User talk:Chuck Entz

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Again, welcome! -- Cirt (talk) 05:28, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

---

Weird new page

Hi. I just saw ̤ https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=%CC%A4&redirect=no be created, and it looked odd to me (given that it took me a few minutes just to isolate and copy the character from the page title) - does this meet the criteria for inclusion as a redirect? I'd rather not try and go through the normal deletion process myself, since I can't really figure out how to copy the title easily. Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 08:25, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

On the one hand, it would be real hard to search for this, so the damage would be minimal if it's wrong. On the other, I'm not sure that it has anything to do with the character it redirects to. I'll see if I can bring it up at the grease pit. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:45, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

It looked like tosh, so I deleted it. SemperBlotto (talk) 08:48, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Restored. Maybe learn the IPA before you decide what's tosh... you can start with Murmured consonant. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 08:52, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

The main question is what we do with combining diacritics- do we really want to have this hard-redirecting to a completely different character with a similar meaning, or do we want to do something along the lines of an unsupported titles entry with a soft redirect to the other character. Chuck Entz (talk) 09:05, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, Mr. Entz!

I hope that you have a great 2021. Tharthan (talk) 17:27, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

And thanks for all that New Year's Eve work you were doing. DCDuring (talk) 19:41, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

You're welcome, and I hope you have a great year! Chuck Entz (talk) 20:19, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Likewise! I feel a little guilty sometimes, because things have actually been better for me: my 3-hour-round-trip commute on public transportation has been replaced with instantaneous telecommuting, and years of not going out enough to do things and meet people has made the transition to the post-COVID lifestyle a non-event for me. Not that I've been enjoying all the suffering, death and catastrophe others have been going through- I really, really hope things start to return to normal this year! Chuck Entz (talk) 20:19, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

"baraxa" in Galician

"baraxa" doesn't even exist in Galician. It's a "castelanismo", a word taken directly, adapting it to Galician phonology or not, from Spanish while NOT being a borrowing. Seriously, it's doesn't appear in the OFFICIAL Galician dictionary (https://academia.gal/dicionario/-/termo/baraxa) and in the Reintegracionist dictionary it has NOT the meaning of "deck (of cards)" (https://estraviz.org/baraja). Please, you have to CONFIRM with sources... — This unsigned comment was added by Afonso705 (talk • contribs) at 03:20, 2 January 2021 (UTC).

@Afonso705 We're a descriptive dictionary based on usage. The fact that something doesn't appear in a dictionary is NOT a valid reason for removing anything. I sympathize with your desire to protect your language, but that doesn't mean we're going to cover things up for you. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:31, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz Tell me why what you're doing is correct? Tell a single reason why that's correct. Provide documentation, sources... Just prove your statement withouth falling in some "you're protecting your language, but..." bullcrap... --Afonso705 (talk) 03:41, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

What I've done so far is correct, since it's in line with our rules- which you know nothing about. Since I'm not about to claim that I know anything about whether the note is correct, it's obviously not the final word. Feel free to discuss this at the Tea Room topic that I've started.

I will say that you aren't the only Galician who's edited that page. The person who added the note is a native speaker, and I don't want to second-guess their judgment based solely on the opinion of someone who doesn't understand the principles on which our dictionary is based. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:15, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

FYI

I have changed the German conjugation tables to be stricter about the auxiliary code they accept; this may flush out some errors. The auxiliary should be one of h = haben, s = sein, hs or sh = either haben or sein. The implementation used to require the same values but didn't throw an error on bad values, which it does now. The most common errors are either spelling out the auxiliary or leaving it out. If left out the correct value can usually be found in the headword. I am going to sleep now but will fix any remaining errors when I wake up. Benwing2 (talk) 07:19, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

𫤏 (U+2B90F)

Hey Chuck Entz,

Regarding the chu nom for "nghiêng", which is usually "迎" [meaning "welcome" instead], I discovered "𫤏" after searching up "nghiêng" on the Nom lookup tool. The link is here, and after typing "nghiêng" with the circumflex it returns "迎" and "𫤏".

