambiguation page, especially for a Proper noun. DCDuring TALK 01:06, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Right hand TOCs are OK. It looks nice in [[beat]], but is in dissonance with the wider wikipedia box on top of it. --Vahagn Petrosyan 01:17, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Bequw has a smaller pedia box so that even the top-appearing WP dab links that I like could be less intrusive. I had dispensed with lhs ToC as soon as rhs became available. It seems to be about the best we can do with wiki-type software. At first it required Javascript. Hippietrail made it easier to select when he put it in WT:PREFS. It would be possible to make it the default for all users. DCDuring TALK 01:42, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

The template was {{slim-wikipedia}}. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 04:28, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Right hand ToCs would be good, leaving the ToC still there for those who use it, while saving the necessary screen space. --Yair rand 04:58, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Re #3 (a bot to move stuff above the first L2 into the first L2), I brought it up and people thought it was fine. I just haven't gotten around to writing code to do it (ideally it would be part of AF). If someone's got time, it certainly would be a good cleanup. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 04:28, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

An idea: an extension which, depending on the country of origin the user is coming from (or locally, depending or their language settings in browser/OS, if this can be detected), L2s are arranged so that the relevant section comes first (above English if necessary). --Ivan Štambuk 07:03, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I used TOCs quite a lot, I wouldn't want to see them go. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:29, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with the baseless (and incorrect) assertions #1 and #2. As a result, I can't agree to ideas that stem from such assertions. --EncycloPetey 05:03, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I must say this is totally not the reaction I expected. Nevertheless, I have started two votes: Wiktionary:Votes/2010-01/Setting ToCs to be on the right hand side by default so that those who use ToCs are still able to, while saving screen space, and Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-01/English headers over Translingual because, while people are apparently quite often looking for Translingual information, I don't think it is as often as people are looking for information on the English word. --Yair rand 05:34, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Also, {{also}} appears before the English and Translingual. --Volants 13:17, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this and the {{character info}} template are the only things that should be in the header. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 16:48, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Why shouldn't character info be s.v. Translingual? (I'm not saying it should: I'm just wondering.)​—msh210℠ 16:53, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

{{selfref}} also goes in the header. Character info is probably on top because a lot of the other sections also deal with the letter. I happen to think it should go in Translingual, but that's just my opinion. --Yair rand 18:22, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Two reasons: 1) Not all symbols are Translingual (some are only used in one language). 2) Encoding information is completely different than linguistic information (it's "a-lingual" not "pan-lingual"). --Bequw → ¢ • τ 20:02, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] User:Opiaterein

Opio was desysoped a short while ago, by the steward Kylu, for unblocking himself after he was blocked by Prince Kassad for a comment on his talk page. I do not see this as necessary. This was not an emergency, there was no need for the desysoping. If there actually is support for desysoping Opi for this (which I doubt), a vote can be held, and if the majority support desysoping, one of the bureaucrats can implement it. I suggest that Opi be quickly given his admin tools back, and we can forget the whole incident. --Yair rand 06:21, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

The fact of the matter is that unblocking oneself after another administrator blocks you, in most cases, would get you desysopped because it is abusing the tools. Opiaterein knowingly unblocked himself, fully knowing that the block had not expired yet. A more responsible administrator would have stopped editing and gone and done something else for the duration of the block. It is his unblocking himself that prompted the desysop because that is an egregious breach in the policy for administrative tools. Therefore, I fully support the desysop and believe it should be kept. Razorflame 06:24, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

In that case, why don't we resysop Opi for the moment, you can start a vote for his desysoping, and we can get back to where we were before the "emergency" desysoping. --Yair rand 06:31, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I would be fine with him being resysopped AFTER his 24 hour block that he originally had was set to expire. Therefore, I wouldn't care if he was resysopped AFTER 5PM tonight. The whole idea was not to have him desysopped permanently, but desysopped for the duration of the block so that he couldn't unblock himself. Knowing him, I knew that he would do so, so that is why I believed the extra precaution needed to be taken. Razorflame 06:35, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

More reasonable administrator would, if it was necessary to block anybody, block both of you for a short period. You caused Opiaterein's overreaction by unnecessary pestering. Blocking established contributors, especially admins, that can otherwise do productive work, is completely pointless. It is not the "abuse of tools" to lift a pointless block. Blocks should be used only against vandals and proven trolls, in situations when problems cannot be talked out, i.e. solved by means of a discussion. If you're looking for some kind of emotional satisfaction by Opiaterein enduring that 24 hour "punishment", you seriously need to grow up. --Ivan Štambuk 06:46, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Did I ever say that I was satisfied with the desysop? No. I got no emotional satisfaction with him getting either blocked, nor desysopped. I believe that it was the correct and appropriate progression of events. That is all that I am going to say. Razorflame 06:49, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Razorflame your expectations of the wiki world are somewhat at odds with our procedures and ways of thinking. You have now tried to get 3? maybe more administrators desysopped and/or banned because of what you think about their behaviour. Please note that this implies you are horrendously outnumbered in your opinions, and desist from causing yet more trouble. You are hanging on here by a tenuous thread anyway, and persistently causing disruption is not the way to gain the support and trust of the community. Conrad.Irwin 09:43, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

• The emergency desysop was the correct course of action here. Opiaterein not only unblocked himself (which in and of itself was a violation of the blocking policy), but then performed other logged actions on his own account which raised some suspicion as the nature of the account itself. It could have been easily interpreted as a compromised account (which was my first take on the situation), and if not that a rouge administrator who, in the best interests of the project, needed to be dealt with quickly. Personally, I am of the opinion that a formal discussion should take place locally but that Opiaterein should remain desysopped until consensus is reached. Tiptoety ^talk 06:39, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Compromised account? o_O Oh c'mon. This was a gross abuse of steward privileges and you're just trying to cover up for your mate. You are not supposed to intervene into local communities at all, if they're large enough. There was absolutely no need for that absurd "emergency desysop". There was no discussion on it anywhere, and obviously we're dealing with some kind of premeditated off-wiki plot. Your friend Razorflame betrays himself above "The whole idea was not to have him desysopped permanently, ..." what idea? Whose idea? --Ivan Štambuk 06:53, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Ivan, please keep this as civil as possible. The desysoping was not abuse, it was most likely a simple mistake (stewards generally have to act quickly with desysops to prevent damage in actual cases of abuse), there is no "plot" to get Opi desysoped, and nobody has acted incorrectly here. It is very clear that Opi's account has not been compromised, he's not a rouge admin, and neither Razorflame nor Kylu have been "plotting". This whole thing was a series of mistakes. --Yair rand 07:00, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Mistake 1) Razorflame pesters Opiaterein despite a very very large number of requests by Opiaterein that imply he does not want to talk to Razorflame.

Mistake 2) Opiaterein is unnecessarily rude in reply.

Mistake 3) Prince Kassad blocks Opiaterein, without warning.

Mistake 4) Kylu desysops Opiaterein.

Perhaps we should undo all of these mistakes and get on with building a dictionary, something at which Opiaterein excels. I don't think it will be necessary to have a vote to sysop Opiaterein given that he has already passed one; we can start discussion how to procede once these mistakes have been rectified. Conrad.Irwin 09:43, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Opiaterein pisses me off sometimes, however he is a good Wiktionary administrator and I'd strongly support an immediate re-sysopsing. FWIW Opiaterein and Razorflame have been exchanging pleasantries for a while on the IRC channel. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:50, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Mistake 1) can never be undone: Opi has become sort of a father figure to Razorflame and he will keep pestering Opi seeking his approval no matter what. I say we indef-block RF, return admin powers to Opi and let those stewards know their interference was uninvited. --Vahagn Petrosyan 11:36, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, that is where you are wrong. I view Opiaterein as a competitor. Furthermore, I've already decided that it isn't worth it to talk to Opiaterein any longer. Thirdly, Opiaterein can have the sysop tools back because his 24 hour block would've expired by now. Razorflame 11:41, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Can anyone explain why Razorflame (RF) can revert edits and move pages and suppress the redirect despite not being an admin? Btw yes, no offense RF but when we played on the Internet Scrabble Club together you did pester me quite a bit. As I said to you in private, you need to calm down and stop taking every negative comment as a personal attack, which they are not. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:53, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I am a global rollbacker Mglovesfun, so, as with all global rollbackers, I can move pages and surpress redirects, and I can rollback here. I don't believe that I've misused the rollback tool here, though. Razorflame 11:58, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I have now reinstated User:Opiaterein as a sysop, with the hope that calm will resume (and everyone may have learned a few lessons). SemperBlotto 12:25, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Topical category prefix for Mandarin categories

We currently have two separate topical category prefixes for Mandarin Chinese: zh and cmn. I think we should consolidate. Currently zh is much more common, though cmn is probably more specific/accurate. As A-Cai says:

I personally would lean towards cmn. What do others think? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 21:16, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

cmn please, (note that {{wikipedia}} and {{t}} accept "cmn" and links to zh.wikipedia.org, this can be done for most templates - either using {{wikimedia language}} or explicitly, until eventually they fix the bugs). Conrad.Irwin 12:00, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

For' cmn. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:27, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm assuming that the User language boxes would be changed as well (eg {{User zh}} and Category:User zh). --Bequw → ¢ • τ 03:41, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Internet咖啡厅, Newton第三定律, Esperanto主义者, Einstein相对论, et al

What am I supposed to do about these entries (you can see many more at Category:Mandarin_nouns)? Not only are they incorrectly formatted (noticed how the user has capitalised the pinyin sorting so they all go to the top of the list), but they are dubiously constructed (some SoP, others weird mixes of pinyin and English). I've already talked about the formatting numerous times at User_talk:123abc but the user appears to be ignoring me. The user's actions, IMO, constitute a kind of vandalism, as other users and I are going to have to cleanup all of this mess ourselves. Moreover, it's just going to get worse unless some kind of action is taken. Tooironic 23:44, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been watching 123abc for a while, and one of the first things he did was start adding toneless pinyin, which (I believe) other Wiktionarians had displayed that they didn't want toneless pinyin on the English Wiktionary. This was a couple of months ago. Lately, I think that 123abc has been branching out and has been either trying to tackle words that are too hard for him to understand, or that are incredibly complex to format correctly. These are just my thoughts, so don't that too much away from this, as they are just someone's opinion. Razorflame 00:03, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Requests for deletion? Mglovesfun (talk) 14:26, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Been there done that. Methinks the user will just keep creating them. Tooironic 22:05, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Deleting Template:Wikisaurus-link

Notification: I have requested for deletion the template Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion/Others#Template:Wikisaurus-link. --Dan Polansky 11:15, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Emoticons

A brilliant example of a category that could and/or should be both topical and non-topical. The category for emoticons should be called [[Category:Emoticons]], and the topical category related to English words for emoticons (like smiley, lolcat and so on) should also be called [[Category:Emoticons]]. Had 'my' motion to add en: to topical categories passed, which it sort of did, this wouldn't be a problem. FWIW I thought a policy change voted required a 60% approval to pass, and the en: one failed with about 63%. Is this a mistake, or have I read something that wasn't accurate (alternatively, I might just be totally wrong). Mglovesfun (talk) 09:49, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

The % needed is at the discretion of the closer, but for controversial issues, erring on the side of a failed vote lends a bit of weight to "current consensus". I don't think there is an actual number set in stone, and I also think this is a good thing (I can only recall one instance of a possibly controversial issue being closed in an "unfair" manner, though there is a lot more debate about what to do when there has been little or no participation in the vote).

For what it's worth, having a topcial category and a non-topical category with the same name would be even more confusing if they don't happen to be the same Category; and besides, aren't most emoticons more or less translingual? Conrad.Irwin 13:11, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Even though there is an informal range of acceptable passing percentages (2/3 - 3/4), why do you think the passing % needed for a specific vote should be up to the closer rather than determined ahead of time? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 01:23, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Simply counting votes ignores the discussion that regularly occurs on such pages; while I can't give exact examples, the few times I have closed a vote, I have read the discussion just prior to doing so. Conrad.Irwin 09:35, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Emoticons are usually Translingual, not English, so "en" would have caused more problems. Emoticons are also used as a kind of punctuation, so they are not topical but functional. As it is, this is probably better handled in an appendix than a category anyway. --EncycloPetey 16:22, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

But lolcat would have gone in Category:en:Emoticons. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:25, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

No, because it isn't an emoticon. Category:Countries does not include country, nation, or state; it includes only items that are countries. Your issue is with the distinction between inclusion based on strict hyponymy versus loose semantic relationships, not on the issue of topical versus grammatical categories. --EncycloPetey 19:21, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Vote on deleting Template:Wikisaurus-link

I am about to create a vote on deleting {{Wikisaurus-link}}.

