User talk:Metaknowledge/2017

The following discussion has been moved from the page User talk:Metaknowledge.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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This page shows conversations on my talkpage from 2017.

brending

Hello I am a new Wikipedia editor Wiktionary I am using voice recognition so I apologize for any grammatical or syntax errors in advance a different editor told me that smoke plus fog equals Smog and that is a portmanteau how do I write about a portmanteau that I invented branding + friending equals brending? Any assistance that you can give me would be helpful thank you COACH ZARLINO (talk) 21:34, 1 January 2017 (UTC)- | 🇺🇸

I moved your post to the correct place at the bottom of the page. As for your question: we're a descriptive dictionary, so we only include terms that are actually in use (and not just by you and a friend or two). Please read our Criteria for inclusion before you spend any more time on this. Also, Wiktionary has very strict rules on formatting of our entries, so I'd like to ask you not to edit the entries themselves if you don't have precise enough control of your text. Feel free to leave requests at Wiktionary:Requested entries if you have ideas for entries that meet the requirements of our CFI, and you can suggest edits on the talk pages of the entries or at the Tea room. If you have questions, you can ask them at the Information desk. Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 01:54, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Rollback of Takelma definition of word Lawaya

Hello, Metaknowledge I don't understand why you removed the addition I made to the word Lawaya. It is listed as a Zulu word but is also the Takelma (American Indian) word for Bear Creek an important Rogue River tributary which flows through the extinct village by the same name and is loosely translated as "knife in belly." Having accidentally discovered the Zulu definition I felt it important to ensure that the Takelma use was preserved as well. I first heard the word used while speaking with Agnes Baker Pilgram (Takelma elder) back in 1995. Anyway here are a couple local articles confirming the above use. Grandma Aggie can easily be googled. I respectively hope that you put the information back up and give the Takelma language credit for their use of the word which differs greatly from Zulu. http://www.mailtribune.com/article/20061130/News/311309990 http://www.mailtribune.com/article/19980816/NEWS/308169999

Bertolero (talk) 18:27, 1 January 2017 (UTC)bertolero

Metaknowledge is on vacation, so I'll try to answer for him. It's not the validity of the word, per se, but your definition- it could easily be mistaken for gibberish, and is certainly not very clear: "knife in belly" probably belongs in the etymology. There's also required formatting missing. I left our standard welcome template at your talk page, so you can learn our standards and make edits that won't be deleted. By the way, see Category:Takelma language for what little we have in the language. Without having read the articles you linked to, I'll say that they could meet the requirements of our Criteria for inclusion if they've appeared in print (not just on a web page) and are a valid resource on the language. Both Metaknowledge and I are very interested in documenting little-known languages, but we have to maintain our standards, too. Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 01:36, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

rock record

Hi Metaknowledge!

I included rock record in Category:en:Rocks because the rock layers and their juxtaposition are about rocks! Geochronology uses stratigraphy of rocks coupled with dating techniques to determine if juxtaposed rocks are chronologically sequenced or not. Geology is much more than rocks or their apparent record. --Marshallsumter (talk) 02:51, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

The category is just for rocks. The rock record is not a rock, but instead an analytical way to group information about earth history composed by rocks into a single cognitive category. That's why gneiss belongs in Category:en:Rocks, but a word like this that relates to rocks belongs in Category:en:Geology. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:57, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Oh, and @Marshallsumter, I do appreciate your interest, as I have a fair amount of geological training myself, and I know that Wiktionary is still lacking in that field. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:01, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

rollback of interwiki link on faire fi

I believe this rollback was a mistake and have reverted it. The other option is to change the page on the English Wiktionary to be faire fi de rather than simply faire fi, but regardless, as noted in my edit summary, the French entry m:wikt:fr:faire fi de corresponds precisely to the English entry faire fi, having merely included the de in the page title whereas the English page puts the de inline as a usage note.

Timmy Tofu (talk) 20:22, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Interwikis must link to the same exact pagetitle, regardless of content. Your edit would just get undone by a bot eventually regardless. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:37, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

docga

@Metaknowledge The etymology was misleading previously and I do not believe that any Cornish analogy is applicable, hence that section should be deleted! I just corrected it according to its source. Andrew H. Gray 19:24, 3 February 2017 (UTC)Andrew talk

You are in error

Listen "amiko" if you think my given etymology of krokodili is without merit, than by every comparable measure is the one about "crocodile tears" completely unvalidated as well. Can you, or anyone for that matter, cite a single source for that? At least there is some measure of consistency in a physical comparison, while any invented explanation about "bemoaning the fate" is closer to ideological speculation than anything resembling a logical reason.

If my etymology is going to be deleted, it should only follow that the "crocodile tears" nonsense should go as well and keep only the "latter two", which given that they are merely allusions, should not a more all-encompassing perspective be necessary to frame it in any sort of context?

Your arrogance appalls me. Vi devus hontiĝi.

orange

Hello Why did you revert my edits? Greetings Rasmusklump (talk) 21:34, 5 February 2017 (UTC) I just am adding the colours of https://quizlet.com/10534619/rangi-flash-cards/ and a Youtube Video by Coolmansam.

You need to learn how Swahili works before making edits like these, and you can't rely on Quizlet and YouTube. I just haven't had the time to fix all your edits sufficiently. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:45, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

3 independent entries in 3 different sources? Ok, looking curious forfard to your changes. Thanks :)

קאַווע

Is the Yiddish word קאַווע masculine or feminine? It seems feminine. --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 09:38, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

It is, thanks. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:33, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Sınalgı

There are new citations after last rfv (including a printed journal which has an ISSN), you could put it into rfv page instead of fast deleting. --88.251.59.135 08:52, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

References don't count toward the three citations needed. If you were aware of the RFV that happened, then you should have known that your recreation of the page was against the rules and going to be deleted. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:58, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Question over the entry Agėjo knyga

Metaknowledge, why do you deleted the page Agėjo knyga? If you don't know, the books of the Bible in Lithuanian should be written with complete name, exactly as is in the Wiktionaries in Lithuanian and Portuguese. Please, don't delete the books of the New Testament in Lithuanian that I am creating.

Leonard Joseph Raymond (talk) 22:14, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

If you are sure (do you actually speak Lithuanian at all?). In any case, the definition should then be improved to say "Book of Haggai", so it's clear it's not the character. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:06, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

I am actually learning Lithuanian to create entries with books of the Bible in this language in the Wiktionaries.

Leonard Joseph Raymond (talk) 04:45, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Troll

Stop trolling wiktionary or I will have you banned. This is you ONLY warning! 2601:806:4301:C100:9D2B:A6B:8245:6EA 20:10, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

I totally forgot that the Wolfgang anon and the threat anon were the same person. I feel like Chuck had a funny response to you last time, but I honestly can't remember whose talk-page that was on. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:31, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

peiger, peigeren

peiger looks like a regular borrowing from Yiddish, but is it attested in Yiddish? Also, would you know if there is a verb derived from peyger in Yiddish? Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 11:17, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

I think that the Dutch adjective is derived from the verb. I knew פּגרן (peygern), but apparently פּגר (peyger) refers to the corpse itself. It's pretty slangy in Yiddish too; Raphael marks it as only being for animals, which seems to be its literary use. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:30, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, it's been added as deriving from the verb. Ironically, in Biblical Hebrew the word פּגר is mostly used for humans. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 12:25, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

asowere

Looking forward to the entry for asowere, MK...--Quadcont (talk) 15:18, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Happy to help! This has actually inspired me to work on Mwani around here. We didn't have any entries at all, and now have over a hundred. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:29, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Ideophones

You mentioned ideophones a while ago and I've been seeing them a lot in Doke's dictionary. But I don't really know what they are and how they are used. Are they verbs? Adjectives? Do they inflect? —CodeCat 19:47, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

They're a separate part of speech. Refer to Ideophone and the conversation I started in the BP. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:30, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Attachiamenta bonorum

Hey, is Attachiamenta bonorum a candidate for inclusion over here? Premeditated Chaos (talk) 04:45, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Doubtful, but maybe. Here's an easy way to check: go to google books:"attachiamenta bonorum" and see if you can find three independent uses, rather than mentions. It doesn't look promising. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:52, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. Premeditated Chaos (talk) 05:10, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Handling copulatives in Zulu

In Zulu, relatives take a subject concord to express being something (-bomvu (“red”) → babomvu (“they are red”)) and add a modifier particle to that to create a word that can modify a noun (ababomvu (“(who are) red”)). Copulatives, formed from nouns with various prefixes, behave essentially identical to this (umuntu (“person”) → ngumuntu (copulative) → bangumuntu (“they are a person”), abangumuntu (“who are a person”)). The essential difference is that copulatives can be used on their own (ngumuntu (“it is a person”)) while relatives can only be used with a prefix.