Also, "𫤏" consists of "傾" and "迎"; it means "incline, topple" but is pronounced much like the Han pronunciation of "welcome".

I appreciate you decision to consider in my edits. Best,

--MULLIGANACEOUS-- (talk) 04:55, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

My revert had nothing to do with the content. Unless the template has been specifically designed to interpret lists separated by commas, the system assumes you're linking to an entry that has a comma in it when you do that. "迎" is a word, and perhaps "𫤏" is a word- but if anyone were to click on that red link that you left, they would be given the option to create an entry for "迎,𫤏", which is nothing but two characters with a comma randomly stuck between them. What's the definition for "迎,𫤏"? How do you pronounce it? Chuck Entz (talk) 05:12, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply, it is just that I wrongly formatted the link. I have fixed the link. 𫤏 is exclusive to chu nom.

Template:nb...

Perhaps YOU can come up with a stable fix for this? Because the obvious one of escaping or nowiki around the bracket charcters DOES NOT appear to be th answer.

Thanks. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:09, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

The relevant page being forespeak ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:26, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00 I 'm not exactly sure what you were trying to accomplish on the technical side, but I notice that you replaced "]&#93;", which was a double square bracket (one literal + one encoded as an html entity), with "<nowiki>]</nowiki>", which was a single square bracket. The result displayed with one bracket missing because you left it out, not because of any strange technical problem. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:22, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I reverted those changes. Now can you come up with a stable fix, rather than helpfully pointing out the typos? ShakespeareFan00 (talk)

The problem is that I don't know what you mean by "stable" and "fix". To have it come out looking the same as the original, you would just use "<nowiki>]]</nowiki>" instead of "<nowiki>]</nowiki>". Chuck Entz (talk) 20:30, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

What I mean, is coming up with a long term reworking of {{nb...}}, so that it can be used within {{quote}} related templates, without it generating lint errors, which as I've explained elsewhere might be down to either:

1. The parser (or potentially the Lua code in the quote module) becoming confused by the use of [] for something other than an embbeded link. This is I think why the version I reverted to "escaped" certain usages of these.
2. Nested use of {{...}} or {{nb...}} within a parameter that is not expecting there to be embedded spans, and where due to the nested use, a construction like <span title="Some text <span>[</span>This parser will not like this<span>]"</span>...</span> which the linter tool will correctly identify as misnested.

Alternatively a template to escape square-braced/bracketed items that aren't links would be strongly suggested. 09:16, 17 January 2021 (UTC) — This unsigned comment was added by ShakespeareFan00 (talk • contribs).

Revert rfv and rfd

Hi,

You reverted a few of my attempts to resolve verification and deletion. That's OK, because despite having edited some wikis for many years, I haven't edited Wiktionary much until recently. But I tried to read the policies at the rfv and rfd templates, and there are a few things I couldn't understand, so I hope you can explain it.

On the two cases of rfd, on וידע and ויגד, there were no corresponding sections on Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Non-English. Was I supposed to add these sections and say "Keep" there?

About rfv:

• For חלק and רוח, there were no corresponding section on Wiktionary:Requests for verification/Non-English. Am I supposed to add them first?
• For קודח, I responded at Wiktionary:Requests for verification/Non-English#קודח.

Also, at חלק and קודח, I made some edits, and you reverted them, too. Can I restore them, and leave the rfv templates in? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 15:41, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

@Amire80: Chuck seems to have missed this comment, so I'll give a shot at the response.

Re וידע and ויגד: Sije should have added the sections, and failed to do so. However, I agree with you that they are valid forms, and we consider vav-consecutives as worthy of Wiktionary entries. Any change to that would have to meet with consensus among Hebrew editors, not by RFDing a couple entries. I have therefore upheld your removal of the RFD tags, and pinged Sije to make sure they know what to do.