The vote is probably needed rather than mere RFDO, as the following paragraph will need to be removed from Wiktionary:Entry layout explained:

The paragraph was added by Richardb to ELE without a vote in this edit on 6 May 2006.

Justification of the deletion: The template looks like a link to a sister project such as Wikisource or Commons, but Wikisaurus is not a sister project; Wikisaurus is a part of Wiktionary. I think it better to link to Wikisaurus from "Synonyms" sections using "See also Wikisaurus:entry", where people naturally come to look for synonyms.

Some discussion has already taken place at Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion/Others#Template:Wikisaurus-link.

Please provide any feedback such as support or opposition, although I understand that this subject is of no interest to most fellow Wiktionarians. --Dan Polansky 09:06, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Idea: a different side-box format that could be used for indicating that there is information about a word in another section of Wiktionary, for example, Wikisaurus or appendixes. Also, a sidebar box could be made above "in other projects" and "in other languages" for "in other sections of Wiktionary". --Yair rand 22:15, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I have created a vote: Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-01/Removing Wikisaurus-link template. The vote starts on 1 February 2010, and lasts one month, as usual. --Dan Polansky 10:25, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Wiktionary:Administrators/Dishwashing

This table has not been updated for some time.

Many of the activities are down to User:Connel MacKenzie - who doesn't come here very often these days. His name probably needs to be removed and replaced by who?

Basically, we need volunteers from amongst the more recent sysops. Feel free to add your own name where appropriate. SemperBlotto 16:54, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Add snippets of some sort

OK I was checking what extrapolation is and the explanation is

An inference about some hypothetical situation based on known facts

I don't know what inference is so I checked it out. Inference is

That which is inferred

And inferred is

Simple past tense and past participle of infer

Which means

To draw a conclusion

Now what the heck... When I finish clicking these links until something useful comes I'll forget what I was originally checking...

How hard is it to add a box to the right or something on the inference page that would look something like this Inference is

That which is inferred [box: reasoned with conclusion]

Or just add the whole English entry for infer in the right side box...—This unsigned comment was added by 79.175.67.156 (talk • contribs) 17:39, 21 January 2010.

But [[inference]] doesn't say just "That which is inferred". It says "That which is inferred; a truth or proposition drawn from another which is admitted or supposed to be true; a conclusion; a deduction", and has since October. Did you not see that?​—msh210℠ 19:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but for example inferred is defined like I said, and there are countless other examples (original poster)

Ah, but we have three definitions of infer, q.v. Do you want to have all three listed at [[inferred]]? That, too, can get unwieldy. And what happens when someone adds another sense to [[infer]]? (We're missing one, after all: "(nonstandard, proscribed) To imply: to have as a necessary consequence".) He'll need then to add it also to [inferred]], [[inferring]], and [[infers]], which is more work. And if, because of laziness or not realizing he should, he doesn't, a casual reader may wonder why inferred isn't given the fourth sense: is it only a past tense of the other three? This will confuse people. It makes more sense, especially for polysemic words, to put either no gloss or a very general one that applies to all sense (if such exists) on the inflected forms.​—msh210℠ 18:12, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the original complaint. We should try much harder to avoid defining words primarily using forms of the same word or using words that are closely related etymologically. I recently found the verb "usher" defined as "to act as an usher". Very uninformative. --EncycloPetey 18:56, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Latvian

SIL just completed their review of ISO 639-3 code changes. One change that may affect our work here is with Latvian. They changed {{lav}} "Latvian" from being an individual language into being a macrolanguage composed of "Standard Latvian" {{lvs}} and Latgalian {{ltg}}. We can probably react in two ways:

1. Treat the subdivisions ["Standard Latvian" (which we'd probably just call "Latvian") and "Latgalian"] as individual languages. Recode everything that was lav to lvs.
2. Treat the macrolanguage as the individual language (and treat Latgalian as a dialect). Continue using lav and merge the Latgalian content (at present only 2 translations) into general Latvian content.

Not being having done any work with Latvian, I'm not sure the best approach. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 23:00, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

imho this is a similar situation to Estonian and Võro - continue to use the alpha-2 code {{lv}} for Latvian and use {{ltg}} for Latgalian entries. -- Prince Kassad 06:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds fine. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 17:09, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Transliteration decision

Hello there all. The Telugu words that are currently in the translation tables are the non-scientific transliterations of the words, which is why there are capital letters. I believe that that suits the Telugu entries because it does not seem that they have the ṅ in their transliterations. Basically, the ṅ is the equivalent of ŋ in Kannada. What I am requesting is that we figure out how we should have the Kannada transliterations set up so that we can make it standardized throughout the rest of the time that people are/will edit in the language and add translations. Therefore, there are two choices:

• We can use the scientific transliteration method, which can bee seen at User:Razorflame/Kannada/KNTL

or

• We can use the non-scientific transliteration method, which would basically be the same as the Telugu language, only with a lot more different letters with diacritics over them.

Seeing as how the Kannada language has several addition characters which would prove hard to transliterate in a non-scientific manner, I would like to kindly request that we use the scientific transliteration method, because that way, the characters with the diacritics and other things would make it quite a bit easier instead of making it really, really hard to decipher, however, we can discuss which one that you think would be better. Cheers, Razorflame 23:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

There are not many Kannada or Telugu contributors here, any contributions are welcome and any consistent transliteration must be welcome too. Some languages have their own rules in Wiktionary or use some random ones - dependent on the contributor and the source of the transliteration. Eventually it must be standardised, of course. Please use About:<language> pages to describe any decision you make. Anatoli 01:38, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Pulling our act together

Wiktionary has a big problem right now, which is could seriously affect our ability to function on the long term. To start with, the blocking policy is rarely followed, causing us to lose a lot of potential editors. New users are blocked for tests on sight, users making small mistakes are blocked without warning, and newbies that are viewed as making general annoyances of themselves are often quickly blocked. Explanations are rarely given, and when they are, they are generally unfriendly and unwelcoming. Another problem is that incivility is rampant on Wiktionary, and it often leads to further incivility, which, besides for being completely unproductive and being a huge waste of time, gives a horrible impression to new users, which is very likely to cause them to leave the project.

Worse yet, both of these problems are self-causing. Admins block because there isn't enough time to try and give warnings or explanations, which is because our editor:vandal ratio is horrible, which is because new users are quickly scared away from Wiktionary or blocked. Incivility causes people to respond with more incivility, which causes the general atmosphere to make everyone incivil, which causes the "standard" of civility to drop, which makes it far more likely that someone will start the whole cycle over again.

Which brings me to my main point: Wiktionary does not have a friendly atmosphere. We block people too easily, we aren't as civil as we should be, and so we don't get new editors as much as we should. We need to pull our act together, raise the standards of civility, and stop blocking people. Overall, the project is not easy to work with. If we could all work together to fix these problems, the rate of new editors would rise, and more content would be added. These problems have been - to my view, at least - made a bit more clear with the recent leave of User:Logomaniac, who could really be an example for all of us (the amazing friendliness bit, not the leaving Wiktionary). Civility breeds more civility, which makes the whole project a lot easier to work with. Less blocking means more editors, which makes it easier to get things done. We need to fix this up, or the situation will continue to worsen. There is no simple solution to this; I think we should all try and reread through Wiktionary:Civility and Wiktionary:Blocking policy (which actually might need a cleanup IMO) and follow them as much as we can. What we have now is that Wiktionary is unfortunately one of the least friendly, welcoming, and civil projects in Wikimedia. We should try to improve in these areas, pull our act together, become one of the most friendly, welcoming, and civil projects around, and get more contributors with less arguments, so we can all work together to build the dictionary. --Yair Rand 06:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. It would be interesting to compare blocking statistics between projects. They would probably show that blocking too much is very counterproductive, not only for above reasons (most vandals like to be blocked). But, in some cases, blocking is necessary, of course. Lmaltier 07:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree as well. Though I'm a bit less bothered by the hair-trigger blocking than by the curtness in replying to newbies when they complain about blocks, rollbacks, and/or page deletions. A very small number of admins do a very large amount of patrolling, so it's probably inevitable that they will frequently either take wrong actions, or take right actions without enough explanation. (Heck, the rollback feature doesn't even give the opportunity to enter an explanation.) But when a user comments back angrily, I think the response should always begin with an apology. (For example: "Sorry; I appreciate your contribution, but that's not a 'real word' by Wiktionary standards."; or "Sorry; I understand why you felt that your edit was an improvement, but it went against our formatting rules. We've put a lot of thought into these rules, and while they don't always work perfectly, it's better for all entries to follow them than for entries to be formatted inconsistently.") —Ruakh_TALK 04:44, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

At the moment it is on the judgement of the patroller(s) who gets blocked and who doesn't, by far the easiest way for you to fix this is to be the one who patrols - see also User:Robert Ullmann/Rat Patrol if it is too tedious to do manually.

On the topic of policies, I agree that WT:BLOCK and WT:CIVIL should be rewritten (WT:CIVIL in particular, but WT:BLOCK is showing its age). I would like to try a "new" style of policy page, where the letter of the law is brief, unambiguous, to the point, and requires a vote to change; however accopanying this there should be much more lengthy explanation of how the community currently interprets this, the explanation would not require a vote to tweak and improve, but would require discussion to change considerably - this would, I hope, avoid some of the problems we see with WT:CFI. Any kind of rewrite requires a chunk of effort from a dedicated contributor or two; people like me saying "it should be done" doesn't achieve anything. Conrad.Irwin 14:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Such an approach to policy matters sounds desirable wherever we have a need for policy. We should try it on something like this. DCDuring TALK 16:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I, too, find that we need to change our blocking policy. Currently, blocking here comes way too easily and can be for reasons that aren't really great enough reasons for them to exist. Currently, one can be blocked for stupidity, but I ask, "What defines an edit that can be considered stupidty?" It is clearly subjective when it needs to be objective. In addition to this, I agree with Conrad.Irwin that we are probably losing lots of potential great editors because of how easy blocking comes. What I think we need to do is redefine the blocking policy to include a warning system unless the user is commiting clear-cut vandalism. It could be a kind of two strikes and your out thing where the user in question is warned once and then if they continue on with what they are doing, then they are blocked. Basically, we need to tighten our reins on this because I feel like this wiki has a negative atmosphere from just working here, so I definitely see a need to update both the civility and blocking policies. Razorflame 16:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with all said above, and would support and/or contribute to a reform of the policies currently in place. Cdhaptomos 17:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

So we have a number of points to consider, such as whether warnings are needed in every case, whether to block blatant vandalism without warning, whether to block for "stupidity", whether/how to enforce civility (the Removing uncivil comments section of WT:CIVIL seems rather controversial, but overall having something like that might be a good idea). I think that we might benefit from having Wiktionary:Blocking policy/editable and Wiktionary:Civility/editable, but they would probably be best started from scratch, rather than starting them based on the current policy pages. --Yair rand 18:37, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, first of all, I believe that there are certain instances in which case a block without warning is OK: Clear-cut vandalism. Other forms could be stuff like people being stupid on purpose. A warning for most other things are good, and I think that a single warning is sufficient enough to deal with this, then block. Hopefully, this will allow us to get more active editors. Razorflame 18:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, what is clear-cut vandalism? Is an instance where a new user who is so amazed that they can actually edit the dictionary puts random strings of letters across the page clear-cut vandalism? Is a case where a user sees a formatting mistake elsewhere and duplicates the same formatting mistake on dozens of other pages clear-cut vandalism? Is a user who, upon seeing foreign language entries in the English Wiktionary, gets confused and starts deleting the foreign language sections, committing clear-cut vandalism? When a user finds what looks like, to his view, a graffiti board, and starts posting swear words all over the place, completely unaware that this is a serious dictionary, is that clear-cut vandalism? My answer would be that none of these instances are vandalism, and in general we have no way at all to tell what the circumstances may be, so blocking without warning or explanation wouldn't be the correct response to any case. --Yair rand 19:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Clear cut vandalism includes adding "ahhahahaha your gay and sos your mom she has a peenus LOOLLLLZZZZ" to a page; maybe blanking lots of pages in quick succession (sure 1 or at most 2 might be mistakes); logging in with usernames like "Yair rand Smells"; . I have tried to draft a "new" style policy at WT:Blocking policy/new, please expand and elaborate the Interpretation section so that it makes sense to everyone; and, of course, feel free to re-word or completely change the statement of policy itself. Maybe we should start a vote for this in a week's time. Conrad.Irwin 19:35, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

[4], q.v., is a description of research underway on "improving socialization of newcomers in [English Wikipedia] WikiProjects" (w:wp:WikiProject). The postdoc apparently in charge of recruiting subjects for the study e-mailed me on the 6th inst. to see if I'd be interested to join the study as a subject (as I'm still listed as a member of a small enWP wikiproject). I replied, in part, about enwikt:

Although it scarcely has WikiProjects, you may be interested in it, as it has relatively few active editors, and newcomers often have a hard time fitting in: perhaps you can treat English Wiktionary for your purposes as an English Wikipedia WikiProject (which it is not). Regular editors of English Wiktionary -- or some of them -- recognize the problem of newcomers' fitting in, and seek ways to improve the Web site in this regard, so may be interested in your research. (I can try to help you recruit other Wiktionarians, as we style ourselves, to your research project.)