My question is how this should be handled with respect to inflection tables and lemmas. The current Zulu noun tables don't show the various inflections of copulatives, with the idea that they'd receive their own sublemma entry which lists them. So ngumuntu would receive a definition saying it's the copulative form of umuntu while it also has a relative inflection table. Do you think this is a good idea? Or should those forms also be listed on the inflection table of the main noun lemma?

The Zulu words for 6 to 10 are nouns, e.g. isithupha and ishumi. To actually quantify a noun with any of these, you use the copulative of the numeral in the modifier form, thus you get constructions meaning "who are six", "who are ten" and the like (e.g. abantu abayishumi (“ten people”)). The isizulu.net treats these copulatives as lemmas of their own, however, and considers them relatives. Given the almost identical behaviour of relatives and copulatives, this is not surprising. But what should Wiktionary do? What should appear in the translation table of the numeral six, the noun or the copulative/relative? Should we give the quantifier definition on isithupha or yisithupha? —CodeCat 23:24, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

This is a hard matter. Treating copulatives as sublemmata is somewhat inherently silly, because they're inflected forms. Many Bantu languages have very limited copulatives (like Chichewa, where it can only be done with pronouns), so I haven't thought as hard about what to do for Nguni languages. Essentially, we run into the same problem that always occurs with Bantu, which is that an enormous number of regular, easily predictable inflected forms can be created (and may not be attested!), and listing them all is an awkward thing to do. If you do think that copulative inflected forms should be given, I think that the lemma entries for the nouns and pronouns is the only good place to put them. However, I lean toward simply not including them at all, but making sure a relevant grammatical appendix is linked to. Any copulatives that are created, like ngumuntu, should have a special-use template like {{zu-copulative of}} that links to that appendix as well. As for the numerals, they are basic and sufficiently non-intuitive for English speakers that I would advise you write a short explanation to put in the usage notes of each entry (or write it in an appendix and have the usage notes of each entry link to it). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:43, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

If we're going to include forms of copulatives in the main entry, we run into the question of what to do with the locative. Adverbs inflect like relatives too, and the locative is an adverb. It can take subject concords and this can then be turned into a modifier: kumuntu (“at the person”) → bakumuntu (“they are at the person”) → abakumuntu (“who are at the person”). If we're going to include all of these forms in noun lemmas, it gets quite large. This is why I thought of offloading it to sublemmas: since the locative is an adverb, it can be given its own adverb inflection table (once it is created), and the copulative gets the same treatment. I would have liked to do the same with the possessives too, but they have no common base form that inflections can be placed on; the lemma itself is that form, so that's the only place to put them. —CodeCat 17:14, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh, and just to make it all more fun: all of the forms potentially have negative forms too... —CodeCat 17:17, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, as I said, you can't solve this by offloading. I think that as I said above, the best solution is not to include them. To give a much simpler example, Swahili regularly forms locatives with -ni and no further inflection occurs, but this is still not a form given in the lemma entries, because it's predictable through the grammar. We can't replicate a grammar textbook for every lemma, and we shouldn't — we have appendices for that kind of thing, and the lemma entries discuss phenomena particular to that specific lemma. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:30, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

The locative is not fully predictable for Zulu though. Occasionally the -ni is dropped, or palatalisation fails to occur, or both palatalised and nonpalatalised forms exist. So this is information that should be listed in the inflection table, it can't be garnered any other way. For the copulative, there's three different prefixes and which one you use depends on word class (noun vs pronoun) and also on noun class, and I believe that for some pronouns it may in fact be unpredictable. Compare ngumuntu (“it's a person”), yinja (“it's a dog”), wudonga (“it's a wall”), yimi (“it's me”), nguwe (“it's you”). In any case, if we have inflection tables for Esperanto, which does have completely predictable forms, we can have them for Zulu too.

As for another reason to have sublemmas for locatives and copulatives... essentially these belong to a larger class of words that you might call "verb-like". This class includes relatives, adverbs, and nouns prefixed with a preposition as well. What these words have in common is that they can take a subject concord, and a modifier/relativiser can be prefixed to that. This is the same as the present tense of a verb: a-ba-kumuntu (“(they) who are at the person”) is grammatically not very different from a-ba-bona (“(they) who see”). Both can modify class 2 nouns, as can a-ba-bomvu, which is a relative. For this reason it makes sense to me to treat them inflectionally the same, and give them inflection tables. Verbs, of course, have different tense/mood stems and some of those take quite different prefixes, and they also have object prefixes which these "verb-likes" don't. But these verblikes can be combined with the copula ba to express these nuances as well, although I'm not sure on the exact details. —CodeCat 17:53, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Esperanto has conjugation tables because it's a European language with a small, finite number of inflected forms, and our treatment of it imitates other European languages. We can't try to handle this like a European language. I'm not clear on to what degree it's unpredictable, considering I can't actually speak any Zulu myself, but a handful of irregularities and widespread unpredictability are very different, and you would be best off doing more research to find out exactly what the nature of it is. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:04, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

A better example is Volapük (an arbitrary specimen: getön). The template's color scheme makes it easy to imagine a derivation from Latin volo + English puke =8ǁ

This reminds me of an word from a phonology class at UCLA (all consonants, no vowels): it was Bella Coola and translated as "I saw those two women coming this way out of the water". There are so many languages where inflection does what we use words and sentence structure for in English, to the point where inflection tables start to look like phrase books, and the number of permutations approaches infinity. Where do you stop when there's no inherent limit? Chuck Entz (talk) 04:56, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

This seems more germane to my current discussion with JohnC5, but yes, that Volapük table is an ungodly sight, and desperately needs subtables. We need to choose limits, arbitrarily if need be, and simply seek to tell when we can't show. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:00, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh goodness, that is the ugliest table I've ever seen. We're discussing have collapsed subtables for such things. —JohnC5 05:39, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

XXXIII

Why do users keep ruining these pages? Do they think that these are just pish posh, making them okay to wreck? — (((Romanophile))) ♞ (contributions) 06:08, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Metaknowledge/Types of vandal. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:27, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

I've played three of your four parts, MK. Not yet got into the world of spamming, though. I'll look into it. --Quadcont (talk) 08:23, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Not mine, Equinox's! Gotta give credit where it's due. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 08:41, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

There's an abuse filter that catches a lot of those- you're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. I've noticed some definite patterns in the distribution of the IPs, so there may be some kind of user-interface or cultural factor at work. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:51, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Someone (possibly you, Chuck) recently pointed out the "XXX means porn" thing. I wonder if there are some really confused people in some country somewhere thinking that typing XXX into these pages (which is usually all they add) is the way to search for pornography. Equinox ◑ 19:12, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

I reckon that's a testable hypothesis. You could see if the XXX vandals are significantly more likely to geolocate to certain countries rather than others relative to IP vandals in general, which would be compelling evidence for a cultural factor at play. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:57, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Not wanting to take credit here, but I believe it was I who provided the porn hypothesis ;-) --Robbie SWE (talk) 21:01, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

If you look at the hits for Abuse Filter 54, there are IPs from Pakistan and Arab countries, but also India, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, as well as Turkey and the Dominican Republic. I'm leaning toward some kind of misplaced mobile-device navigation commands, but the evidence is far from conclusive. Chuck Entz (talk) 09:17, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Gãrtsia

Greetings can you tell me why you change my correction in Gãrtsia page ?Elladha is called Greece by Aromanian Greeks(like my self) and not Gãrtsia cause it comes from the Greek Elládha :p — This unsigned comment was added by Kp4816 (talk • contribs) at 19:51, 11 March 2017 (UTC).