Re חלק: The RFV tag was added by an anon in 2018; I have now added a section at RFV. In order to keep it, we need more than the word of a native speaker or a dictionary; we need three quotations from books (e.g. at Google Books) or similarly durably archived media, as described at WT:ATTEST. I have pinged you there.

Re רוח: The RFV tag was added by Ruakh himself; I have now added a section at RFV and pinged him. It will receive due process and wait at least a month before being removed if no quotations can be found.

Re קודח: As you changed the sense, the RFV could technically be closed, but it would be best if you could add quotations, so there is never any doubt about this sense and what it means in the future.

I have also restored the edits you made that were not removing the tags. Please let me know if you need any help with the RFV process or anything else. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:34, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Μετάknowledge! I took care of them all, but you're welcome to double-check. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 09:34, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

@Amire80: The quotations need to be attributed with the year, author, title, etc. See WT:" for more on quotations, or just copy the format from an existing entry. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:31, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Done, thank you. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 09:10, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Deletion of bruaria

Hi there, a couple of hours after I started this page (and ran into some problems, and had other things to do), this page was deleted by yourself. Is there any way you can retrieve the content to save me the time of recreation from scratch? JimKillock (talk) 22:41, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

@JimKillock: I have cleaned up the page. However, the error you made in the declension suggests to me that you do not understand Latin paradigms well enough to use the DLMBS to make entries. It's not too hard to learn how to format correctly if you already know Latin, but if you do not, I ask that you stop trying to add Latin entries. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:56, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There's absolutely no usable information in that version that isn't already in the current entry. The places where you tried to be more specific, you had it wrong. Now @Metaknowledge has fixed the rest of it for you, so incorporating anything from the old version would be a step backward. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:01, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Tiraflechas

You reverted my edit with no explanation or justification. Yes, in fact, "tiraflechas" is the widespread derogatory term in Cuban Spanish for Hispanic people with significant indigenous ancestry. "Indio" is the standard term, which, like "Jew", can be neutral or derogatory depending on the context. A simple search for "¿Que es un tiraflechas?" will show you I'm not making it up. In case your reversion was about the use of "tiraflechas" as "slingshot" in Cuban - a usage which I, a Cuban, have never heard - I added that part back in. Succubus MacAstaroth (talk) 04:19, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

@Succubus MacAstaroth Thank you. It's never a good idea to assume you know everything about any language- even your own. I have no clue about Cuban usage, so I looked it up. Regarding your comment "No idea where they got that from": it's entirely possible that they got it from the RAE dictionary. Granted that the DRAE isn't that strong on usage outside of Spain, but that usually manifests as leaving stuff out, not in making up stuff. Besides, the correct procedure for something you don't think exists is to tag it with {{rfv|es}} or {{rfv-sense|es}} ("es" is the language code for Spanish) and use the link it creates to post it at Requests for verification/Non-English. If no one can find usage that meets our Criteria for inclusion, it will be deleted. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:54, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Cool. In any case, Wikipedia and Wiktionary are a collaborative and consensus-oriented effort, and I see that I'm not the only one who's complained about you reverting our good-faith edits with no explanation, which is rude and authoritarian. It wouldn't kill you to include a quick explanation when you revert something that seems like a good-faith edit. Succubus MacAstaroth (talk) 11:00, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

(Late to the party, but hey...) @Succubus MacAstaroth: Please understand that Wiktionary has far fewer admins than Wikipedia. As we patrol entries, when we encounter actions that appear even borderline dubious -- like an unknown editor removing a sense that has been in place for years -- we might use the admin "rollback" function, so we can move on to handling other entries. Especially if an editor is unknown to us, we are less likely to go through the manual process of reverting and leaving an edit comment, as many editors (even logged in ones) show up for only a brief time, and never return. It's just not an effective use of our limited time, in many (most?) such instances.

Put another way, don't take it personally. Engage the editor -- as you did here -- and you'll generally arrive at a constructive outcome.  :)

Cheers, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:09, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

dubious reversion of 'chicken'

"Cowardly" shows "chicken" as a synonym, so the reverse should be true.