She replied (two weeks ago today) that she was interested and that she'd get back to me "sometime next week". I'm awaiting her further reply, but will keep you posted. Anyone interested, please post ~~~ at user talk:Msh210/CMU.​—msh210℠ 19:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

What if were more congratulatory a la w:wp:Awards (barnstars). I don't think Wiktionary:Usernames and user pages applies to talk pages, so they could be allowed. There are many times that I thought that giving one of these out would be better than a plain comment. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 16:44, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Far worse than a plain comment, IMO. They are generic cookie-cutter things, not even a friendly personal message with individual meaning to it, and strike me as clutter. Maybe I'm a Scrooge, but "wikilove" seems to tend towards doing less work and more backslapping. Remember Esperanza [5]? Equinox ◑ 16:52, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I think having barnstars might be good, especially if they were often given to newbies. I'd say that a new-ish user who is given a barnstar for doing a good chunk of work is significantly more likely to stay than otherwise, but that's just my opinion. --Yair rand 01:21, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I have to confess to siding with Equinox on this one. While the idea is not a bad one, the problem is that there is little way to ensure than the correct people are rewarded; it gets to the point where having the reward is more important than having earned the reward. Perhaps if we were to give someone a notification when they get whitelisted, it would be a note of encouragement - though maybe that is too late? It also then makes being whitelisted more important, which could cause people trying to game the system. (There have of course been cases where we've had to unwhitelist someone, but they are rare enough it probably doesn't matter). Maybe I'm too cynical... (By the way, did you see WT:Blocking policy/new?) Conrad.Irwin 02:53, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, you can (and are encouraged to) put a message in the barnstar. Make them as personal as you want. @Conrad I see little problem in having the "incorrect" people receive barnstars. More importantly, we won't know if that's a large problem until we try. See {{The Original Barnstar}}. Use it if you'd like. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 23:52, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The barnstar template has been deleted by Leftmostcat. As for the new blocking policy, I think it needs expanding. Also, I am very strongly opposed to any type of warning-less blocks. Besides for the very likely possibility of making a mistake, it is probably much more likely for the actual vandals to come back if they've been blocked for one edit than if their one edit was quickly reverted, with them being given a warning. As Lmaltier pointed out, most vandals probably enjoy being blocked. (To the best of my knowledge, Wikipedia doesn't even block until the user has been given four separate warnings, but I don't think we need to go as far as that.) --Yair rand 04:02, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I rarely edit the French Wiktionary because of the awful atmosphere, I'm always amazed how much friendlier we are here with 50 regular editors compared to 10 regular editors on fr, where it's been tribal warfare since about June. I try to revert bad edits without blocking unless they are patent examples of vandalism ("so-and-so sucks balls" or something like that). I'm probably guilty of not taking enough time to explain things to newbies too. Plus Wikipedia gets all the headlines, and hence the contributors too. Mglovesfun (talk) 04:12, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

This all really boils down to one thing: either we, the kinder, gentler admins, start helping SemperBlotto in his patrolling, or he continues to chop off newbies’ heads. --Vahagn Petrosyan 11:22, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

• Absolutely right. Sometimes I think that I'm the only sysop doing any work here. SemperBlotto 11:24, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
  • • Would you like a barn star? :p Conrad.Irwin 13:26, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
  • See Wiktionary:Feedback#criticism regarding site's administrators that got posted a few minutes ago.
  • I appreciate what Semper is saying; I find him the harshest of all of us for blocking, deleting and reverting, however at least he's doing it. I'm gonna review our blocking policy. As pointed out on that page, we shouldn't block user for tests unless they aer blatant vandalism. Most of the time it's better to revert and move on, which saves time for patrolling more edits. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:19, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
  • My thanks and cheers to SemperBlotto for patrolling. An anonymous newbie truly interested in improving the Wiktionary project should not have a mental breakdown when he gets reverted by an admin; he can find another entry to work on. --Dan Polansky 14:35, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Communication issues

A related problem seems to be that we are unable to get across to people exactly why they are not doing things "right". This is partly because we don't explain things, or when we do don't explain them well; and partly because, even if we do, people don't read what has been written to them, or fail to understand it, or plain disagree with it. I am not sure what to do about this, perhaps more templated messages like {{asdfg}} but more specific or better written, or perhaps a few help pages on the topic of "why was my edit undone". It would also be good to have a clear rationale behind CFI, (I tried to write one at Wiktionary:Descriptivism, but given the overwhelming lack of interest in that page, it would seem that someone needs to do it more betterly). Clarifying when and where information from other dictionaries can and can't be used would also be a useful, it's a common source of confusion (pun intended). The problem with building help pages is we then need to link people to them, I believe we could modify the revert text to contain a link to "Help:Why was my edit undone?", which might be a good half-way step as oppposed to leaving impersonal messages on a hundred talk pages. Conrad.Irwin 13:26, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Unilateral vs. consensus

"Unilateral" is a horrible sounding word, yet consensus is very slow and often there is none. Being a wiki administrator is political, politics is slow. If you've noticed me deleting a lot of unused categories and templates recently, it's because nominating them all individually would be time consuming and possibly just a bit silly. In this case, if I delete something that should be kept and use, restore it or ask for it to be restored. I think there's a good inter-sysops policy of not openly reverting other admins when they make a bad edit, and we all do that sometimes. It's better to quietly go back to the last good version in the page history.

I hope Semper who uses a similar style to me feels roughly the same. I've restored some stuff that he's deleted when I figured I could quietly clean it up. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:39, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Reversible words

need name of the word that means, thenword spells the same forward and backwards please?

You mean palindrome. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 11:23, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] User comment on an entry

User:Unfree has provided us with heading-by-heading comments on gleeman at Talk:gleeman. This is the kind of thing that would cost a couple of hundred dollars (delivered) in the real world, in lots of 30 or more. How could we get more users of different types to make such comments? DCDuring TALK 19:49, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Idioms vs. Category:Vulgarities

I've always wondered why we have [[Category:French idioms]] but [[Category:fr:Vulgarities]]. This is the downside of our dual system (which also has upsides) I think [[Category:fr:Idioms]] is a slightly better title, but not by a lot. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:54, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

This results from "Idiom" having been used as a POS header, while (vulgar) appears as a context tag. If "Idiom" is no longer used as a French POS, then the category should indeed change to Category:fr:Idioms or something similar. --EncycloPetey 18:51, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Would this then apply to English as well? There's only a couple entries w/ this as the L3 and the consensus seems to be the use either a real PoS or "Phrase". --Bequw → τ 21:31, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Appendix-only terms

I'd like to create a [[Category:Appendix-only terms]] to contain appendices such as Appendix:Words found only in dictionaries, Appendix:Pokémon, Appendix:English unattested plurals and Appendix:Na'vi. --Daniel. 14:23, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Wiktionary talk:About Translingual#What a short page!

Need input, badly. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:42, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Abuse of administrative power

Admins: After posting extensive rationale on the discussion page, I made a good faith update to the definition for the word "authorization".

User "SemperBlotto" immediately reverted the definition without any rationale given as to why the change was incorrect or how it might be improved. While it is good that volunteers monitor Wiktionary and correct instances of vandalism, it is not good when they abuse power to destroy other's input for no reason.

Background: I am a computer security professional and have some knowledge of the subject matter in question. My change cited as a reference the Internet Security Glossary (IETF RFC 4949), a widely-respected reference in the field. Although I sincerely believe that my change corrects errors and improves the quality of the entry, I could accept a consensus within the Wiktionary community that it is not an improvement. What is difficult to accept, however, is that a single user would choose to revert the change with no discussion at all.

I respectfully request that other administrators review the proposed change and it's discussion page, and take whatever action is deemed apropriate, either reversing SemperBlotto's reversion or providing a rationale for why the proposed change is "disruptive" (in his words) and should not be accepted. Banning a user for making a reasonable change is both immature and a good way to drive off legitimate content contributions. And Wikimedia is not well-served by those who arbitrarily abuse the administrative power entrusted to them. Parcheesy2 19:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't know about "disruptive" etc., but bear in mind that a term being declared in an ISO document doesn't automatically make it a dictionary word. It has to be used by others with that same exact sense. Equinox ◑ 21:16, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you feel stepped on.

I take it that the change you're proposing is <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/authorization?diff=8234234>? I see the following changes there:

• You removed all mention of "countable" and "uncountable". ← Mglovesfun had already commented on the talk-page, informing you that this was wrong. Rather than reply to Mglovesfun and try to understand why it was wrong, you simply went ahead with the change.
• You split the entry into two senses, “(abstract noun)” and “(concrete noun)”, each with two subsenses. We don't generally use subsenses at Wiktionary, except for words with very many senses, where there's really no other way to keep them organized. You did not propose the sense/subsense split on the talk-page, but you did mention abstract vs. concrete there, and Mglovesfun told you that we don't use them. Again, rather than reply to him, you simply went ahead with the change.
• You formatted these subsenses incorrectly.
• You added a few subsenses. This part was fine, except that you included references in such a way that they weren't instantly recognizable as references, and looked like some external links that you considered relevant.
• You removed a sense as "inappropriate", together with all of its translations. On the talk-page, you argued that this sense is just a special case of a more general sense; and you may be right. Unfortunately, the sense doesn't have any example sentences or quotations, so it's hard to see what its author was getting at. In a case like this, an RFV or RFD discussion is probably in order; I'm sorry that no one told you that before you went ahead with it.

Note that, after SemperBlotto reverted your changes, he did add the computing sense.

All told, I think that his reverts were justified, but that the block was unfortunate. I wouldn't characterize it as "abuse of administrative power", though: I understand why you were annoyed at his initial revert, but re-reverting was not the correct next step. If we look at it from his standpoint, since he now had to re-re-revert (since your edits were, in fact, wrong), it made sense to prevent you from simply re-re-re-reverting.

—Ruakh_TALK 21:52, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I apologize for not following the Wiktionary process. I am familiar with the Wikipedia process of "Be Bold" (make the edits yourself) instead of asking someone else to make them, however I have now submitted an RFC asking someone else to make the changes I made on 20 January: http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=authorization&oldid=8272382.