I moved this to the bottom of the page where new posts go. Your edit changed the link to an Aromanian term into a link to Greek term that displayed as if it were still the Aromanian term. We don't allow terms in another language to be listed as synonyms, and it would have been very confusing, as well. I added our welcome template to your talk page so you can learn Wiktionary's formatting rules and practices. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:03, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

w:Augment (Bantu languages)

I just created it, based on one of the sources you gave me. Can you have a look at it and improve if necessary? —CodeCat 20:52, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

I think it's a good start. The only big thing that's lacking is to talk about where the augment came from; I believe Meussen 1967 covers this, but if you can't find it, tell me. Also, when citing TBL, you should ideally give the name of the author of the specific section you're citing and the section's name. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:41, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Pkbwcgw + aWa =?

Any time I see an inexperienced user handling tasks like archiving, it makes me nervous. I'm not well-versed in all the intricacies, but this diff looks wrong (archiving without closing). Do me a favor and check into this. Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 06:27, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

That one's fine, it was deleted out of process (hopefully correctly), and archived properly. Thanks for looking over the archiving, though, because I meant to do that as well and forgot — I'm not particularly comfortable with noobs doing that kind of thing either. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:49, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Quotations from election programmes

I just saw that an old problem user (read: troll) has added some very opinionated text from election programmes for a very easily attestable word. Is there any policy on using election programmes for citations? Most post-war election programmes in the Netherlands have been durably archived by the way. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 11:47, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

That's not appropriate. Any kind of text that uses the word can be put on the Citations page and nobody can really complain, but I assume you're referring to the body of the entry. I would recommend you just replace them with neutral, simple quotations, and if the user objects, inform them that they can add theirs back on the Citations page. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:24, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Apfelmännchen

Why would you revert my edit? It was going to get categorised! (It has now been restored to my edit) — AWESOME meeos ！ * ([nʲɪ‿nəʐɨˈmajtʲe sʲʊˈda]) 08:01, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

That would only work if you were talking about a little Apfelmann. This is a compound of Apfel and Männchen. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:48, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

I disagree. In my opinion, the three components are combined simultaneously. It is neither Apfel + Männchen, nor Apfelmann + -chen, but rather simultaneously Apfel + Mann + -chen. --WikiTiki89 15:08, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Totally agree on you, Wikitiki! — AWESOME meeos ！ * ([nʲɪ‿nəʐɨˈmajtʲe sʲʊˈda]) 19:47, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

• Chuck's logic was why I reverted, and Wikitiki's logic (which I came to after looking into it) is why I did not revert again. Awesomemeeos, you should be more careful with etymologies, though — you may think you're merely categorising or templatising, but in cases like these it has a bearing on the linguistic analysis of the word. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:48, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Augment in Proto-Bantu

While the augment is not found in all Bantu languages, I'm not aware of it having a particular distribution, it's found all over the family. This suggests to me that the augment existed at least in some form already in Proto-Bantu, whatever its original function might have been. Do you think we should have Proto-Bantu entries for the augmented noun prefixes? It would make it a bit easier to sort the descendants, as well as make it immediately obvious which languages have the augment and which don't. —CodeCat 15:00, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

It is probably very old, but not necessarily as old as PB. Refer to Maho — you can't use that kind of logic like you might in other language families. Just because it doesn't have a restricted distribution doesn't mean that it didn't spread across various branches post-PB. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:18, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Jabulani

I noticed you created this last year, but didn't include the class 1a prefix u- that's used with names. Do you think it should be moved? —CodeCat 21:11, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Hmm, yeah, it should be moved, and it can be converted to an English entry if appropriate. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:13, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

So Jabulani is English, and uJabulani is Zulu? I have no idea if it's attested in English, so I'd rather leave that decision to someone else. —CodeCat 21:16, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Looks like it is, and yes. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:20, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Ok, I've moved the entry. —CodeCat 21:23, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

cum

Edit was absolutely 100% reverted in error. The word "cum" is considered by everyone to be slang, so that edit should not have been reverted.Captain Cornwall (talk) 22:36, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

metagraywacke

Please explain reversions unless it's outright vandalism. Equinox ◑ 22:22, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Thought you could figure it out — we usually don't give etymologies on alt forms unless it's substantially different from the lemma's ety. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:26, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm undecided on the matter, but technically, alternative forms exist by the grace of having different etymologies. If two terms have the exact same history, then they'd be the exact same term, after all. I understand, however, that it's not necessary to explain little trivialities like grey vs gray in every word derived from them. —CodeCat 17:23, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

I suppose the other complexity is that e.g. graywacke and greywacke did not arise independently: perhaps the e-form came first and then the a-form was based on it. Equinox ◑ 16:49, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

for no relation between deus and θεός

If you are not going to take part in consensus building, and outright ignore good faith arguments, I will assume you have no further interest in the topic, especially as your comment didn't address the core of the issue, the source.

I'll admit that I have difficulties expressing myself to maintain proper conduct, thus opening conflict and inviting offensiveness. However, half of that is in response to inappropriate allegations like yours. I expect you to be civil about this in the future. Your inflammatory comment certainly was not in good faith or neutral language, so I have to ask you to stop it. Will you stop it? 91.66.15.220 13:46, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

You didn't even format your comment properly. That is disrupting the thread, so please remove the comment. 91.66.15.220 13:55, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Stop heckling me. My comment was expressly not directed at you, but instead at everyone else, to encourage them to recognise you as a troll. By the way, I'm done with this whole business, so please do not leave any further comments here. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:48, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Swahili mali, Zulu imali

Unrelated? The Swahili says it comes from Arabic while the English entry on mali says the Zulu comes from English. DTLHS (talk) 05:44, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

The Swahili comes from the Arabic; on this there is no question. Now, the Zulu is much more confusing; the sound-change is odd, and probably went through a non-Bantu language as a Wanderwort (this seems to be the norm with money, which was introduced rather suddenly to southern Africa; compare the history of Chichewa ndalama). I see that Döhne proposes that imali comes from the Swahili, but swiftly proceeds to prove himself to be philologically inept. The English entry has that statement presumably because the OED gives that etymology (although the OED is by no means infallible, especially when it comes to non-European languages). I would conclude that it's probably correct in this case, though, and that it's just a coincidence. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:53, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

thyrotomy

What do you mean? It's an obvious case of metathesis, and not fat drunken Equinox fingers! Equinox ◑ 02:27, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

I have some meta-knowledge about your meta-thesis... —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:29, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

I met a
guy at college
who said I
should love Jesus
and I've met a
Metaknowledge
but I've never met
a thesis. (Ogden Nash... probably.) Equinox ◑ 02:36, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Cathar

Thanks for patrolling. I am not versed yet in Wiktionary editing, as you probably guessed. I wanted to add the stressor, but I wasn't sure how. (Apparently I'm viewing my screen from the wrong angle, because I didn't see any stressor when I used catholic#Etymology as an example.) Keep up the good work! Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:40, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@Bob the Wikipedian: In any case, you can use the 'Special characters' dropdown menu to input IPA characters. Also, in the future, it's easier to keep a conversation in one place. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:42, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

botiality

It’s a real world. ―PapíDimmi (talk | contribs) 21:38, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

@PapiDimmi: Prove it with durably archived evidence. —JohnC5 21:40, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

http://googl.com/#q=botiality ―PapíDimmi (talk | contribs) 21:43, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

I gave a helpful deletion description and left a welcome message on your talk page. Read those, and then you'll understand. Until you've done that, please do not leave any more messages on my talk-page. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:45, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Question

Why are you reverting my revisions? At least answer me before you do it or answer me in your edit summary. I’m genuinely curious.
―PapíDimmi (talk | contribs) 21:52, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Because I gave you clear instructions and helpful information, and you ignored them and continued to waste my time. I therefore gave you a 3-day block, as warned. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:54, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

It’s kind of ironic considering how your edit summaries told me to leave a message on your talk page if I wanted to question your revision, yet you undid my revisions when posting on your talk page.
―PapíDimmi (talk | contribs) 05:39, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I suppose so. It's sort of like the futility of having your sig link to your talk-page when commenting on your own talk-page. But in this case, you understood what was going on, so there was no problem with me doing that. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:45, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I, personally, felt as though there were a problem, being blocked when merely trying to ask you why you were doing what you were doing.
―PapíDimmi (talk | contribs) 05:54, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Locomotory organ

Any suggestions here?