"Chicken" is usually an adjective when used in the sense of being afraid or being a coward, but "coward" is a noun, so arguably it should _not_ be shown as a synonym. ("She is a coward" does _not_ mean the same as "She is a chicken". I would probably move most of the synonyms from "Coward" to "Cowardly", for the same reason.)

Please undo your reversion of my edit. Martin Kealey (talk) 10:18, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

We also have an adjective section on the same page. If you want to add a synonym section there, that would be fine. Don't stick adjective synonyms in the noun section. Also, the noun sense does exist, even if you aren't familiar with it. I would recommend leaving it alone. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:02, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

"I see, said the blind man" - unexplained revert

Hello! I made an edit on "I see, said the blind man", which was reverted with no explanation of why. The previous sentence of "This form of word play is known as a Wellerism." seemed to be lacking. A Wellerism is just the attribution of a quote to a hypothetical figure. I understand the argument that "I see, said the blind man" isn't a Tom Swifty, but my issue was with the description of a Wellerism being a "form of word play". Paintspot (talk) 04:46, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

"Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?". Why would you "fix" a dubious statement by introducing another that's flat-out wrong?. I don't know much about Wellerisms, but a quote using "said" and nothing adverbial isn't a Tom Swifty- the pun has to be in the manner in which quote is said. Something like "I see, said the blind man, with feeling".Chuck Entz (talk) 06:49, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Protection of climograph

Only administrators can edit. J3133 (talk) 17:09, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Fixed. I think I meant to make the editing protection short term and the move protection indefinite, but somehow both got set indefinite.

I do a lot of protections, but I only do indefinite when something is so inherently obvious that it's unlikely to ever change, like creation protection on the full name of some private individual, or move protection on a common English word. I don't think I've ever intentionally placed infinite edit protection on a mainspace page- if you see another one, let me know. As far as I'm concerned, infinite admin-only edit-protection is like a permanent block on an IP address- as a rule it shouldn't be done (things can change), and any exceptions would require an absolutely iron-clad reason with no other choice. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:51, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

order Scorpaeniformes vs. suborder Scorpaenoidei

It is just a consequence of following Ruggiero et al. The have made Perciformes into a huge order, containing, I think, nine suborder for which we have entries. (See this search.) I believe these have been often treated as orders. I am loath to depart from their scheme — though I wish they had stuck to their stated intent of updating their scheme every five years. We could use WoRMS instead of Ruggiero for the many marine taxa they cover or Deepfin (https://bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12862-017-0958-3) for bony fishes. I already use APG instead of Ruggiero for angiosperms, because Wikispecies uses it, which facilitates the creation of Hyponyms sections for the taxa involved. DCDuring (talk) 17:31, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

I have no problem with your following their scheme, but that doesn't mean that the categories have to follow it too. In the case of Scorpaeniformes, both English Wikipedia and Wikispecies use it, based no doubt on WoRMS and FishBase.

More to the point, the entire category is based on Scorpaeniformes, not on Scorpaenoidei. I'm not sure that Ruggiero's concept of Scorpaenoidei is the same as that of Scorpaeniformes, so changing it might require a major reworking of the categories. If necessary, I can do that- but not if nobody tells me they're doing it. Not that I "own" the category system, but a change that might have a substantial effect on a category with hundreds of members should be discussed somewhere so that it can be reworked. There are a few categories where the taxonomy has shifted but I haven't reworked them yet because the taxonomy is still in flux or I simply don't know what to replace them with. In this case, the parent category is overloaded (in English, anyway), so I would rather that we didn't do anything that might reduce the scope of the category. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:30, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Ruggiero is limited to order and above. If you would like to reform our treatment of fish taxa, please let me know which source you think would be best. If you would like to maintain consistency with Ruggiero, then lots of fishes will be in Perciformes and most of the finer categorization you have added will be lost. Wikispecies follows Betancur et al. (I'm not sure which version. Latest is version 4 (2017), but I can't read the most detailed graphic Fig. 2). Version 4 has suborder Scorpaenoidei, but I can't read the placement. Fishbase doesn't go above order and doesn't have suborders. WoRMS has always made me nervous because they have a superclass called Pisces, part of superclass Gnathostomata. Pisces is a name I haven't found in other databases. Otherwise they seem reliable.

