Talk:hearth

Use cases and the Odinic Rite

Currently the article employs an extremely obscure, self-published book by a UK-based white supremacist organization, the Odinic Rite, as a use case example (cf., [1], [2], [3], [4], etc.). This is a result of a wiktionary editor pulling up whatever they've found on Google Books, and slapping it on the article with little concern for context, implicitly promoting this obscure book from an obscure group.

Exactly why the Routledge piece already cited in the article isn't enough to demonstrate use case isn't clear. To date I have yet to see any outline of wiktionary policy regarding examples of use case other than user personal preference—and in this case, the personal preference seems to be to pull up whatever washes ashore via a Google Books search, including what are essentially prescriptive propaganda pamphlets. Wiktionary editors seem to be making it up as they go along, allowing for instances of injecting stuff like this into the project under the guise of use case.

However, although its inclusion is both unnecessary and implicitly promotional, I've now been threatened with a block for removing it. Bloodofox (talk) 18:08, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

For a term or sense of a term to be included in Wiktionary, Wiktionary mandates that it must be either in "clearly widespread use" or that it has been used in at least three independent contexts spanning a year; if a term or sense doesn't have three examples of use, that leaves it vulnerable to its existence been challenged at WT:RFV. You may now be able to realise why I added that quote back in; it was to forstall people's time being wasted through checking whether the term meets WT:ATTEST, when it clearly does. If you can find a better quote, by all means feel free to replace the current quote with it. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 23:48, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

I see. How about the quote about hearths and heathenry in this source?

But this raises a notable issue: Does wiktionary have some kind of policy that keeps someone from, say, paying Lulu.com to "self-publish" an obscure "whites-only" organization's prescriptive book, waiting for Google Books to list it, and then subsequently featuring it on a Wiktionary entry? If not, this seems like a significant and relatively easy way to game the site that should be resolved. Bloodofox (talk) 04:33, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

That is an interesting proposition. I’d argue that this is not at all an easy way to game our criteria for inclusion; consider the following: You’d have to actually write something to be published, and your work needs to actually use the term you are making up, rather than just list or mention it and provide a definition. Then, you’d have to shell out your money to get the thing published; it goes beyond shitposting on the Internet. You’d have to convince two other people to do the same since we require cites to be independent. Afterwards, you’ll have to wait for one year or more and publish something else again, since cites have to span more than a year for them to count for attestation. And all this effort for what? For a term to be defined as “(very rare, only used by members of ObjectionableGroup) Definition”, with ”Coined by ObjectionableGroup leader SuchandSuch in RecentYear” for an etymology. Does this sound like something someone would spend their time and money on just to confound the content of an online dictionary known for being descriptive? Neo-Nazis, of all people. And if the term does catch on, would it be fair to exclude it?

I’ll let you know that there is a much easier way to get a neologism attested, and that is through Usenet, but even then I don’t think I would characterise it as easy and it would still lead to the undignifying content I’ve given above. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 17:17, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

I've seen organizations go to great lengths on Wikipedia over the past few decades, for far less impactful subcultures, and usually they're aiming for a few results at once, with something like this being a happy byproduct to increase their footprint. SEO gaming Google Books is a relatively new problem, allowing for one's pay-to-publish blog post to appear right next to, say, a highly impactful book from a given field. Pay-to-publish organizations like Lulu.com facilitate and profit from this increasingly influential new reality. Google Books has yet to crack down on it, but one can see the impact it's having in various places on the internet, such as Youtube and Reddit, increasingly digging up, for example, old conspiracy theories and propagating new ones.

Additionally, I think it's worth mentioning that this citation is from a prescriptive, self-published (more specifically paid-published) text—the organization wants people to use this term in this manner—rather than descriptive, wherein the text would just describe how it is used more broadly from a reliable source, such as a peer-reviewed or academic source. The goal for texts like these is to influence, in this case forms of neopaganism, and to draw attention to white supremacist groups, ideally to increase membership and influence. Surely similar circumstances have come up here before? In any case, the cite I propose replacing it with above appears to be a much better one all around. Bloodofox (talk) 20:10, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

That is the thing. Wiktionary is not like Wikipedia. Our approach to what content we want to include or exclude is not even comparable to Wikipedia’s. If a competent speaker (descriptively understood) uses a word in media we deem durably archived, then it counts as one use. Are they a respected scientist? Counts as one use. Are they an ignorant layman? Counts as one. Are they a pundit in favour of Correct Political Party? Counts as one. A pundit in favour of Wrong Political Party? Counts as one. Are they a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Neo-Pagan or Jew? Counts as one, one, one, one and one respectively. Do they think Jews need to be exterminated? Counts as one. Do they follow Correct Branch of Neopaganism? One. Incorrect Branch? One. Do they have a contract with the publisher? Counts as one. Did they pay out of their own pocket? Counts as one.

As for whether a particular citation should be featured under a definition, our criteria are here: Wiktionary:Quotations#How to choose a quotation. Obviously we don’t need to include every single use of any given word as a quotation (whether in the main entry or in the citations page), so it is conceivable that some be removed if there are too many. Here are some reasons why your removal of Stubba’s quotation was not well met: There are not even close to too many cites, in fact, removing any of the current cites will take the definition in question out of the sweet spot of 3 citations needed to attest an English sense. You think Wikipedia’s guidelines apply here, and you have completely ignored our protocols for the removal of content; we get tons of Wikipedians who trudge in here and act like we are subservient to them, it gets annoying after a while. It suspiciously seems like you are trying to suppress information relating to (n.b. not “in support of”, not “promoting”) some religious movement you are personally against; yeah, Neo-Nazism is retarded, but as I explained above, we don’t censor wrongthink. And finally, you have chosen to be belligerent and insulting about it towards people who have been here over a decade and know what they are doing. They might have been more willing to lend an ear if you had acted otherwise. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 21:49, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Ignoring the clear chip on your shoulder about Wikipedia, the issues I highlight above are real, and a potential problem for the project. Being threatened with a block without providing policy guidelines is also a problem, as well as pulling rank when daring to question the inclusion of the item.

Obviously, this is a controversial citation in part because, this is a paid publication of a prescriptivist text from a group that is widely considered to be a white supremacist organization, and it is so far being aggressively pushed by a few users here over, it would seem, literally any other cite, making it easy to seem as if this is solely to spite them mean ol' Wikipedians and their source scrutiny. I'm hoping that's not the case: I've now swapped out the cite with a superior, eg. non-prescriptive and non-pay-to-publish, source, that I asked about above (but to which I didn't receive a response). Bloodofox (talk) 22:52, 18 May 2020 (UTC)