My 'mission' is to have as many thing precisely defined and connected within the wiki projects as possible, to increase their value as data for training natural-language processing. (just because something is obvious to a human speaker of a language, it's not obvious to machines). Defining phrases does the work of disambiguating the components, e.g. w:Organ has many meanings, but in the phrase it's narrowed down. By encoding the *phrase*, we dont have to disambiguate every time we see the phrase.

Initially I run into the problem that wikipedia is not a glossary or dictionary, so I can only go so far making pages there; I know from experience there's no way we'll get a page locomotory organ there. It also doesn't fit neatly into w:Animal locomotion, or even w:Organ (anatomy); Nor does it work as a redirect to either. (it's meaning is the intersection of both). So I headed to wiktionary. Then I find you deleting aswell..

Can you suggest how to achieve this? Within the database there should be sufficient information .. 'locomotory organ= ...' 'examples = ...'.

In the very near future we should have an AI 'oracle' which we can converse with in plain text - IF we have enough data to drive it, and the wiki projects are the perfect candidates MfortyoneA (talk) 09:57, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

The issue is that our mission is to build a dictionary (and Wikipedia's is to build an encyclopaedia). Dictionaries are for humans, not machines, so though we want Wiktionary to be machine-readable such that it can be transformed into varying formats, those formats are all inevitably for humans in the end. Please do not create any more of these or recreate the ones that have been deleted. The wiki projects are not the perfect candidates for your mission, and you would be best off creating your own wiki or relational database. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:43, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Derived verbs for Bantu

I made a little template, {{zu-dverbs}}, which shows a list of common verb types, depending on the parameters given. See -lala for an example of it in use. This may be useful for other languages as well. —CodeCat 18:59, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

As you know, that's the sort of thing I'm hoping for, though it seems that yours can't predict the regular forms, which is the whole point of it existing from my perspective. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:25, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

It could be done, I just decided not to for the moment. —CodeCat 23:39, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

לאָזט מיך אין ייִדיש שרייַבן

עס זאגט, אַז איך פרייַ בין, צו איר אין ייִדיש רעדן. זאל מיך דאָס פרעגן: וואָס געמאכט איר ייִדיש לערנען? פֿאַר מיר, איך בין אַ פּאָליגלאָט, אָבער מיין שכל פון ייִדיש איז שלעכט. ביטע מוחל מיר פֿאַר אין שלעכט ייִדיש שרייבן. איך נאָר ליבע צו מיין סקילז באַווייַזן. דאנק איר פֿאַר לייענען! — AWESOME meeos ！ * ([nʲɪ‿bʲɪ.spɐˈko.ɪtʲ]) 07:00, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm sure you realise it, but that was pretty awful — a mixture of German grammar and Google Translate-style composition (so some more humility might be in order). But hey, at least it was comprehensible. I learned Yiddish because it's my heritage language, so to speak; it has good literature and is interesting philologically, but I don't think I would have studied it if I didn't already have a basis. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:06, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm interested: where's the German grammar in this? Do you mean word order, particularly verbs at the end of the sentence? Because otherwise I do see the bad Yiddish, but it doesn't look very German either. Kolmiel (talk) 20:02, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes I think it was the word order that Metaknowledge found to be German-like. --WikiTiki89 04:28, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

@Kolmiel: If I translit the text, perhaps you can recognise the "German":

lozt mikh in yidish shraybn

es zogt, az ikh fray bin, tsu ir in yidish redn. zol mikh dos fregn: vos gemakht ir yidish lernen? far mir, ikh bin a poliglot, ober mayn seykhl fun yidish iz shlekht. bite moykhl mir far in shlekht yidish shraybn. ikh nor libe tsu mayn skilz bavayzn. dank ir far leyenen! — AWESOME meeos ！ * ([nʲɪ‿bʲɪ.spɐˈko.ɪtʲ]) 03:46, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't think the lack of transliteration was the problem. Anyway, you clearly know practically nothing about Yiddish and should probably learn more before trying to speak it. I've corrected your transliteration, but the grammar is still terrible. It really smells of unmodified Google Translate. I don't mean to put you down, but you really can't learn a language without actually taking the time to learn it. --WikiTiki89 04:28, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Why did you undo my revision?

Link. ―PapíDimmi (talk | contribs) 05:49, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Because your definition was wrong, obviously, and removed the correct one. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:15, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

It’s not wrong. ―PapíDimmi (talk | contribs) 06:16, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Prove it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:18, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

My dad told me. ―PapíDimmi (talk | contribs) 06:20, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

יין

Hey, does יין always mean "wine" in Yiddish? In Dutch its descendant (nearly?) always means "jenever, gin". Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 10:22, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

What's its Dutch descendant? See also the definition and etymology of יש (yash). --WikiTiki89 11:44, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

@Wikitiki89: It's jajem (always with a final -m). And I like how expressive "burning wine" is for the meaning "liquor". Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 13:05, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

• I've never heard it used on its own in Yiddish, to be honest. It might be a case just to derive from Hebrew. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:33, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

(Semi-?) Accidental block

I was trying to edit from my phone over 4G before, and I found that, due to my IP address (2600:300:0:0:0:0:0:0/24), I was blocked even when I was logged in. Was something about the block made too broad? I can't imagine I'm the only person who was affected by it. Esszet (talk) 19:10, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Crap, I'm really unsure about the safe extent of range blocks (which implies that I shouldn't use them, but this anon kept changing IPs in the range). Anyway, I've removed the block, and I hope someone will enlighten me as to better use of range blocks. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:06, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Alright, thanks. By the way, I've been meaning to bring this up for a while now, and since I'm here, I might as well get your opinion on it. For whatever reason, comparatives and superlatives of Latin adjectives (e.g. altus) are generally simply listed below the declension table rather than being given in the headword line or even included the table itself. Is this something we want to keep, or should it be changed? In any event, it should be written in to the relevant module. Esszet (talk) 22:46, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure where the best place is for them to be, but that's not it. The reason is that it's a relic of our old systems, and nobody's really thought too hard about how to integrate it into our Lua-based architecture now (AFAIK). However, I'm not the best person to talk to about it, because I don't have the technical abilities to make anything come true — you should talk to someone like JohnC5, though I hope you won't distract him away from helping me with the Bantu business. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:01, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Then off we go to Wiktionary talk:About Latin. Esszet (talk) 01:45, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Most ISPs allocate 63 bits of IPv6 address range to an individual, which means that /65 is almost always safe (I do that as a default). On occasion I've upped it to /64, but /24 is 2 billion times broader. At that level, you're blocking an ISP's address range in an entire country. I've only done anything like that once, with that Greek IP who was adding tons of bogus scientific defs- and then I only did it for a short period of time. Fortunately, that was just long enough to get them out of the habit of coming around here.

I've found that the best method for IP-hoping vandals is to block them for two weeks the second I recognize them- whether the edits are good or bad (reason: "abusing multiple accounts"). If need be, I'll make that a moderate range block- but nothing huge. The idea is that changing IPs is enough of a hassle that it starts to get old after a while.

Another technique I'm experimenting with is throttling: if someone within a given IP range tries to do more than a certain number of edits in a certain amount of time, the abuse filter stops them. Since most legitimate IP users take more time than the threshold, no one else notices- but vandals like to do as much damage as they can before being blocked, so it trips them up. My philosophy is that you can't stop vandals 100%, so the goal should be to drain the fun out of the game as much as possible. That, and limiting the number of bad edits they can get away with so there's not as much cleanup.