I find it hard to connect our category structure with taxonomy because the circumscription of the categories requires that I map from vernacular names to the taxonomic family names, which I cannot do without a lot of look-up. DCDuring (talk) 19:55, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing my ids

My ego is flattered too. Equinox ◑ 00:44, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Reoccurring issue

Please don't make me be the one to do it. As if that wasn't enough, it's just going to get worse. --Robbie SWE (talk) 20:42, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Deliberate destruction of the meanings of Persian words

A user named user:Fay Freak who has no knowledge of Persian constantly makes malicious edits on Persian words, why do you rollback my correct editing instead of stopping him?--Anti-Sillyism (talk) 14:55, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

I check the meanings I give; you fancy yours, just as you phantasize malicious intent. No, your edits are not correct, in etymologies as well as in meanings to fit fancied etymologies, to such an extent that one regularly discovers you without knowing Persian. You should stop, Irman. Fay Freak (talk) 15:04, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

revertion of my edit kreupaną

Hello. Why did you revert my edit to *kreupaną, wherein I changed the Old Norse descendants from a manual list to one using the desctree template? Mårtensås (talk) 22:40, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Because there was no descendants section in the Old Norse entry at the time, so you were replacing content with a link to nothing. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:44, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Pizza0614

Look familiar? (I think there was some user that was obsessed with nationality prefixes like this) — surjection ⟨??⟩ 11:43, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm afraid not. It seems sort of like the kind of thing BrunoMed might have done, but this isn't BrunoMed. Also, I don't think they're particularly obsessed with nationality prefixes- it's just the latest thing they're running into the ground. I think they're more obsessed with maintaining a high volume than with any one subject. They remind me more of the Montreal IP or Joey Chen. The main problem is when they get into an area where they don't have a reliable source, like this or the rhymes. If they have to rely on their own judgment, they tend to go off into the weeds. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:10, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Category:Jewish Palestinian Aramaic

Why did you delete this? Was there a discussion I missed? We have Category:Palestinian Aramaic, but scholars separate the Jewish corpus (in Hebrew script) from the Christian corpus (in Syriac script). (There's also a corpus in Samaritan script, which we have given a separate language code.) It seems clear to me that these should all get their own categories and etymology-only language codes. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:12, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge: It says “empty category”. And I don’t see any edits in his contributions, to Aramaic pages, making the category empty. So there is probably nothing behind it on his side. The strange thing is of course that entries are labelled “Jewish Palestinian Aramaic” but not categorized. But I think it was never in Module:labels/data/subvarieties in the first place. Fay Freak (talk) 01:14, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

@Fay Freak: I'll add it in, then, and hopefully the category will populate. We seem to be missing categories for a lot of extinct Aramaic varieties, including well-defined ones like Hatran Aramaic, as well as more nebulous ones like "Jewish Literary Aramaic" (the likes of Targum Onqelos, written in a Hebraising JPA dialect but vocalised according to JBA). I think our coverage would benefit from being generous with categories and etymology-only codes. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 09:37, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