• Mglovesfun does not communicate his ideas very clearly. On 11 January he said "We use countable/uncountable. Concrete/abstract is an entirely different idea." This statement is neither relevant nor probative:
  • if he meant "We use countable/uncountable on Wiktionary" then of course there are many words for which countable/uncountable is an appropriate categorization. That is irrelevant to a discussion of whether it is appropriate for this particular word.
  • if he meant "We use countable/uncountable for this specific word (authorization), then that was obvious simply from looking at the page. But stating that something is what it is has no probative value if the question is to decide whether or not it should be changed.
  • He should have said "We should use countable/uncountable here because ..." and give some reason that can be supported or refuted. I have given an example of why it is incorrect on the discussion page (a bank can perform a specific, countable number of acts of authorization per day), and thus sense 1 is not uncountable.
• I gave Mglovesfun a specific example of a case (oxidation) where countable/uncountable did apply on 14 January, in order to contrast it to this case where it does not apply. There is little point in categorizing the senses when they are all the same category: sense 1 is countable, sense 2 is countable, and sense 3 (which is a subsense of sense 2 and should be deleted) is also countable. If one wants to categorize the senses at all, then concrete/abstract is the meaningful and relevant difference between sense 1 and sense 2. I am not arguing that the senses should be categorized, I am simply saying that the existing categorization (countable/uncountable) is wrong and if a categorization is desired, then concrete/abstract is a suitable replacement.
• Six days later on 20 January, after seeing no further discussion from Mglovesfun, SemperBlotto, or anyone else, I assumed that the rationale for change was sufficient, so I made the change. Again, I apologize for failing to understand that Wiktionary uses a different process (RFC) than Wikipedia (Be Bold). I have now submitted the RFC, and you can now decide whether it is convincing. If it is, I suggest http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=authorization&oldid=8272382, which cites RFC 4949 as a referece rather than showing a 4th "computer science" sense. The word should have only 2 senses; the two RFC 4949 definitions are just restatements/reinforcements of those two, not additional senses. The reference section can be completely omitted if you prefer.

Parcheesy2 18:20, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Reverting isn't an administrative power.

Real abuse of administrative powers is blocking other admins with no warnings. You know who you are. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 17:00, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

And a few Chinese secret agents steal the secret nuclear launch codes of the USA and proceed to get to the nuclear missile launch site, planning to fire nuclear missiles to important European cities including Berlin, Paris and Rome. When they get to the launch site and try to fire up some nuclear missiles, a US secret agent pops up and says: "Hello. Firing nuclear missiles is against the international law and may kill hundreds of millions of people. Please read the international law for more information. Thanks!" The Chinese agents, unsurprisingly, just smile a little and continue firing nuclear missiles. The US secret agent continues: "Please stop. If you continue to fire nuclear missiles, you will be shot." Madrid, Budapest and Vilnius have already been hit by nuclear missiles and are completely devastated, with the Chinese continuing to fire nuclear missiles. The US secret agent speaks again: "Stop. If you continue to fire nuclear missiles, you will be shot." And again, the Chinese fire up more and more nuclear missiles. Oslo, Helsinki and Athens now exist only in the history books. Now the secret agent shouts: "This is your last warning. The next time you fire up a nuclear missile, you will be shot!". The Chinese fire up another nuclear missile, after which the US secret agent does shoot them. However, by now 30 European capital cities are destroyed, almost 80,000,000 people dead and 20,000 sq mi irradiated. This could have been prevented if the US secret agent had shot the Chinese secret agents at the very beginning, however the US community decided that everyone gets warned before he is shot. -- Prince Kassad 17:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Wow! I didn't know that I was staving off "the end of the world as we know it". SemperBlotto 17:51, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

PK is right, the only way for the world to properly function is to carefully follow the doctrine of preemptive strike: exercise power first, ask questions later. Preferably explaining it in terms of parable involving cartoonish-villain depiction of the only non-imperialist superpower left on the planet. --Ivan Štambuk 18:07, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Great example PK :). Does WT:Blocking policy/new meet with people's expectations, unless someone gives me feedback on it soon I will just start the vote anyway. (I'm interested both in improvements to the text and content of that particular page and the idea of separating the "policy" from the intepretation) Conrad.Irwin 19:40, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think it was a good analogy for the simple fact that his example is so extreme. It might have been good if we were talking about WonderFool and Kassad's cities were the mainpage and the vote page etc.

I suppose I'm the only person who is bothered by all this bureaucratic structuring. Have none of you dealt with Wikipedia recently? — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 15:46, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Reverting isn't an administrative power, but blocking is.

Another parable: Bambi the deer steps out of the forest into a residential neighborhood. Helicopter hunter spots him and launches a heat-seeking grenade, leaving nothing but flecks of meat and a yellow stain on the grass. Moral: since the deer might have crossed the road and damaged a car, and probably was planning to eat the flower buds off of Grandma's azaleas, it is essential to strike preemptively with overwhelming force in order to protect the community. Parcheesy2 00:03, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Re not relevant, this whole debate is not relevant to the Wiktionary, it's just relevant to your ego. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:08, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I would be interested in your (Parcheesy2's) input to WT:Blocking policy/new, seeing as you are not normally associated with Wiktionary. (Though I pass no judgement on the current situation). Conrad.Irwin 00:12, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

You might want to kick off a separate Beer Parlor topic or create the discussion page for Blocking Policy, but since there aren't any ...

• Having a policy in the first place is a great idea. Almost any set of guidelines, written down, is preferable to having individuals making their own ad hoc decisions without guidance, or having "secret" rules passed along in private discussion.
• Your initial draft recommends proportional response, including warnings prior to blocking and block duration based on severity of offense, which are important features of any policy.
• Beyond that, it is not appropriate for outsiders to recommend specifics. In order to be effective, any policy must have buy-in from those expected to follow it. The best way to get buy-in is for those closest to the problem to collaborate on the solution. Various types of misbehavior by users and by administrators must be addressed, but how they are addresed should be up to the administrators themselves.

Good job recognizing a need and taking the initiative. Parcheesy2 20:17, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for you comments. Conrad.Irwin 20:50, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Announcing the creation of Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-01/New blocking policy to run from 30th of January to 13th of February. Conrad.Irwin 20:50, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] New little new messages thing.

"It is advisable to read that page before continuing to edit, as it may contain advice about how to edit."

I find this rather offensive. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 16:57, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't. Generally speaking, people just look for an orange band at the top of the page, they don't read the message in the band. That being said, I like this new color more, but the message is pointless (for me). Mglovesfun (talk) 18:02, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see a difference in color....​—msh210℠ 18:36, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Somewhat annoying - can we get rid of it? SemperBlotto 18:05, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

That message is controlled by MediaWiki:Youhavenewmessages. There's some code in MediaWiki:Common.js to hide the second sentence from users once they're auto-confirmed, but said code is commented out. Plus, this change wasn't discussed anywhere so far as I can tell. (?) So I've deleted MediaWiki:Youhavenewmessages for now, thereby restoring the old, default text; we can re-add the new sentence once we have it in a form people are O.K. with. —Ruakh_TALK 18:21, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

That was an attempt by me, in light of #Pulling_our_act_together, to make sure newbies read warnings before they're blocked. It told them to check their messages before editing (I debated using "saving" but decided it was less clear), not just that they have such. It was, as Ruakh noted, meant to be seen only by newbies, but I can't get that code to work. I know this is a GP issue, but if anyone can get said code to work (and thinks this is wise, and there's no uproar here against it), can you please help?​—msh210℠ 18:36, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I haven't tested or anything, but the only problem I see by looking at your code is that it tries to call document.getElementById before the page has loaded. This could be addressed by placing it in an event handler (e.g., by using the addOnloadHook utility function), or by removing the call to document.getElementById (seeing as the code isn't very expensive anyway). —Ruakh_TALK 19:33, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I think the idea is a good one, though I also found the message a little patronizing; that said I'm unable to come up with a better phrase. "You have new messages. IGNORE IT AT YOUR PERIL. Mwhahahahahahaaaaa" doesn't seem to quite cut the mustard, but is kind of what we want to say. "You have a new message, right click to open it in a new tab now!" - cunningly disguising the "please read it" as a neat feature. Until we can actually be sure the message will contain advice, we can't really put "You have new messages, these will help you become a better person". Any better ideas? I think something along the following lines would work for your javascript (though I've used a classname not an ID - maybe we want other things like this too?): Conrad.Irwin 19:05, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

msh210: "That was an attempt by me, in light of #Pulling_our_act_together, to make sure newbies read warnings before they're blocked." That to me is unnecessary babying. If they want to ignore their talk page, then they frankly deserve it. As far as "Pulling our act together", I think it's too late for that. Recently there has been far too much of a move toward political bullshit and bureaucracy, away from encouraging more thorough verification of new entries. Coughrazorflameaddingtelugu. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 19:31, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm only concerned that newbies — really, anonIPs mostly (or maybe even only) — may well not know they have a talkpage, and view "You have new messages" as a banner ad attempting to disguise itself as a new-e-mail notification, which is what it looks like.​—msh210℠ 19:43, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

If we want to have more assured initial communication with contributing newbies, why pussyfoot around? Why not fix it so unregistered users and newly registered users (first day/week/month; first 10/100/1000 edits) cannot scroll away from it? Why not prevent them from editing until they look at such a message? DCDuring TALK 20:50, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

One message is sufficient. "Congratulations! You received your first message on Wiktionary. It's probably a warm welcome with useful guidelines, so read it." --Daniel. 18:02, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] English idioms

Perhaps Appendix:Glossary of idioms - A, Appendix:Glossary of idioms - B, etc. could be renamed to Appendix:English idioms/A, Appendix:English idioms/B, etc. --Daniel. 19:06, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree very strongly wit that. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:48, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree wi dat too. DCDuring TALK 21:13, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I oppose the removal of the term "glossary" from the name, while replacing " - A" with "/A" is okay with me.

We've already had a discussion on the names of glossaries--Wiktionary:Beer_parlour_archive/2009/July#Titles_of_glossaries, and I still support that glossaries are identified as glossaries in their page names using the term "glossary". --Dan Polansky 08:56, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. Somehow intuitively this seems to me to differ from the other glossaries, which are typically context-specific.

On second look, doesn't the "/A" mean simply that another click is required to see something of substance. Why is that a good idea?

In any event, I think the thrust was to get the word English in the title so that English could feel like a stranger in its own home under the color of some kind of "fairness". Since we don't want to make things too easy for native-language only newbies and want to remind them that they should consider going elsewhere if they want a monolingual dictionary, the even more cumbersome Appendix:Glossary of English idioms - entries beginning with A would be appropriate.

All things considered, I disagree wi dat: Oppose DCDuring TALK 16:21, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

DCDuring, I don't think I would be able to answer precisely why it is a good idea to require an additional click to see substantial information, because this idea is yours, not mine; furthermore, even you seem to reject it and I'm not really interested in looking for places where a first link to simply reach the second one would be desirable. I'd like to know if you have other ideas for lexical appendice names which might solve your concern of English superiority in English Wiktionary. The name "Appendix:Glossary of English idioms - entries beginning with A" would not be easily memorable or typeable, then it excludes most people, monolingual newbies or not, so it is a good example of how much information may not be feasible to be part of such titles (particularly, I still think that simply Appendix:English idioms/A is better, since the unresolved "Titles of glossaries" discussion from July 2009 did not provide arguments on the contrary as a whole - Dan Polansky's comments on practical differences between lists and glossaries were never confronted against my how-to-merge-them-into-a-better-topical-appendix argument as ways to reach a consensus). For your convenience, I can remember the naming scheme of Appendix:Idioms, Appendix:Idioms:Spanish and Appendix:Idioms:Italian, which was used in earlier days of Wiktionary; although, it is rather user-hostile due to the unusual colon. --Daniel. 15:29, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Which brings up the point of whether we should rename the request pages that still use the colon that way. Should Wiktionary:Requested entries:Spanish become Wiktionary:Spanish requested entries or Wiktionary:Requested entries (Spanish) (to match Category:Translations to be checked (Spanish))? --Bequw → τ 21:18, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I would see the renaming by standardizing on either of the two options:

• (a) Slash as a separator:
  • "Wiktionary:Requested entries:Spanish" to "Wiktionary:Requested entries/Spanish"
  • "Category:Translations to be checked (Spanish)" to "Category:Translations to be checked/Spanish"
• (b) Dash surrounded by spaces as a separator:
  • "Wiktionary:Requested entries:Spanish" to "Wiktionary:Requested entries - Spanish"
  • "Category:Translations to be checked (Spanish)" to "Category:Translations to be checked - Spanish"

The colon's technical meaning in Mediawiki is that of namespace separator; any further nesting should better be done using "/", which is a standard way of marking up subpages in Mediawiki. The bracketed name seems clumsy to me.