This doesn't work for every IP: the Tennessee IP that tries to add given-name categories seems to have some kind of cognitive and compulsivity problems, and there are some vandals that take any barrier as a chance to show off their ingenuity. Still, it keeps things more manageable. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:48, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Chuck — that's very helpful. If you look at Help:Range blocks (which I did look at before making said block), it doesn't go into any of this. Do you think you could try your hand at improving it? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:01, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Plural noun class in Chichewa, Kikuyu etc

In the Nguni languages I've created noun templates for, the noun class of the plural is also indicated. See inyoni for example. Do you think you could do this for "your" templates as well? —CodeCat 23:28, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

That's probably a good idea, but you'll have to do it. (Except for Swahili, because of the use of names of classes rather than their numbers.) —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:34, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I can, but I'd need to know how to determine the plural class within the code. It doesn't seem to be provided by any parameters, unlike with the Nguni ones. —CodeCat 23:38, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I think if you actually look at the code, you'll be able to figure it out. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:40, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

@CodeCat: Now that you've done that, could you please fix the display of 9/6 and 1a/6 so that they match the others? (For example, see kiyi.) —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:00, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

I was about to ask about those. It's fixed now. I changed the rules a little so that a plural is only shown if there is a plural class listed in the module. If a plural class is listed but none can be generated and none is explicitly given, then a request to provide the plural is shown. —CodeCat 00:04, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Apparently, something is amiss with uphunzitsi. It is in class 12, which the module says has a plural of class 13. But no automatic plural can be generated as there are no plural rules for this class. —CodeCat 00:17, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for catching it — it's class 13 and I must've mistyped it. Was anything else problematic? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:50, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

No, it all seems fine. But is it by design that there are no plural rules for class 12? —CodeCat 08:38, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it's nearly always added as a prefix on top of another prefix, which wouldn't be predictable. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:27, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

give a monkey's

Why? --Barytonesis (talk) 09:38, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Your comment shows you were concerned about content, not about whether the page should exist at all. That's not what {{delete}} is for. You should only use {{delete}} when the page obviously and uncontroversially should be deleted and not replaced with anything. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:49, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: got it. --Barytonesis (talk) 22:07, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

פֿוסבאָל

The etymology derives it from fus + bal. Based on that I added: "loan translation of English football, probably via German Fußball". Only then did I see that the Yiddish form is actually fusbol. Why is that? Was it borrowed directly from English with adaptation of the first component only? (Is it an American Yiddish form?) Kolmiel (talk) 19:48, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't know the definitive answer to this. What I can say is that fusbal exists, but is much less common, except in modern texts, and that fusbol is both standard and the most common form in Europe as well as in America. Based on this, I presume that it did not come via German, but instead came straight from English with cognate replacement analogous to the case of גרייפּפֿרוכט (greypfrukht). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:49, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks. Kolmiel (talk) 11:58, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

I just want to point out that it didn't need to have come directly from English. Yiddish didn't have direct contact with English in Europe. But in most of the surrounding languages other than German and a few others, this word was pronounced something like futbol. --WikiTiki89 15:03, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

@Wikitiki89 That is helpful. I was only aware of Polish piłka nożna, but I now see the Russian form etc. The unlikelihood of direct contact with English was what struck me. Kolmiel (talk) 16:37, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Apparently even Polish has the word futbol (see pl:futbol, w:pl:Futbol), we just don't have an entry here for it. What I find strange are the Czech and Romanian words fotbal. --WikiTiki89 16:54, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Darcys

That is improper. Is it even attested? PseudoSkull (talk) 17:35, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

We're a descriptive dictionary, not a proscriptive one. You should never use {{delete}} for something that you suspect to be unattested, because those need to be sent to RFV unless obviously vandalistic, or, say, entirely lacking in raw Google hits. In this case, you could've easily seen at google books:"Darcys" that it is in fact attested. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:36, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

@PseudoSkull: Rule of thumb: use {{delete}} only when you yourself accidentally created a page, when the page has already failed RFD/RFV, or when the page is clearly vandalism and not even an entry. If you think the information is wrong, do not use {{delete}}, but rather {{rfd}} or {{rfv}}. --WikiTiki89 18:50, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Blocking

And what is the problem with creating new, cited entries? --46.188.160.135 17:41, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Because you're still incapable of understanding what passes WT:ATTEST and what doesn't. I have found multiple entries that were created without enough cites existing, including one that has already failed RFV before! It doesn't help that the entries are also rather shoddily created, with spelling mistakes and copy-paste errors. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:43, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Look, every singe word was once a protologism. And you are creating much worse entries than I do. Just look your newest contributions and compare them to mine. --46.188.144.113 17:46, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, we only accept words that aren't protologisms now. As for the words I add, they all pass the CFI and yours, not so much. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:48, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

First, stop blocking me so we can discuss, I won't create new entries. My entries are cited and have good definitions, and yours aren't cited at all. --46.188.135.224 17:53, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

And if this entry can pass CFI, I have nothing to say. --46.188.135.224 17:54, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

You don't get it. Every time I create an entry, I check that citations could be added if necessary. For some of your entries, no more citations seem to exist besides the ones that you have placed on the entry — and if there are only two, that's not good enough. Also, your sense of superiority is really galling when I look at how little effort you put into formatting your entries or correctly adding etymologies (DTLHS seems to have fixed them all for you). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:59, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

That is not true. Some entries I newly created have tens of citations from unique sources. I just put the best ones. --46.188.135.224 18:08, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

And some of them don't. Look at the deletion log. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:12, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

You are telling me about my superiority? You are constantly blocking me and deleting good entries, you are clearly abusing your authority on Wiktionary. I am the the humblest man on Earth in front of you and other administrators. --46.188.189.51 18:29, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm sure some of your entries are good, but many aren't, and that wastes the time of the people that have to check them. If your judgment can't be trusted and you create a lot of entries, the damage of wasted time by volunteers who have too much to do already outweighs the damage of deleting a few good entries. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:11, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Do you have traumas from your childhood? Were you beaten up in school? And why are you deleting entries with two or more citations and external links? Do you feel powerful when you block other volunteers and delete their entries? Do you take enough anti-depression drugs or you are just stupid? You haven’t even read a single sentence from WT:CFI and WT:LOP. Why didn’t you tell me: Please, put at least one more citation for your new entries, I would put ten more. You can’t just delete entries because you have problems in your life. You didn’t hurt me while deleting my entries, you just showed how many stupid people have power to do anything they want. --46.188.164.50 10:55, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Your entries have all the marks of running a script to generate cookie-cutter text from wordlists. The percentage of entries that actually match reality is outweighed by the significant wasted time from verification needed to catch the substantial number of bad material, especially since you produce such a high volume. Because you don't seem likely to change your ways (you certainly have been given plenty of opportunity), it's gotten to the point where it's better just to make you stop than to waste time fixing things. As for Meta's background, it would only be fair to ask what trauma in your childhood led you to churn out crap after being repeatedly shown that it's wrong and in defiance of rules, common practices, and repeated requests that you stop. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:16, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

This anon's statements are extremely offensive. This user should be blocked on sight for behavioral reasons alone, ignoring the faulty quality of their edits. Anon, what did you think that placing these statements on this page would do? How did you think this would ever help your case? I cannot conceive of a situation in which throwing completely random insults at another user would result in people helping or believing you. I know Chuck is just gonna tell me that I am ascribing logic to the void, but I always like to ask. Sorry for the spam, Meta. —JohnC5 14:55, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

John, this IP is in fact long-time user User:Pass a Method (or PaM), who got banned for this kind of behaviour before (shoddy formatting, trying to pass uncitable or barely citable words as typical terms, obsessively adding religion-related, usually Islamic, usage examples to random words, and aggressiveness towards people who call them out on their shit). — Ungoliant ^(falai) 16:15, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

@Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV: I've certainly seen the spam of fake Islamic terms in the past. Thank you for this primer on recognizing PaM signs. —JohnC5 16:29, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, but completely wrong. I'm user BrunoMed if you want to know that. Is it all right to delete entries with three or more citations like Meta... did? And his newly created entries have no citations at all.