And when did we create the code sem-jar for "Jewish Aramaic" (a category that Chuck created)? What is that even supposed to mean? @Fay Freak, it would be good to get rid of that so we can use specific terms instead of pretending that all Jewish Aramaic dialects can be treated as a single language... —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 08:09, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge: This is probably, it has appeared handy to me in practice, a summary term for a presence in multiple of the varieties as well as a fall-back for the nebulous ones like “Jewish Literary Aramaic”, where we are not sure what it is or it is a crossover or the other names are even more ridiculous, like “Babylonian Magic Bowl Koine Aramaic”, so used for the same reason one sometimes refrains from dialect labels being any more specific than “regional” – because it wouldn’t be that correct either and rather misleading if one tried to specify; better than just to label “Aramaic”, which would have happened more without this label. Now you created a number of module errors by removing arc-jar but I see I can replace some of them with arc-jla, but only because the CAL is specific enough. Fay Freak (talk) 16:04, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Normal people count the magic bowls as JBA, I believe — Sokoloff does so, at least. A bare "Aramaic" in etymologies is fine for words common to all coeval dialects, and if we can use linguistic, attestational, or historical clues to do better, we should — but if we have those clues, then we have no need to fall back on "Jewish Aramaic", which is just as bad. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:07, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge we're up to 17 entries in CAT:E. Basically everything there with more than 2 characters except for bewilder, which is an Interlingua translation, and يوشع, which is a bad drive-by entry creation. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:25, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm glad to see that the changes are finally propagating. I'll clean those up soon. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:54, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

I would guess around 2012, from the date the first "Jewish Aramaic" category was created (not by me). Back before category bots and auto cat, I specialized in patrolling Special:WantedCategories so others wouldn't have to waste their time trying to figure out which category boiler to use. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:56, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi Chuck Entz I see that you have invited me to your usertalkpage in case I objected to your reversion of my edit, so I came here to learn. Cheers, Ottawahitech (talk) 22:16, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

白菜

I see you reverted my edit at Bok Choy and added/restored a photo.

Chinese usage itself is confusing, but including two different vegetables under the same name is going to confuse users. Check out the Chinese Wiktionary / Wikipedia pages on 白菜, 小白菜, and 大白菜. Also check out the names in different dialects. Note particularly the article at [1]. You will find that 白菜 means different things in Cantonese and Mandarin; using 白菜 for all is incorrect.

I suggest that English Wiktionary should at least have separate articles for Napa cabbage and Bok choy (or Baby bok choy - there seems to be some confusion in naming). Without this, there will be confusion in the translations given for different languages, not to mention usage in different dialects of Chinese.

The Mandarin for the large variety is 大白菜. For the small variety it is 小白菜. A subvariety of 小白菜 is known as 油菜, and that's what it's usually called in Beijing. (I never heard anything else there.)

Alternatively, have two separate entries under Bok Choy: Napa Cabbage and (Baby) Bok Choy.

Bathrobe (talk) 11:05, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I've reverted your edit for the Mandarin translation of "Chinese cabbage, Brassica rapa chinensis" since 小白菜 is the name for this vegetable in Mandarin (please see Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bok_choy, which links to 小白菜 in Chinese Wikipedia. It also links to 青梗菜 in Japanese Wikipedia -- which is the name by which it is known in Japan -- so I've altered that too.

There is no list of translations for "Chinese cabbage, Brassica rapa pekinensis", which is where 白菜 would be appropriate as a Mandarin translation. Perhaps it would be a good idea to create such a list, as I suggested earlier in this thread.

139.5.219.76 00:04, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Well, I disagree, but I'm not going to revert based on my own limited knowledge. I've been meaning to bring this up at the Tea room, where the Chinese and Japanese editors can weigh in. I'll do that now. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:28, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Good idea.

139.5.219.76 01:08, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Commenting out line break in template innovations

You've just hidden the line breaks within a module invocation in {{RQ:sa:K1237 quote}}. What is that supposed to achieve? As far as I am aware, line breaks before the separators within an invocation just disappear, and adding the HTML comments out makes the invocation harder to read. There are, unfortunately, templates where ends of lines are a problem, and they do need to be commented out.