That said, I think that the current colon polysemically used also as a nesting character is good enough, and I prefer it to the bracketed names. --Dan Polansky 21:46, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

This isn't a glossary, it isn't words referring to idioms. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Does spade meet our criteria for inclusion

No really, terms have to be attested and idiomatic. Spade is attested, but not idiomatic. Can I RFD it then? I see nothing in CFI saying that single words like spade, dog, chicken etc. are exempt from being idiomatic. And people wander why nobody ever reads CFI. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:47, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

As I said recently to you on RFD, polcies must be applied with common sense. There are known problems with CFI, hence CFI/editable. Instead of moaning, fix problems; it's much more satisfying in the long run. Maybe we could even try for a new policy along the lines of WT:Blocking policy/new with a few carefully chosen criteria in the box and a lengthy explanation underneath (though I would imagine this would only deal with a specific subsection of CFI, trying to include the entire kerbang would take too much time). Mayhaps you want to have a go at writing it? Conrad.Irwin 20:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, unless you can somehow easily derive the meaning of "spade" from its separate components, ("sp"+"ade"?) its definitely "idiomatic" by CFI's rather odd definition... --Yair rand 22:20, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

• Yes. Line 1 - All words in all languages. SemperBlotto 22:26, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

  Hmm, good spot. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:06, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

  Yes, this is the general principle. However, the problem is inconsistency with this first sentence: other sections seem to explain that words must meet some conditions to be included (e.g. very recent words seem to be excluded, even when everybody knows that they are actual words of the language). CFI should explain instead what we call word and what we accept in addiiton to words (characters, proverbs...), when a word is considered to be used in a particular language, and how all this must be verifiable. When something is a word (without any doubt) in some language (used in this language without any doubt), CFI should explain that its other sections are not to be used, that they should be used only if there is a doubt. Lmaltier 06:51, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

We could make the following edit to CFI:

"Each one-word term is idiomatic; An expression a multi-word term such as "black hole" is “idiomatic” if its full meaning cannot be easilysafely derived from the meaning of its separate componentsconstituent words."

Would that solve the problem that you percieve in CFI?

Sure enough, this stipulates "word" as being space-free.

The current definition of idiomacity is from this edit in May 2005, meaning it did its job well enough for more than four years.

The current CFI formulation of "idiomacity" is good enough: by the current definition, "spade" is idiomatic, as its meaning cannot be derived from the meanings of its components. --Dan Polansky 09:36, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I think Conrad's formulation at Wiktionary talk:Criteria for inclusion/Editable#Contradiction in CFI was good. The relevant point for the sentence under debate is to append "when taking into account context". --Bequw → τ 00:38, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Constructed and reconstructed language codes

I've created the templates {{conl:art-nav}}, {{conl:qya}}, {{conl:sjn}} and {{conl:tlh}} to store codes for appendix-only constructed languages, where conl stands for constructed language. I plan to do the same for reconstructed languages, such as creating {{recl:art-gem}} for Proto-Germanic, to use in categories. --Daniel. 07:55, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

What about using the same prefix? They are reconstructed languages after all. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 03:48, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Please don't, we don't need them at all. The only categories for proto-languages are PoS and they use full language name. There are also language family codes (e.g. Germanic:gem, Slavic:sla, Indo-European:ine etc.) that can be utilized in rare instances where there exists need for e.g. template covering several individual languages, and specifically relating to a certain proto-language (usually the proto-language of the family in question; cf. recently created Category:Proto-Indo-European reference templates). --Ivan Štambuk 04:10, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Harlem

Can someone quickly clean this up, the formatting's a mess. Tooironic 19:35, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

This request should have been at WT:RFC, but I think I've fixed the entry. Have a look, please.​—msh210℠ 19:39, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] vitam impendere vero

Please take note of this Latin entry which I just created. I’ve attested the phrase’s use not only in Latin, but also in Dutch, English, French, and German. The problem with this sort of term is that their entries tend to contain a hell of a lot of unnecessary duplication; please take a look at the entry to see whether what I’ve done is any good and to make any improvements as you think best. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 00:02, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

As requæsted on the Requæsts for cleanup page, I shall comment mine edit of the article: I added a German quotation from one of Nietzsche’s masterpieces and rectified the lemma of the verb impendo, inf. impendere. The other verb, impendeo, with which it shares the same infinitive, has another meaning and is from the 2nd conjugation group (impendo, devote, is from the 3rd). The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 09:21, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for those corrections and additions, Bogorm. However, according to my dictionary, the ō in impendō (“‘I devote’”) ought indeed to remain; conversely, according to the same dictionary, the present active infinite form of that verb is impendere, not impendēre. Besides that, have you any comments to pass on the layout? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 03:29, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Examples in other languages seem to be mentions, not uses. Or am I wrong? If a language really uses such a phrase, it's worth adding a section for this language (especially for the pronunciation in this language). Lmaltier 13:06, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd move it to translingual and put the citations on the citations pages divided by language. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:08, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Read w:Use–mention distinction for a clearer understanding of when a term is used and when it is mentioned; whilst italics are often used to mark a term that is merely being mentioned, they also have other purposes (in this case, marking a foreign phrase). The problem with adding language sections for every language which uses this Latin phrase is that we get a lot of unnecessary repetition, whereas the useful information could be far more concisely presented (as I envisage, in a way similar to the one I’ve used for the entry in its present state). Pronunciatory transcriptions are definitely what make adding information for other languages useful — besides the Latin [ˈwiːtã imˈpendere ˈweːroː] and the English [ˈviːtæm ɪmˈpɛndɪɹeɪ ˈviːɹəʊ] (or whatever), there will undoubtedly be semi-naturalised pronunciations in pretty much every other language, dependent on the particular phonemes &c. thereof; whether they’re presented in a Latin Pronunciation section or a Translingual Pronunciation section makes virtually no difference there. Presenting this information in a Translingual (rather than a Latin) language section has the disadvantage of obscuring the fact that this phrase is undeniably Latin, and is treated as such in its grammar and is indicated by certain typographical details like italicisation; important Latin information like the display of macra (to mark vowel length) cannot, without inconsistency, be shown in a Translingual section. Having the quotations in the entry itself is very valuable, and allows comparison of the phrase’s usage in diverse languages; consigning them to the Citations: diminishes this. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 14:41, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not translingual, and I still consider that, if something is really used in a language, there should be a section in the page for this language. This allows for pronunciation, but also usage notes, anagrams, etc. (and citations). This may lead to a few additional sections (or many, e.g. in Paris), but principles should be followed. Examples which are not in Latin should not be in the Latin section. Keep the Wiktionary principles simple! Lmaltier 15:31, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

What about the argument that this phrase is so unnaturalised that it cannot be considered to have entered the languages in question, and that therefore there ought not to be an entry for it in those languages? I doubt there will exist any anagrams of this phrase in any language. And what about usage notes? Surely they go as far as “This is a foreign phrase, so it’s treated as such, retaining its Latin grammar and marked as foreign with italics.” — that applies to its treatment in all cases in the four languages cited thus far. Let’s not get too strict with principles — if a principle results in an absurdity, it is a sign that the principle needs to be revised. Can you demonstrate a practical downside to this merged presentation? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 18:01, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

This breaks the mold of what we consider translingual entries because when it appears outside of Latin it's a quotation from a particular source and author, rather than a general term in the language. I agree that we ought to consider that in desciding how to handle "translingual" entries. --EncycloPetey 18:38, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't propose to create many sections for this case: at least the 1st and the 3rd citations for English and the French citation are only mentions, not uses (the other ones, I don't know). But the limit between naturalized words and unnaturalized ones is subjective, it's a question of personal opinion. This is why applying very simple principles is so important (otherwise, there are endless discussions). Lmaltier 19:06, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

There are many more where they came from (google books:"vitam impendere vero"), if you want to take a look. Anyway, whether or not every language section is CFI-satisfying in this particular case has no bearing on the general question of how we should deal with cases like this. The exact point of sufficient naturalisation may be difficult to pin down in ambiguous cases, which is exactly why I chose this phrase, which, I should think, no one would be willing to say is naturalised. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 19:31, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Wiktionary:About Anglo-Norman

I thought it would be good to start this page (when I get home) to deal with some of the confusion over Anglo-Norman and Old French. I was down at Leeds University Library and scholars seem to agree the Anglo-Norman is a dialect of Old French. However I feel compelled to follow ISO 639 on this one (I always do) so Category:Anglo-Norman Old French should be deleted and replaced with an explicit Anglo-Norman entry in each case. All Anglo-Norman entries should have an Old French entry as well. Does anyone object to this? Mglovesfun (talk) 13:50, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

But there may be words used only in Anglo-Norman. If Anglo-Norman and Old French are considered as separate languages, there is no reason to include an Old French section for words used only in Anglo-Norman. Lmaltier 15:35, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

We follow ISO when there's no good reason not to. But if there is, why would we still? --Bequw → τ 15:48, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Why not just include all Anglo-Norman categories in Old French and make sure that all mentions of Anglo-Norman (other than in etymologies) also clearly indicate that Anglo-Norman is a dialect of Old French. Very little is thereby lost -- except the labor and duplication. Are we yet in a position to gainsay Webster 1913 or whatever other authorities we have relied on to mark these individually as Anglo-Norman (presumably reflecting some Norse, Old Dutch, and maritime influence) and not Old French? or vice-versa? DCDuring TALK 16:18, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Four different people with four different opinions. You see why I brought this up, then? I dunno Lmaltier, pichon is only used in Picardy to mean fish, so should we therefore exclude it from [[Category:French nouns]]? I wonder how the Arabic or Chinese languages would compare to this? For example, we don't accept ==Chinese== as a header because it has to be Madarin, Min Nan et al. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:52, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

No, regional French words are French words, of course. Don't forget the If Anglo-Norman and Old French are considered as separate languages... We must be consistent, that's all. But I think the best solution is to follow ISO. Good reasons not to do so, whatever they are, are disputable, because ISO also has good reasons to take its decisions. Lmaltier 21:41, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

The assumption (not mine but from reading in Leeds University library is that Anglo-Norman is a dialect. Ergo, anything written in Anglo-Norman must also be Old French. I agree with Lmaltier, but I don't mind reduplication, I mean would you want to remove Galician and Asturian sections from words that already have Spanish? No. I think it's the same sort of thing (language vs. dialect). FWIW I've been looking for an address to write to the ISO 639 committee about it, but I can't yet find one. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:18, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

If a word is used in a language (as we define the language, or as ISO defines it), it gets a section for this language. If it's not used in this language (as we define the language, or as ISO defines it), it does not get a section, I don't want to say anything else. If we consider Anglo-Norman and Old French as separate languages, then, if a word is used only in Anglo-Norman, it does not need a section for Old French. You assume that Old French includes Anglo-Norman. If we assume this, you are right, but that's not what ISO assumes, it seems to consider it as a separate language (close to Old French). Lmaltier 13:31, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Right-floating declension templates

{{sv-adj-reg}} is currently a right-floating template. The idea is to have a nice compact template that can appear alongside the rest of the entry. Is there a particular reason not to do this, i.e. for templates like {{nl-decl-adj}}? --CodeCat 14:38, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't remember the particular reasons, but the prevalent common practice in English Wiktionary is to avoid right-floating declension and conjugation templates, although there are some deviations from it. I for one prefer non-right-floating ones, and I think this should be unified across English Wiktionary for various languages rather than some languages having it one way while other languages having it another way. --Dan Polansky 15:16, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know, I think this looks quite nice. All the essential usage information is on the left, and additional declension information is on the right, out of the way. --CodeCat 15:27, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