The percentage of entries that actually match reality is outweighed by the significant wasted time from verification needed to catch the substantial number of bad material, especially since you produce such a high volume.

Wasted time? Do you read your messages? You are volunteers here on Wiktionary, your job is to check other users entries. The same thing would be that dentist say: why do my patients have rotten teeths? It would be smarter for me to kill them and not cure their teeths. And why are the other administrators joining to this discussion? This is between Met.... and me. --46.188.220.169 18:05, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Special:Block/BrunoMed: you have been blocked many times for adding fake words. Move to Urban Dictionary or something. Equinox ◑ 18:10, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

No, I won't because I believe in Wiktionary. The only thing that is holding Wiktionary back are users like you and your friend. And fake words, really? Every word is fake to you except the uncited, poor entries you create. --46.188.204.109 18:23, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

You could be adding perfectly formatted, lexicographic gold, and you would still deserve to be blocked for you incivility. —JohnC5 18:41, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

• @Chuck Entz, on a related note, I'm still hoping that you can improve and clarify Help:Range blocks. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:27, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Oh, my bad. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 20:18, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

It won't be needed for me. I'm done. The problem is that I wasn't asked politely to leave Wiktionary because you are too big-headed to do so. --46.188.238.250 18:36, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Why

are you always reverting my additions to my new Category:en:Genocide? Said category seems appropriate to have, and it could contain a number of articles.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 19:51, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Please see the message I left on your talk-page. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:52, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

all-women

I can’t tell if this term is SOP or not. I know that all can mean ‘exclusively’ or ‘only’, but it seems unusual to find a hyphen next to it (unless the sense is something else). — (((Romanophile))) ♞ (contributions) 07:03, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I dunno. Example quotations? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:20, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Why is an all-women boat trying to break the siege of Gaza?
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines joins the celebration of International Women's Month this year by holding for the first time an all-women training on media safety.
Is there anyone out there at an all-women’s school who can describe the experience, for those who think it wouldn't change if men suddenly enrolled?
One movie my wife and I both like is "Night Trips"; it has one all-women scene but overall is very well done, has good photography, and believe it or not, has decent music. — (((Romanophile))) ♞ (contributions) 18:48, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

That's SOP. Compare the following: "However, the all-Jewish congress did not evolve beyond the theory stage until 1918." —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:19, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

The hyphen is (at least traditionally) totally normal and even required in that situation. "They were all conservatives. It was an all-conservative club. I am half Spanish. I have a half-Spanish mother." Equinox ◑ 22:18, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Rollback of JohnSanford definition of word Panendeism

Hello, was the rollback due to the malformed language language meta and missing '==English==,' '===Etymology===,' ===Pronunciation===' info, etc? If so, I think I've got it right now. JohnSanford (talk) 06:49, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

That was part of it. It's also because you made a remarkably bad definition even worse (and even more lengthy!) and tried to advertise by linking to some website as well. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:37, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

• The website isn't mine and I was in no way trying to advertise, but my understanding is that sources must be provided to justify each claim. I am not able to identify the existing definition with any credible or reliable source. I would be happy to shorten the definition, I just feel that the current definition isn't consistent with what Panendeism is and would like to see that updated. I'm fairly new to Wikipedia and any advice would be greatly appreciated and also followed. — This unsigned comment was added by JohnSanford (talk • contribs).

  Your understanding is inaccurate; we don't need sources, just quotations that show use, and even if we did, that website is not a particularly good source. This isn't Wikipedia. I'll leave you some information on your talk-page. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:19, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

  • Thanks Metaknowledge! I have revised my edit to be significantly more succinct and have removed the reference link - hoping this edit makes you proud! :-) — This unsigned comment was added by JohnSanford (talk • contribs).

    Well, no, I'm not proud. It's still a mess (so you clearly haven't bothered to look at the links I left you) and the definition still doesn't make sense, nor does it seem to have much to do with how the word is used. But I'll leave it be, because I think the term doesn't meet our criteria for inclusion regardless. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:04, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

    I apologize, I made that edit before you provided the documentation links. I will read all of the information you provided and do my best to update it accordingly. What kind of information is needed for verification purposes? I'd be happy to help with that as well. — This unsigned comment was added by JohnSanford (talk • contribs).

    See WT:ATTEST. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:09, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

panendeism

I don't know enough about Wiktionary policy to be helpful with this term - I'll admit that. I was told it was going to be deleted and was simply trying to help preserve it. The fact that the accepted "scholarly" quotes are mostly from people without any sort of formal education or degrees, who provide credentials from made up educational institutes and whose "publisher" status was purchased online and has no physical locality, genuinely makes me doubt the objectivity and thoroughness of the processes involved here. In fact, nearly all of these sources are from Pandeists who simply want to re-brand Panendeism. I sincerely doubt this is how Wiktionary is supposed to evaluate information. I will take this up with an admin. — This unsigned comment was added by SullivanBenjamin (talk • contribs).

So John Sanford told you to help out? I suppose he meant well, but assuming these two accounts are indeed different people, this is a strange fascination you have with that one entry.
Be that as it may, I am an admin, so that saves you a step. The quotes we use aren't scholarly, because we're a descriptive dictionary, not a proscriptive one. That means we reflect how people really write, not how you might want them to. You're coming into this with a preconceived notion of what the word means, which is actually a lot less objective than what we're doing, which is assessing it based on the evidence from durably archived media. If you have further questions, please look at the links I left at User talk:JohnSanford, particularly WT:CFI, before making any further changes to the entry. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:48, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

I actually don't mind your current definition. I just find it strange that for a few hundred dollar investment in publisher licensing and bulk ISBN numbers, people can post whatever they like and it's seen as "credible" information here. I know that Panendeism is not Pandeism, I think that's fairly objective. I guess I assumed that as a sysop, you would be concerned with the credibility of the information provided here. And yes, I'm a real person and I'm passionate about Panendeism and wanted to help preserve the term here on Wiktionary. — This unsigned comment was added by SullivanBenjamin (talk • contribs).

I was a bit unsure of my current definition, but if you think it's fine, then I guess we're done here. And since you clearly didn't bother to read the links I mentioned, let me repeat that Wiktionary reflects the way people actually use language. "Credibility" refers to belief, but we don't believe in sources being authoritative or not — we just follow the way people actually use words. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:21, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Not-so-Awesome block evasion

61.69.224.252 (talk • contribs • whois • deleted contribs • nuke • abuse filter log • block • block log • active blocks • global blocks) Chuck Entz (talk) 04:54, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for telling me. Not sure what to do about the needful extension of his block, though... indef is standard, but maybe just a year so there's some chance of redemption and maturation? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:03, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure, either. This is someone who's so completely emotionally, ethically and socially tone deaf that I'm not sure they realize the implications of what they're doing. This strikes me as more compulsive than malevolent- but of course, that compulsivity is what makes it so hard for them to change. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:16, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

rollback error

[1]???--УмныйПёс (talk) 10:04, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

That was a misuse of the {{rfd}} template- the word is definitely used in Italian. If it's a misspelling, it seems more than common enough to merit a "misspelling of" entry, so it shouldn't be deleted. It does, however, seem to be consistent with the way Italians spell scientific terms, so I'm not sure that it's even a misspelling. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:25, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

user eclecticology

hello i just discovered by browsing some of the user pages that this user apparently passed away. i realis d that it was yu who put th notice up. how did you know that he passed away? we're you a friend of his? sorry for my bad english, as well as asking a sensitive topic 120.17.123.15 10:10, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

It was announced to us here: Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2016/September#Deceased long-term user. --WikiTiki89 14:32, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Question about a definition

Why lacking to precise the use of North Africans for the term Sand Ni**ers when obviously they are not targeted by this slur?

Because you're wrong. It's easy to find citations in which Algerians, for example, are referred to by this term. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:03, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Then show your sources here. Maybe because they are of Arabic decent and not Berber descent who are White. Wiktionary is the only website that include North African for this term. I disagree. We all know that this slur refers mainly to people from the Middle East. Americans don't even know what North Africa is. It doesn't make any sense.