In your browser maybe, if you open that page in a small screen, for example on a mobile, you will notice that everying gets misplaced - particularly the definitions end up after the template. (You can simulate this by simply resizing your browser to a few hundred pixels wide - many mobile divice screens are narrower than that template itself) Conrad.Irwin 15:34, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I hadn't considered that. So what would the best way to place this template? In a section such as ===Declension=== by itself? Collapsible perhaps? --CodeCat 15:39, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes. It doesn't seem too bug, so collapsible isn't necessary; but if you think it's more aesthetic, go for it. Conrad.Irwin 15:49, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

The Swedish ones are the only ones that still float right and there's been a slow but steady cleanup process to turn them into left-floating tables. Aside from layout issues it's also semantically cleaner if all inflection tables are in their own section rather than some in, some out. For just showing a few key inflections we use the inflection-line templates. --Bequw → τ 16:14, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Why do we let the needs of small-screen mobile devices govern our layout decisions? Our entries are mostly much too long to be useful on them. Meeting their needs would seem to require customization or other changes at the level of MediaWiki software. DCDuring TALK 16:36, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

If that were the only reason, then I'd agree with you. However, that is not the only reason this is a problem. Data structuring is also at issue. When the declension might be in the inflection line or might be in the inflection/declension section or might be somewhere else, then it's a problem. It's also a problem to have certain huge declension tables floating right and displacing content for following language sections out of their section as a result. --EncycloPetey 18:35, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Darkicebot vote

Bequew said that I should announce my bots' vote here, although I still do not know why, so here it is :). Cheers, Razorflame 18:40, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Are you a masochist? --Vahagn Petrosyan 18:48, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

No. I was just doing what Bequw told me to do. Razorflame 18:49, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

If Bequw told you to jump off a bridge.... — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 19:06, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I can't speak for Razorflame, but Bequw has never led me wrong. If he told me to jump off a bridge, I'd do it. —Ruakh_TALK 00:03, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Which bridge? DCDuring TALK 00:25, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

1. 14 hopefully, maybe #4 (or just a small #1) - can we find any generic senses to divide up bridge? "something that connects" and "something that resembles a bridge over a river" maybe? Conrad.Irwin 01:11, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

The vote page is Wiktionary:Votes/bt-2010-01/User:Darkicebot for bot status 3 --Volants 13:47, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Topical appendices

We have a few FL topical appendices that are named like categories using a language code prefix (Appendix:fr:Countries, Appendix:fr:Musical instruments, Appendix:fr:Zodiac, Appendix:sl:Countries of the world, Appendix:sv:Weights and measures). Is this how we want them? Two other alternatives are

• Topic (language name) - similar to Category:Requests (French)
• Topic in language name - such as Appendix:Animal names in French

--Bequw → τ 21:27, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

An option is to make them Wikisaurus pages (which makes sense, as they actually are thesaurus pages), with one of these syntaxes. I prefer the second one (round brackets), the current one is not user-friendly at all. Lmaltier 07:45, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I certainly prefer the ISO-code prefix over "in language name", since that latter option severely limits potential appendix names. I'm not personally fond of parenthetical language identification for these appendices, but again, it would be far better than "in language name". --EncycloPetey 07:41, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Flood flag proposal

Hello there all. I would like to propose that we add the flood flag here on the English Wiktionary. Basically, if you know that you are going to make a lot of edits fairly quickly, then an administrator can give another user or themselves the flood flag, and the edits that they make will be marked as bot edits, while not actually being a bot. It is just a way to help ease the load on the RC window for the other users of the English Wiktionary. Basically, if you know that you are going to make a fair amount of edits in a short period of time, you can ask one of the administrators to give you the flood flag to help prevent those edits from clogging up the Recent Changes. Comments, suggestions? Razorflame 00:20, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think putting the bot flag on non-bot edits is ever going to make sense, since it's blatantly untrue. Wouldn't it be better to have a new "high-speed mode" flag if we were going to do something like this? (The current "minor edit" checkbox is probably enough, isn't it?) Equinox ◑ 00:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, the flood flag doesn't really give them the bot flag. It just marks their edits as bot edit without being a bot. Razorflame 00:27, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I see the logic of that. Why reinvent the wheel, if the point is just to keep mass-edits off the recent edits screen? bd2412 T 02:26, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Because someone might legitimately want to know which edits were by bots, and this would mess it up. Xonique 03:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I think this is a reasonably sane proposal, lots of our admins run through clean-up lists, making a few hundred boring edits an hour; whether people would actually use this functionality is up to them, so it might end up just being complicated for no reason. Conrad.Irwin 11:14, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

What would be useful would be to separate the edits that are the assisted addition/balancing of translations from other edits. I find it hard to see through to actual content changes on my watchlist currently. I can't think how to do this though. Thryduulf 14:56, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

If we were to install the AbuseFilter extension, we could get it to mark edits that are just adding translations with a "tag" and then filter recent changes by tag [6] (we might have other uses for such an extension too mwhoahahaha) Conrad.Irwin 14:59, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Any reason not to install it?​—msh210℠ 16:33, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, it has a few dangerous features; if we were to install it I would ask that we did not activate the feature to automatically de-sysop people, (or to automatically indefinitely block them); I feel that the potential for abuse using those is rather high, and we have from time to time had less-than-trustworthy administrators. Over all though, it might be a useful tihng to have. Conrad.Irwin 09:34, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Wait... are you talking about the Flood Flag or the Abuse Filter? --Yair rand 06:41, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I was talking about abuser filter, but there's also no reason not to get flood flags. Conrad.Irwin 15:10, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Currently, we require a vote to mark edits as bot-edits. This would be a big change to that policy. (Just pointing it out in case someone didn't notice.) That's not to say I'd vote against it. We'd need clear guidelines on the use of the flag. (Should an admin only give it to himself? only to others (as a sanity check)? either one? (I'm tending toward the latter option, fwiw.) Perhaps there should be a rule that a flag should not be granted for more than a certain number of edits or a certain length of time: require a bot vote for that. Perhaps there should be a rule that only certain types of edits (which?) should be allowed with a flood flag. Perhaps there should be a rule that a flag removed by a second admin should not be restored by the admin who granted it in the first place or by the person whose edits are flagged. Etc.)​—msh210℠ 16:16, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I completely agree with your first sentence. When we vote on a bot, are we voting on whether it can mark its edits as bot-edits, or are we voting on whether it can be run at all? I mean, if I create a bot and start a vote for the bot flag, and the vote fails, it's not like I can go ahead and just run it without the flag, is it? (I guess there are a lot of hypothetical distinctions that could be made, e.g. between "a computer program is performing the edits" and "an account with the bot flag is performing the edits", that we haven't historically worried about too much, because we mostly forbid the symmetric difference.) —Ruakh_TALK 19:58, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

If we forbid the symmetric difference, that means we require a vote for each: fast editing and the flag.​—msh210℠ 20:06, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I always considered the difference to be that a voted on bot's edits were not being reviewed continually by a human. On the assumption that the user was doing something by hand, or using some technology that allows them to see in real time what is happening (WT:ACCEL or WT:AWB for example), it should be fine to run it under a flood flag. Conrad.Irwin 20:17, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Adminship on another account?

Could this account get admin privileges? I only use it when I'm doing audio pronunciations, but sometimes I see vandalism etc. and it's tiresome to log out and back in as Equinox and lose the thread of what I was doing. Xonique 03:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

See Wiktionary:Administrators#Requests for administrator rights. Thryduulf 10:28, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

But we don't normally (knowingly) grant adminship to sockpuppets. SemperBlotto 10:35, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

WONDERFOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL (just to get it out the way). Equinox, just get commons to delete the other Equinox; it's a mere six steps of bureaucracy and a slab of patience away. Conrad.Irwin 11:11, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I can't. He has two "useful" edits (from 2006), and "usurpation will not be allowed in any event where the account has been reserved by somebody else as a Single Unified Login (SUL) account", which it has been which it appears to have been — but then how come I was able to get Equinox on here? I dunno. Too fiddly and boring for me to bother with really. Never mind. Xonique 19:12, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

It's you who has the SUL account; see http://toolserver.org/~vvv/sulutil.php?rights=1&user=Equinox. But the useful edits thing does seem to be a barrier. —Ruakh_TALK 19:54, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, our definition of sockpuppet doesn't seem to cover the benign, self-professed variety. Equinox ◑ 13:35, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, is there any rule against having two accounts if you acknowledge it openly? Mglovesfun (talk) 22:27, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

None whatsoever. But it seems needlessly confusing. SemperBlotto 22:29, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-01/Number categories

Could someone proof read this and add any links that there are. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:29, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] {{cite}} in FL citation pages

When we add FL citations to an FL entry, should it be translated to English? The {{cite}} template does not have parameters for translator, year of foreign language edition, translated title, translated text, a link to translated source. I tried my best to add all this using the current parameters: Citations:szökőár. Is this format acceptable? --Panda10 15:01, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Translations of foreign-language citations needn’t be “official” (though it is better if they are). The translations should be further indented and italicised. See δημοκρατία#Noun for a couple of fairly well-formatted examples. If I were you, I just wouldn’t bother with those citing templates. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 19:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Simplifying {{nl-adj}}

The template currently contains a boatload of information, and is rather complicated for a simple inflection line template. Now that declension table templates {{nl-decl-adj}} and {{nl-decl-adj-nc}} have been made, I believe it would be best to simplify the inflection line template to show just the comparative and superlative, in the style of {{de-adj}}. The remaining information can then be displayed in a separate table, which allows for more information to be displayed. And the more expanded view given in the declension table would also be more useful to those less familiar with Dutch grammar. Thoughts? --CodeCat 20:33, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with Google Books

Does anyone know how to actually give feedback on google Books? All I can find is a tab with two options, neither of can adequately convey that "You mistakenly identified this copy of Oliver Twist as Wuthering Heights." [7]. --EncycloPetey 22:25, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Click the Overview link in the upper left, then scroll to the bottom and click the feedback link. --Panda10 22:33, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I've now done that. --EncycloPetey 22:55, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if they are actually making corrections. I reported an error where a work's bibliographic information was wrong, the year being off by a century where a "19" was read instead of "18," and I got back a standard non-reply: "I appreciate your taking the time to offer us this feedback and encourage you to continue to let us know how we can improve Google Books. As this is still a young program, new features are under consideration and your feedback is very helpful." Dominic·t 05:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] February 2010

[edit] RFD vs RFV

After years in Wiktionary, I am still unclear about the distinction between RFD and RFV:

• (a) When I see a sense in an entry that I think should be deleted, how do decide whether I should send it to RFD or RFV? What is the as-complete-as-possible decision procedure?
• (b) What are the exemplary cases or prototypes that mark the boundary between the terrains of RFD and RFV?
• (c) If I see an English definition in "green car" which is sum-of-parts and I assume there is no quick deletion process, where do I send it?
• (d) If I see an English definition in "caraxar" which is likely a word that does not occur at all, where do I send it?
• (e) Is there anything that prevents the merging of RFD and RFV processes? What are the main disadvantages of the merge, if any?

--Dan Polansky 11:32, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

(a) If it is a "word", in the CFI sense of idiomatic expression; but you are not sure whether it is a protologism or nonce, then it should go to RFV. If it is not a protologism or a nonce, but it might not be a "word", in the CFI sense, then it should go to RFD. If you think it is neither, then it's up to you, probably just delete it :).

(b) perhaps "squash bucket" "a bucket full of squash" ":he drank a squash bucket" - is this an idiomatic term, or just a strange way to say "bucket of squash", like water glass I suppose; but in this case it's not likely to be attestable either.

(c) RFD. (it's clearly attestable, but probably not a word)

(d) RFV. (it probably would be a word, but it's not clearly attestable)

(e) At the moment a failed RFV => delete, and a failed RFD => keep. Conrad.Irwin 12:52, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Re: "a failed RFD => keep": Logically that's what makes sense (someone requested that the page/entry/section/sense be deleted, the request failed, the entry was kept), but in practice, I don't think anyone uses the term that way. One of our stock deletion reasons, for example, is "Failed RFD or RFDO; do not re-enter". (The idea is that the page/entry/section/sense itself "failed" to pass muster.) —Ruakh_TALK 15:52, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

A difference between RFD and RFV, which may be what Conrad meant, is that a stale RFD, one on which no one comments, is adjudged a "keep" whereas a stale RFV (in which no one comments or adds citations to the entry or its citations: page) is a "delete". Another difference, in further answer to Dan's "(e)" question, is that RFV is for seeking citations whereas RFD is for debate.​—msh210℠ 16:26, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I must admit that I also get confused between these two areas and, as often as not, put things in the wrong one. I shall try to be more careful. SemperBlotto 16:30, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Responding to all the previous discussion: Thank you for the explanation. I had no idea that RFV is per default more lethal for entries than RFD—that a stale RFV means the entry can be deleted; and I find it a bit counterintuitive. Deletion is not requested in the name "Request for verification". In any case, both RFV and RFD are potentially lethal for entries and senses.

Merging the RFV and RFD processes into one RFD process seems a good thing to do, reducing the cognitive cost of deciding where to post an entry, freeing the memory taken by the decision procedure, and reducing the number of pages for an editor to watch and repeatedly visit. It has happened several times that editors were moving requests from RFV to RFD or vice versa. The decision procedure would be the following: if you doubt that an entry or sense meets CFI, send it to RFD, with an explanation of what makes you think it fails CFI such as "sum of parts" or "I can't find proper citations in durably archived sources". For the case that an entry gets stale, I'd propose to keep it with the option of reopening a RFD for it later. That would mean that, for the entries suspected of unattestability, one or two additional editors would have to post a notice to the effect of "I can't find an attestation either" to get the entry or sense deleted. Thoughts? --Dan Polansky 08:17, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Given that both pages perform different functions, and both are already enourmous, I do not like this idea. Maybe we could refer to RFV as "Requests for attestation" or something. Deletion from RFV is only a side-effect of the entry not being attestable; deletion from RFD is a conscious decision made by debate. It seems to me likely that merging the pages would further encourage "debate" about RFV issues, it's not about what we think, it's about what evidence there is. I think the headings at the top of each page make the distinction clear, though I know no-one reads them :). Conrad.Irwin 09:46, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Renaming RFV to "Requests for attestation" would be an improvement.

Even evidence needs to be judged by someone as relevant or irrelevant and valid or invalid, so something like voting may be needed. In the absence of notes by editors, the closing of an issue is left to the judgment of the closing editor.

I find the headings of the RFD and RFV pages unclear, and I sure have read them several times :p :). The first sentence of the RFV page says: "Requests for Verification is Wiktionary’s forum for verifying whether a definition meets our criteria for inclusion." This sentence seems wrong: (a) it is not a forum, it is a formal process page; (b) it does not say what "verify" means other than "check"; (c) it refers to criteria for inclusion in general, so it refers both to (i) attestability, and (ii) idiomacity AKA non-SOP-ness. The first sentence of RFD: "This page is where users can propose and discuss the deletion of pages in the main namespace (see the nomination category)." From reading the first sentences—and I think the scope of each of the pages can be captured in one sentence—, the scopes of the pages are the same: a sense or an entry should be deleted if and only if it fails criteria for inclusion.

If the processes should be kept separate, which I don't like, the first sentences of RFV could read: "Requests for Verification is a page for requests for attestation of a term or a sense, leading to deletion of the term or a sense unless an editor provides an attestation in the form of citation from three durably archived sources as specified in Criteria for inclusion; requests for deletion based on the claim that the term or sense is nonidomatic AKA sum of parts should be posted to RFD." --Dan Polansky 10:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I have moved the fixed explanatory part of WT:RFV to a dedicated header, and edited that header to make the text hopefully clearer and easier to navigate. --Dan Polansky 12:11, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Conrad (09:46, 3 February 2010 (UTC)). Note also that RFV and RFD were one page and were split. I suggest going back to see why they were split before merging them again.​—msh210℠ 16:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Where's interwicket??

Where's interwicket bot? Since Febuary 1st interwikcet has disappeared from all wikt projects. Does somebody know what happened? Andino 06:36, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Oddly, Autoformat hasn't made any edits since January 29, and Tbot hasn't made any since January 7. How strange. --Yair rand 06:45, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I have emailed Robert Ullmann. Conrad.Irwin 09:22, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

If he doesn't answer, we might want to run the bot ourselves as a makeshift measure. I'm sure people will volunteer. -- Prince Kassad 09:33, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I did offer this, noting the "This code runs on a highly modified version of the Python Wikipedia framework, […] , don't try to run it as is! If you would like to use it, either steal (;-) all you like on your own responsibility, or ask me; I'll be very glad to help.". That said the last time I borroed Interwicket it did seem to work, but that was before it became such a massive thing. Conrad.Irwin 09:37, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I think it's better to ask other users to do this work too. When Robert Ullmann can't run the bot, we'll have other bots working. Interwik bots are very important to keep all wikt projects united. Andino 01:58, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Has Ullmann answered yet? I have a feeling Štambuk finally killed him and buried somewhere. If so, dibs on Tbot. --Vahagn Petrosyan 02:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

If you run Tbot, I will have my little friend destroy you and all that you love. It's a glorified and automated version of RF. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 15:59, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

No. Interwicket is the most important one to get going again, followed by Autoformat I think. Conrad.Irwin 12:29, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

That said, it seems to be running again. Special:Contributions/Interwicket Special:Contributions/AutoFormat

[edit] Abbreviations as palindromes

While cleaning up palindrome categories, I noticed that a common description scheme in a handful of these categories stated that abbreviations should not be their members. For example, Category:English abbreviations should not contain HH, txt or B2B. Why? --Daniel. 06:41, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Abbreviations are not words in the strict sense, they're just a combination of letters used as a replacement for a longer word. As they may contain any combination of letters (and numerals and even special characters) and thus are much more likely to be palindromic, their inclusion makes no sense. -- Prince Kassad 09:37, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

However, some abbreviations have become words in the sense that they are pronounced as words rather than individual letters. An example would be lol, now often pronounced [lɒl] by many people. —CodeCat 11:00, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

If a distinction between "strict" words and palindrome categorization resulted, either from a previous discussion or from your thoughts, I'd like to know more about it. Otherwise, I see no such distinction inherently. For instance, if any Spanish phrase or suffix meets CFI and is a palindrome, I'd expect it to be at [[Category:Spanish palindromes]]. --Daniel. 14:09, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Abbreviations, too.​—msh210℠ 17:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I also agree. If you are interested only in "not-abbreviation" palindromes, it's usually easy to get them as they are not in capitals. Lmaltier 19:47, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Would you accept a as a translingual palindrome? What about - or +? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Including single-character palindromes is going a step further, of course: it doesn't follow necessarily from inclusion of abbreviations. That said, I have no strong feelings either way about it (unlike multi-character abbreviations, which we should count as palindromes imo, as I stated).​—msh210℠ 17:22, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Institutionalism of languages

Hi everybody, I would like to raise the attention about a serious function of the language which is (at least) different between French and English, and perhaps concerns also all the countries relying on the French Code Civil and on the German Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (thanks to our German fellows to comment me this point). Please I apologise for the bilingualism of this question but I think it will illustrate the problem better.

In French laws « Nul n'est censé ignorer la loi »^[1]. It doesn't mean « Ignorance of law is no excuse » but « Nobody is supposed to ignore the law » and this is the funding stone of the French legal system: Any (French) citizen with an average level of litteracy (Baccalaureate) must be able to read and understand the Codes (at least the Code Civil because it concerns everybody: weddings, heirlooms, private properties, etc). And the interpretation of these Codes by the judges (which are not lawyers but graduates from a School of Magistrature for Civil and Criminal cases) must be strict. Previous cases are not binding the judges, but the Code relevant to the case binds them. These Codes can be freely read in any Public Library in France. (and there are even now English translations available on www.legifrance.gouv.fr if you're more interested)

In the Common Laws countries, the Acts of Parliaments or Congress are sometimes hard to understand and don't cover all the particular situations. Therefore the judges themselves make the laws because the previous cases are binding. To really "know the law", you need to ask it to lawyers who have sometimes browsed myriads of previous cases in specialised libraries (although the most important cases are taughts in Schools of Law). Therefore if for the English-speaking citizen « Ignorance of law is no excuse », you cannot expect average people (High School graduate) to be able to access easily to the knowledge of Common Laws.

Where it comes to concern our "business of linguists", it is about the flexibility and evolution of the language. Because of the legal and civil impact, there is a mechanism of "officialization" of the French language through recognized institutions (ie. Académie Française) which doesn't exists as such in English. (what about German?) It causes sometimes issues when for example a new mean of communication becomes suddenly broadly available to all citizen and that people pretend to use them in court or to communicate with the Public Administration. I am talking here of the "emails" which have stressed the French institutions because they had to decide quite quickly between the words "emails", "courriel", "e-courrier", "courrier electronique", etc to choose one and make it "officially" part of the language. I think that's a serious reason why the French language cannot evolve with the same "freedom" than English and that the "Littré"^[2] is still today an official reference of the French language.

And I haven't read so far any mention about this problem among linguists. (otherwise I simply missed the entry in this Wiki and I would sincerely apologise for this buzz). Thanks a lot in advance for your comment about this question. -- Silwilhith 23:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• Notes:

1. ^ JP. Sartre, Qu'est-ce que la littérature?
   • Nul n'est censé ignorer la loi parce qu'il y a un code et que la loi est chose écrite : après cela, libre à vous de l'enfreindre, mais vous savez les risques
   Literally:
   • Nobody is supposed to ignore the law because there is a code and the law is a written thing : after that, you are free to infringe it, but you know the risks [the amount of fines and the possible duration of imprisonnement]
   What I think a person used to Common Laws would have culturally translated (which is not the case in the "official translation" of Sartre) :
   • Ignorance of law is no excuse because the previous, binding cases are published in written [though making hundredth of bookshelves] : But only a lawyer can tell you if you're infringing laws, and what level of risks you are actually taking
   Beyond the "difference of story" in these utterances, please have a thought about the relationship between people and their language when it comes to talk about ethics, rights, duties, liberties, etc and the possibilities to make their language changing: If the French(wo)men develop a language which differs too much of the one written in their Codes, they won't be capable to know their rights and legal duties by themselves and it will then challenge the core of their Legal System (good luck then to keep the stability of the Society).
2. ^ Émile Littré. 1863. Dictionnaire de la langue française

While there is a high coincidence of countries with Civil law also having a "language regulator" for the dominant language, this is not always the case. Malaysia uses common law but has the w:Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka for regulating Malaysian and Vietnam uses Civil Law but has not regulating body for Vietnamese. Wiktionary takes a descriptivist stance (see Wiktionary:What Wiktionary is not and Wiktionary:Descriptivism). We describe how the language is actually used and generally take no stance on how it should be used. We will often note what various authorities have to say about issues as well, though this may be confined to "Usage notes". --Bequw → τ 19:48, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Bequw. These issues are not related. Specialized legal terms are used much more by lawyers than by laws (at least in France).

There is no regulation about the French language, except (in France) rules that people correcting official exams are supposed to follow, and the fact that companies writing tenders for official calls for tenders are supposed to use French. There is also a law about the use of French in advertising (for protecting consumers).

There is a traditional official body about the French language (Académie française), but it's composed of writers, not linguists, it only delivers recommendations and writes a dictionary. These recommendations and this dictionary have no legal impacts.

And, no, the Littré is not an official reference (fortunately!).

Lmaltier 20:12, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Well if you think that the Civil Code has been written for being read by lawyers only, I am afraid you would have missed something serious during your Civic Education course @ school! ;-) I invite you to read the chapter Codification et Consolidation which would give you another perspective. :-) (English version available here)

Concerning the Littré, I invite you to read Fulvia Fiorino in Le Nouveau Littré et les autres while I will double-check your opinion with some Professors of French in France, because it doesn't seem to be the opinion of publishers of litterature that I know.

But just by thinking at how the French language is taught at school (2ndary educ) I think you are simply just wrong: this teaching is based on the reading of texts (of authors as old as Michel de Montaigne) which majority has been either used by Émile Littré to write his Dictionnaire, or either written when the Littré was then definitively the reference for writers.