North Africans can be (and mostly are) Arabs. I don't know what you mean by "white", but it's irrelevant. I already gave evidence; search "Algeria" "sand niggers" in Google Books if you want to see for yourself. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:11, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

It's relevant in the sense that Berbers, the people living in North Africa, in a small minority I admit, are white, they have light skin and light eyes. Their skin is not "Sand", so why bothering to include them in this term when in Europe they are not called like this. And the sources you gave me are only Novels. That's the only thing I don't understand.

At Wiktionary, the inclusion of terms is not based on whether you think they're correct or make sense based on skin colour or whatever. They're just based on actual usage. I presented you with actual usage calling all non-European Algerians "sand niggers", so that's conclusive evidence that people do use the term this way to refer to North Africans. For more on what Wiktionary does and doesn't accept, see WT:CFI. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:22, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Indonesian/Malay/Javanese pronunciation template

Hi Metaknowledge, thanks for being fair to a new visitor like me. I have discovered on Wiktionary these 'pronunciation' templates, i.e. something like {{ku-IPA}} and {{ja-pron}}. What do you reckon about doing them for Indonesian, Malay and/or Javanese? ** laki-laki keren itu (yang terbaik dalam segala hal) ** 06:37, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't have the capability of doing it myself, but those languages do have very regular phonologies, so I think it would be quite reasonable. You might want to talk to User:Wyang about that; he's not only a much better coder than me, but also has studied Malay. On a somewhat different topic, we were interested some time back in merging Indonesian into Malay on Wiktionary, considering how they could be treated as dialects and thus have much less duplication of content. Do you have any thoughts on that? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:57, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

It's kinda complicated for the merging. We would have to deal with the translations section on each of the English-language articles. Then also manual labour of ~2,300 words in Indonesian to merge. I'm abstaining with the merge. I will talk to Wyang about the modules. ** laki-laki keren itu (yang terbaik dalam segala hal) ** 08:05, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

And finally, a biased reason, I believe that Indonesian and Malay are not the same, but just two separate languages with mutual intelligibility between them. Much like English and Scots. ** laki-laki keren itu (yang terbaik dalam segala hal) ** 08:08, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

burnout?

You / me: Help:Interacting with other users (this may help as well Wikipedia:WP:BITE + Wikipedia:WP:NOCLUE). I may cite meta. pages as well? Good luck. 84.101.240.74 17:13, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Calm down, and learn what a noun is first. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:22, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

{{delete}}

I can not delete it as the removing all L3s are disabled automatically. This should be fixed (removing all L3s is no longer a problem if the page have {{zh-see}}). By the way, if the page have {{zh-see}} saving it should not be warned for lacking part of speech.

Yeah, those should probably be fixed. Thanks for explaining. (Also, don't forget to use {{temp}} when mentioning a template! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:29, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Gosh, is that filter still not fixed? —suzukaze (t・c) 18:34, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Scouse

Hello
Thanks for your note; Yes, I know I did it again; I was trying to fix it but it was conflicted out. My apologies, I'm not used to editing wiktionary, and the processes are different to the ones I'm used to on WP. it isn't helping that my computer is running really slowly at the moment; please bear with me. regards, Swanny18 (talk) 23:10, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Hawaiian reference

The ref was copied and pasted from Hawaii. How do you propose including this in the category for English terms derived from Hawaiian? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:50, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Does it need to be? Hawaii already is. --WikiTiki89 20:53, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

It's a lemma. Should only the root word be? There are lots of derivations like this, e.g. color and colour from Old Latin or pad thai, Thai, and Thailand all from Thai. Why just this? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:00, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

I hope you realise that most of your examples have little to do with this situation. The fact is that the name of the county came from the area already being called Hawaii in English, and not from Hawaiian. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:04, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Thai, pad thai, and Thailand all come from the same root. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:41, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Alternately, what would you do with e.g. Indianapolis? It is derived from Indiana + polis but Indiana is itself derived from Indian thru Middle French/Norman, etc. So is "Indianapolis" only derived from Greek due to the suffix but not from French/Norman? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:10, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Indianapolis is fine, but Indiana's etymology section could use some work. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:14, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

A better example would be Dutch West Indies. Would it be relevant there to mention that "Dutch" comes from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch, or that "Indies" comes from Old Persian? --WikiTiki89 15:01, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge: Sorry--maybe I was unclear: should "Indianapolis" be categorized as an English term that is sourced from Greek and Middle French/Norman? Or just Greek (since it's a compound of a pre-existing word which itself is Middle French/Norman)? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:41, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Neither. It's what you get when you add English -polis to English Indiana. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:26, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: That makes more sense. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:00, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Chuck. But also my point was that "Dutch West Indies" is a better analogy to "Hawaii County" than "Indianapolis" is. --WikiTiki89 16:57, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

FWOTD nomination

Hi, browsing through the FWOTD nominations, I happened to notrice that my nomination of მამა was missing, deleted without any comment in this edit of yours. May I ask why you deleted it? Mihia (talk) 00:44, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

I didn't delete it; I moved it to the false friends focus week, where it was more appropriate. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:52, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Vote references

I really think Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion/Well documented languages should have vote references, otherwise it's harder to know the fact that it's a voted policy. Probably many of our so-called "policies" were unilaterally created without discussion or votes. WT:CFI and WT:EL themselves are partially voted and partially unvoted, and it's not clear whether the unvoted parts have consensus (they are sometines wrong and outdated and have been deleted in subsequent votes) The vote references would prove that the page is not just a random list of languages and that it does have policy value. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 17:47, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

I think that nobody but you cares about whether a policy is voted or not, and you already keep track of it, so we're all good. If you want a public record, I would advise that you put it on the talk page. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:56, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Votes/2011-04/Sourced policies, which passed in 2011, seems to confirm my view that it's a good idea to have vote references.

Maybe you don't care and I care, but saying "nobody but you cares" is a bit extreme, we can't talk on behalf of other people.

I'm thinking of creating a new vote at some point later, with the proposal "It's always OK to add vote references. (except maybe for minor things, grammar corrections)" This would further check what people think. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 18:11, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

That was six years ago and was for the most central policy documents. I know that people don't care now because last I checked, nobody had commented on the section you started in the BP about this. For the sake of your own success in getting votes passed that actually might make a difference in entries (like the character boxes), I'd advise you to pick your battles and not create too many votes about pointless stuff like this. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:19, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Votes don't expire after six years, and Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion/Well documented languages is a subpage of a most central policy document (it should be merged with CFI, but that's just my opinion). If the principle is good, it should probably apply everywhere, if people agree. Not replying in a discussion is akin to "abstain", not "support" or "oppose", "do" or "don't do".

I accept that you disagree with me, but I believe I'll keep my plan of discussing that idea further and creating votes when needed. This is not pointless. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 18:36, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

We weren't talking about whether the vote was still in force or whether people supported or not. We were discussing whether people care, and I think the evidence is clear that on the whole, very few do. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:40, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Industrial complex

Please see this, which I had added to the Citations tab. It is used in many other ways. How can this be solidified for Wiktionary? Erik (talk) 17:06, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm really not sure it is appropriate for Wiktionary. You seem to be supporting a sort of suffix (although your entry didn't say that explicitly), but isn't it rather a case of various blends based on military-industrial complex? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:21, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps it should be considered a snowclone? --WikiTiki89 18:44, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Swahili verbal derivations

I was told that you're helpful for Swahili. Are pages for Swahili derivations necessary? Should I spend my time endlessly crafting boundless derivations, such as 'yangenunua', 'kumenunua', and 'ingelinunua'? & if so, how do I convey negative? Do I just replace 'subsecutive' from the template with 'negative'?Anjuna (talk) 04:10, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

A quick nomenclatural note: derivations are lemmas in their own right, described at Appendix:Swahili verbal derivation. What you're talking about is the inflected forms, which are listed in the conjugation tables. In an ideal world, we should indeed create them, but it doesn't seem like a good use of time when there are so many more useful ways to help with Swahili around here. If you're looking for ways to help out or are confused about our byzantine entry structure, I can certainly help out — just tell me what you'd be interested in doing. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:51, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Changing hot word to regular word under CFI