So if you consider that French schools (collèges & lycées) teach a language that is not 'official French', I think you're seriously challenging the fundations of your mother language. :-D Actually I would even advance this was also the opinion of Michel Foucault that I read in Archeology of Knowledge where he explains the language enriches itself officially from writers like Balzac (1st half XIXth Century), but only unofficially from the people in the streets. Did I misread him?

Again this problem of 'officially correct language' (nearly 'frozen') versus 'everyday/everybody language' ('dynamic') seems undocumented in Wiktionary. And as words and expressions are documented here, wikinautes (any people) can think it is 'correct language'. So why wouldn't we end up by documenting SMS abbreviations too, and using them in a Court, heh?

Does it make more sense? Cheers. -- Silwilhith 03:28, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Post-Scriptum: Ok, I have found some data of what I meant in Appendix:French spelling reforms of 1990 and in Wikipedia:Reforms of French orthography. I think/hope the wikinaute (if s/he finds it) would understand there is a notion of 'official French' (approved by institutions) and of 'casual French' (unapproved). And if I get a moment to pull up my sleeves, I would write down an English summary of Linguistic laws among the World. Many thanks all the same. :-) -- Silwilhith 05:40, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Capitals for pets

To continue a discussion that has arisen at puli in RFD which I believe would be better served here. After reading the RFD discussion, it seems that a lot of contributors are in favour of doubling up all the lower case entries as upper case entries also, simply because they can be found in large quantities in Google. This is referring to, or will eventually affect, the following; Category:Mammals, Category:Birds, Category:Insects, Category:Plants, Category:Flowers, Category:Trees, Category:Chemistry, to name a few. My opinion is that this is not only unnecessary, but also pretty pointless, and even counter-productive. Capitals are for proper nouns, and words with proper nouns at their root. Any specialist book about any of the above categories (and others I have not mentioned) will almost de rigueur use capitals, but this does not mean that Wikt should follow suit. A birding book will spell "blackbird" as "Blackbird". A book about trees will spell "oak" as "Oak". And so on. There seems to be developing a kind of lemming logic with regard to this. Opinions please, with a view to setting something down in black and white to prevent this discussion from rearing its ugly head again and again. -- ALGRIF talk 15:50, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

If the word that is properly spelled in the uppercase can legitimately be spelled in the lowercase (at least, for the majority of people) then it would at least be an alternative spelling. By the way, why is this section titled "Capitals for Pets"? That brings to mind "Fido" and "Rover" and "Spot". bd2412 T 16:14, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

All words can legitimately be spelt in uppercase. What are you suggesting? All words to be doubled up? Which is where the original discussion seems to be heading, btw. (Couldn't think of anything better. The discussion started at puli, a type of pet dog). -- ALGRIF talk 16:43, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I thought the question is whether the routine practice within a context of capitalizing certain commons nouns in running text makes the capitalized form worth an entry. This is an extension of the original RfD about whether the uncapitalized form should be deleted. "Puli" is routinely capitalized in the dog-breeding and -showing context, but not in more general usage. DCDuring TALK 16:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

That is what I meant by "properly spelled in the uppercase" - that the uppercase spelling is the proper spelling, irrespective of the location of the word in a sentence. bd2412 T 17:26, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

My impression is that breed names should be capitalized, including Puli. Non-breed names and names for groups of breeds (retriever, sheepdog) should be lowercase. In your example blackbird should be lowercase, as it refers generically to many breeds of birds, but Scrub Blackbird would be capitalized. I do agree that we shouldn't merely go by the number of hits a particular spelling gets on Google. - TheDaveRoss 16:54, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

If we don't rely on data from the free corpora we have been using about forms-in-the-wild, what authorities do we accept for such prescriptions? The AKC? An international body? A different organization for each breed? DCDuring TALK 16:59, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

As I noted in afformentioned RFDdiscussion, the AKC and dog clubs tend to use fully capitalized versions. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 17:03, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that we should accept such organizations' decisions as determinative of the correct orthography for terms in their context as applicable outside that context, eg, in normal people's ordinary discussion? Do we care that others don't follow the practices of the priesthood of cynolatry? DCDuring TALK 23:17, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

"The discussion started at puli, a type of pet dog)" - The Puli is a herding dog. Any dog can be a pet dog. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 17:03, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I think that capitalization is used to make clear that what is referred to is a generic name, e.g. the name of the kind of dog, not of a particular member of the species (or race, etc.). This is one of the cases allowing capitals in English words normally written without them, some other ones being: beginning of sentences, titles, ideas / virtues when personalized (e.g. Freedom), etc. It's pointless to create all these entries, as they are the result of a general rule, just like capitalizing words at the beginning of sentences. I would not call any of theses cases a spelling issue, the spelling is the same with and without capital, the capital is only an indication of something. Lmaltier 23:35, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

We tend to lexicalize lots of things that are essentially rule-based, for example, numbers, English words prefixed with non- and un-, many compounds, inflected forms.

As to this one in particular, what should the Appendix be called? What are the specific rules? I suspect that there are more contributors with the ability and motivation to make the entries, than there are to write the Appendix. DCDuring TALK 00:14, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The capital should be used in page titles when this capitalization belongs to the normal spelling (e.g. proper nouns). For animals, plants, abstract ideas, etc. (and, of course, words used in book titles), I don't see the point of pages with capitalized titles, nor of appendices. But a template with a standard text might be used, as a usage note: it might be useful, because people often don't understand when they may use the capital, and when they should not. Lmaltier 08:09, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Evidently not.

Titles and the beginning of sentences are an entirely separate matter.

The issue is: when, in running text, "can" or "should" a capitalized form be used? There is no law that forbids the use of capitals in running text. Descriptivists act as if they believe that speakers and writers are, statistically speaking, pretty good at knowing what is likely to work in communicating to their audience and readers. Thus, we tend to infer "can" or "should" from "is", in a Nietzschean sort of way. In the dog-breed industry they seem to prefer the upper case in running text. In normal writing writers prefer the lower case.

The follow-up question is whether the capitalized and uncapitalized forms mean something different. Does the capitalized form usually refer to the breed and the uncapitalized form usually refer to a member of the breed? That would take a little roll-up-your-sleeves investigation.

To approach this as a matter of rules implies that we know the rules in the major contexts and that we will know when the rules change in those contexts. It is the genius of an online wiki that we don't have to make those assumptions. We can make entries in accordance with our understanding of the rules and accumulate objections to the presentation and data supporting our presentation on a case-by-case basis. DCDuring TALK 11:01, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Babel category changes

I'd like to propose two changes to the Babel categories.

1. Add all language speakers to the base language category. Categories such as [[Category:User ar]] by default have only the level categories (Category:User ar-N, Category:User ar-0, etc.) as members. Some users, however, manually add themselves to the base User lang category (see several in Category:User en). This hodge-podge probably isn't very helpful to a user browsing the language categories looking for someone who speaks a certain language. Therefore, I propose all babel templates (except level 0) add users to the base language category.
2. Remove the User lang-0 categories. The User lang-0 templates are only useful on a user's page (when there would be reason to think s/he would have knowledge of a language) but the category is useless. Technically, almost everyone should be member of Category:User ast-0.

I think these might also be good for the script Babel categories. --Bequw → τ 20:40, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The template User en-0 would be quite useful for someone with a SUL account but no knowledge of English. However the category does indeed seem to be useless. I have almost no knowledge of thousands of languages. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:44, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

The templates should have a sortkey so all users with xx-1, xx-2 etc. are sorted together in the category. Otherwise I agree. -- Prince Kassad 21:43, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean all the ar0-1 users are classed under 1 in the Arabic category? Mglovesfun (talk) 14:59, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and so on with -2, -3, -4 and finally the native speakers. -- Prince Kassad 21:18, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any use to dumping all users in the main category. I always browse by skill level.

I do agree that the xx-0 categories are pretty useless... I can't really think of a reason to seek out a person who doesn't speak a certain language, except perhaps as a cross reference, like someone who speaks Galician but not Spanish or Portuguese. But I can't think of a wiktionary-useful reason to search for such a person....etcetc. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 15:53, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

A possible use of -0 is to indicate interest in a language or early-stage learning. Such persons could possibly be recruited to undertake some low-level cleanup of entries in the language etc. DCDuring TALK 16:22, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd be happy with keeping all languages with ISO codes (even ones that don't meet CFI like Klingon) levels 1-4. Also I like double categorization - so anyone if fr-3 is automatically in fr, but not sorted by number as the individual categories (1, 2, 3 and 4) already do that, so it would just be duplication. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:30, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

A slightly knowledgeable user can still find all the lang-0 user by looking at what links to the template (eg Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:User es-0). So the question is whether there would be a use for the lang-0 categories for unknowledgeable users. --Bequw → τ 19:00, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

• The changes sound reasonable to me. (While we're at it, I'd like to get rid of the "level 5" option, too.) Ƿidsiþ 16:36, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] ISO codes

Many ISO codes were recently RFV'd, requesting citations of use which probably don't exist. We have no official policy on including ISO codes at the moment, although we do have very many entries for them and a category. The issue, as far as I can tell, remains unresolved. So the question here is: Do we want these? If so, can we make a policy stating it? --Yair rand 20:15, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't like our naming system for topic categories (Category:fr:Trees and so on), but until we change it to something better, I think we should keep these entries whether or not these codes are ever actually used as terms. (After that point, I'm not sure.) —Ruakh_TALK 20:28, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I would like to include these. However they do not come under the category of "all words in all languages". I see that, as an unlimited "dictionary", we can be a useful repository for all kinds of look-up. Airport codes, iso codes, numeric standards, train specifications, unicode characters, etc. in addition to, and without sacrificing our ability to lookup the meaning of "words". Up until now it has been the de-facto assumption that this is what we want to do (hence so many of all of the above are already included). It seems that there is a growing feeling that these don't belong in a dictionary; but I have yet to hear any convincing reasons why they should not. I suspect this issue will end up like the inclusionist/deletionist debate on Wikipedia - and in many ways it is related. Even though a traditional dictionary/encyclopedia would not include such information, an online version of the same can be more useful to more people by including more information. Relagation to Appendices would be a workable compromise, providing that the appendices are consistently linked to (using {{only in}} or some kind of "see also") from the page of the correct form of the entry. Conrad.Irwin 20:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree there's an inclusionist/exclusionist feeling about the debate. This is an area where a Wikipedia/Wiktionary join task force could help focus resources and direct users appropriately. Here's how I break down the issue (please add to this list).

As wikipedia covers all of them, I think Wiktionary should focus on where there's linguistic content (translations, inflections, etc.). So I think we should focus on the attestable ones (the others are in appendices). I also think our CFI should be independent of our category naming scheme (Help/Wiktionary/Appendix pages should of course be provided). --Bequw → τ 21:30, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Are people aware that many language name entries link to the ISO code entry? (For example: Hebrew: proper noun: "The language of the Hebrew people, ISO 639 code he.") --Yair rand 00:46, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Those are in a small minority of language name entries. The codes usually shouldn't be on the definition lines because it creates circularity. They should be noted using something like {{ISO 639}} or {{ethnologue}} in an External links section. Either way though it's a side issue since it's just some cleanup. --Bequw → τ 04:12, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Category:English terms spelled with ſ

Why does this exist? In English, ſ is generally considered a subspelling issue--it's the way s appears in the middle of a word--and it's used in every word with a medial s in that font style. Is it really useful to have these duplicate articles for about a third of the words in English (or at least pre-19th century English)? (And if they need to exist, shouldn't they be at diſtinguiſh instead of diſtinguiſh?)--Prosfilaes 23:15, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

You might enjoy Wiktionary:Requests for deletion#ſeveral. DCDuring TALK 00:03, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

In answer to your last question, yes; I’ve now done the necessary moving of entries. DCDuring has already linked to a pertinent discussion; WT:BP#ſ (long s) typographic variants is another. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 00:07, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Beta editor is broken

The Beta editor has been broken for several days. I've sent feedback to the "Beta feedback" link, but the page editor is still broken. How does one get their attention? -- dougher 01:42, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

They know. To turn off the beta features go to Special:Preferences → "Editing" and turn off the "Experimental features" on the bottom. See w:Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Edit box .26 monospace style changes for details. --Bequw → τ 04:17, 9 February 2010 (UTC)