Hi, is there any procedure required for upgrading a hot word/hot sense to normal CFI-compliant status or is it okay to remove or change the template straight away? Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 12:34, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

As long as it's cited, just remove the template. --WikiTiki89 15:15, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Wordbook

Hello Metaknowledge. I've seen how you have reverted my edits on the the pages "Wörterbuch" and "wurdboek." Do you think these words are not akin to the English wordbook? How come it's perfectly fine to have the English "wordbook" on the Dutch and Danish pages but not on the German and West Frisian pages? Would it have been better to write "Compare English wordbook"? I would like to learn from this mistake Anglish4699 (talk) 19:29, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

It's not wrong, but it's also not useful. Generally cognates are only given if they are philologically interesting, but something like "wordbook" is extremely rarely used, and chiefly in imitation of the compounds in those very Germanic languages referencing it! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:05, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Bracket

@ Metaknowledge My due apologies for missing out second bracket; that needed to be reverted! Andrew H. Gray 12:13, 17 July 2017 (UTC)Andrew talk

I reverted it because you added something that was entirely wrong to an etymology, which you have been warned about before. I have now reverted your addition of an ungrammatical semicolon. Bear in mind that given your history, further additions of unsourced material to etymologies will result in a block. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 14:50, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Metaknowledge My due apologies for not stating the source of the Gaelic word "cog"; it was actually not from the paperback entitled "Gaelic without groans", by Mackechnie in the 1940s, as a comparison rather than an origin. However, its deletion does not discredit the entry etymology; but I am sorry to have to state that the deletion of punctuation which you have just carried out does discredit that entry, having humbly studied punctuation and grammar to A-level standard. However, if you think that no punctuation is needed there, there is really no point my time being wasted any more on Wiktionary; and I do not want to see you or any other administrator discredited for that matter, because the work that you all put into Wiktionary is amazing. I see any new etymological edits more than once each week. There are still many sourced etymologies that include intrinsically wrong ideas, but I only correct the alarming ones. Sorry to have been so abrupt, but I was horrified! Andrew H. Gray 18:22, 17 July 2017 (UTC)Andrew talk

I don't think you can immediately follow a semicolon with a bracketed clause. This is redundant, because the bracket starts a new clause anyway. Equinox ◑ 18:39, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Also, Gaelic without groans is not a valid source for etymological comparisons. If you can't figure out what is real and what isn't, stop editing etymologies. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:47, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

@ Metaknowledge: My apologies for inserting "r" in "huff", that any etymologist would realise was missing from its source due to an oversight and inadequate checking - I should have let a Wiktionarian administrator insert that! Sorry to have been aggressive over the removal of punctuation at the end of the bracket - it can be there but it is not essential; but the other mistake as to a Gaelic cognate for cog that I inserted; it was the most blatant horrific error I have made on Wiktionary - I cannot thank you enough for seeing it and removing it at once! To start with, when I checked, 'Gaelic without Groans' was by John Mackechnie, not McCaulay; and no such morphology for "tooth" exists in that book or in Irish - I put it from (wrong) memory - thereby flouting at least two stringent guidelines for etymologies on (my) user page and I must adhere to them all, if I ever edit entry etymologies again. This error was so serious that I shall expose it on the Tea Room page and the Scriptorium page! The distress of realising it afterwards was a worse punishment than the blocking! However, I always otherwise avoid edits the entry pages unless I am sure of the etymology. Kind regards. Andrew H. Gray 19:54, 24 July 2017 (UTC)Andrew talk

Special:Diff/47141759

Dear colleague,
maybe it was a failure mistake of mine to mention first the fact that the entry in discussion is disgusting. That is not the point. The point is: It is a word combination which the German grammar allows but nevertheless is not used – neither in literature nor in common speech. Since it is disgusting there is in my opinion no reason to invent or construct such words to be used in an offensive way as mentioned in the entry. It is not a question of "de.wiki editors […] ignor[ing] our rules and act as morality police". Please excuse my poor English. Greetings --Peter Gröbner (talk) 07:21, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Different people have different ideas about what is disgusting. Censorship based on "it's disgusting" undermines our supposed neutrality. Equinox ◑ 09:54, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

The original argument was the non-existence of the word, the disgustfulness only made the case even more important. --Peter Gröbner (talk) 15:45, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

No, it does not make it more important. You are still trying to be morality police, and you should think about what you are saying before continuing to defend your actions. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:57, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

More important or more urgent. Call it as you like. Your are the English native speaker. --Peter Gröbner (talk) 04:58, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Wiktionary is not concerned about morality. If we were concerned about morality, we would not have entries like serial killer. PseudoSkull (talk) 05:21, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

what the hell?

What was this? PseudoSkull (talk) 02:00, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

I dunno. Ask Vahag. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:25, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

@PseudoSkull: It appears to be an elaborate joke (notice the translated title of the cited work). —JohnC5 06:50, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

I saw that earlier and fell for it... —Aryaman ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 17:37, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Alt right

White supremacy seems redundant to white nationalism to me. It would be like an entry mentioning a Jewish racialist movement stating "Jewish nationalism and Jewish supremacism". How is it not redundant? Leucostictes (talk) 22:44, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

The movements do seem to be synonymous, but the philosophical underpinnings appear to be somewhat distinct. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:53, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Well, most alt righters would not call themselves white supremacists. For example, David Duke said "I'm not a White supremacist, I am a white civil rights advocate". So I think most would call themselves nationalist, not supremacist.Leucostictes (talk) 12:02, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

People use euphemisms to avoid the bad reputation associated with certain terms. But we aim to be neutral in definitions. Equinox ◑ 12:03, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Well, I would think nationalist is more neutral than supremacist. If we are aiming for neutrality, rather than accuracy, I think we should only have nationalist. Leucostictes (talk) 12:49, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

@Leucostictes: White nationalist = one who believes that white people should have their own sovereign state, a proponent of white ethnic identity; white supremacist = one who believes that the white "race" is superior to all other races. They are pretty different, but not mutually exclusive. The self-defined alt-right attracts both kinds of people. —Aryaman ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 17:52, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Reconstruction:Proto-Austronesian/nipən

Hi, Metaknowledge. I've seen your changes to PAN *nipən and read the message you left in my talk page. It is true that I modified the original list of descendants given in the previous version of the page, but I didn't remove any of the existing items, as the history shows. When I started modifying the page, the descendants were just a few (mainly, Cebuano ngipon, Chamorro nifen, Kiput lipen and Tagalog ngipin), so I decided to add some more, but I've been careful to not override or delete any of the previously existing items. Apart from adding new descendants, the only thing I've done was to put links to Cebuano and Chamorro entries.

It is true that for PMP, POc and PPn I usually copy-paste the contents that are already present in the PAN ancestor's page. I've done it based on the fact that in some cases I've seen that the lists of descendants contained in PMP (or in POc or even in PPn) are exact copies of those found in PAN. As far as I can see, most entries in PAN lack of a coherent organization when it comes to listing the descendants. It seems to me that it would be better to use tree to describe the relationship between the various items (descendants and itermediate stages) using the appropriate taxonomy. And I have to admit that making those trees is quite expensive in terms of time... In my opinion, listing all the descendants (including those in lower subgroups, like PMP, POc and PPn) has two advantages:

1. It's clear and straightforward (provided that the reader has a basic understanding of comparative linguistics)
2. It gives the reader the opportunity to appreciate how vast the Austronesian family is.

Anyways, thank you for your suggestions. Sorjam (talk) 18:42, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

@Sorjam: My mistake on the first point; I misread the edit diffs. As for using {{see desc}}, it's really important that we centralise these descendant lists so that they can be upkept more easily. Duplication of information makes that much harder, so I would really appreciate it if you could follows that practice. (PS: In the future, you can just respond to a message left on your talkpage there; people will watch it so they don't miss your response.) —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:49, 7 September 2017 (UTC)