If there is a benefit from your edit, I need to learn it, because I do create templates that invoke modules and templates. RichardW57 (talk) 10:12, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

I was trying to figure out a rather puzzling hidden module error that was popping up in certain entries using that template, and I was just seeing if the line breaks were involved (they weren't). It turned out to be someone else's template which had a too-obvious-to-spot mistake involving copying too much of a piece of code from one part of the template to another. The error was somewhere in the fallback code that only executes if the script recognition fails. I fixed the script recognition, so the module error stopped, but I never did figure out the error itself.

Cases where a module invocation is fed into a parser function can be extremely hard to debug because the error message is treated by the parser function as just text and not displayed. That means that the module-error category is the only sign that something is wrong, and you can't even tell directly which template has the error. You start looking for anything out of the ordinary, and using comments instead of line breaks is very much the norm in Wiktionary templates.

I finally narrowed it down to which template was at fault by commenting out parts of the entry in preview to see if the error went away, which is what I should have done in the first place.

Executive summary: don't read anything into my edit to your template- it wasn't about your template at all. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:15, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

de references edit

Hey, I can't figure out this edit: Special:diff/62303094 - the result seems to be the exact same, only achieved manually. Brutal Russian (talk) 22:23, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but when you're over the memory limit for modules on the page, having a module looking things up in ginormous data modules to get the same result is a very bad idea. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:09, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Oh! I'll try to keep that in mind. Could you clarify what a data module is? Brutal Russian (talk) 23:19, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

It's a module used to hold data that's used by other modules, which in turn are used by templates. In this case, {{R:L&S}} calls Module:R:Perseus, which looks up the pagename ("de") in Module:R:Perseus/collision-data/LS- most likely to verify that Perseus has an L&S entry for it. This uses 2,875,046 bytes of Lua memory out of the 52,428,800-byte limit (about 5.5%) to get the exact same result as my method. Normally that's not a problem, but de has 76 language sections, all of which use templates backed up be Lua modules to format the headword and add the right categories, among other things. If it weren't for the fact that the memory for certain modules can be used more than once on a page, we would have a lot more in CAT:E the the current 12 Latin-script entries that are there currently. I'm not going to swap out the templates unless I have to, so I've only done this a dozen or so times. In many cases that was enough to bring the entry below the limit and clear the module error, but this one is beyond help. Even so, it can mean that there's more content visible before the error messages start to obliterate the content.

Really, though, no one needs to know about whether a template uses a data module except in those rare cases where it actually makes a difference- at most a few hundred out of millions of entries. Even then, there usually not much you could do about it that isn't already being done. I've taken it upon myself to patrol CAT:E so those who know more than I do can spend time on things I don't have the background for. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:23, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Publicist v Journalist

Thanks for reverting the link, which was in error. I meant to just cut journalist from the definition of publicist. The two jobs are distinct. PR agents are not reporters, right? -Chumchum7 (talk) 13:11, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Hello? -Chumchum7 (talk) 06:33, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

@Chumchum7 Sorry. I forgot to come back to this when I had the time. No, it's not okay to simply remove a sense that's been there awhile (in this case since the entry was created 14 years ago) just because you're not familiar with it. The removal was the main reason for my revert.

Don't forget that we cover the entire history of modern English, from 1500 on, and that language is always changing. As I understand it, the modern occupation referred to by "publicist" is only a century or two old. Try a search in Google Books with everything after 1900 filtered out and you'll see what I mean. With the growth of the publicity-related sense, it's possible the public-affairs-related sense needs to be tagged as obsolete, though it might have hung on in specialized fields. You could discuss it at the Tea room.

For future reference, if you believe a word doesn't exist, add {{rfv}} with the language code (for English that would be {{rfv|en}} and (preferably) post it at Requests for verification/English or Requests for verification/Non-English. People will look for usage to verify that it exists, and delete it if it doesn't. In this case you'd be only challenging the sense, so you would use {{rfv-sense|en}}, but everything else applies. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:50, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Speaking of what is not okay: easy with the tone and with the prejudice. For what it's worth, I was indeed referring to the archaic usage of the word and I am familiar with that usage. I happen to write professionally, and have earned my living this way for over 20 years. I've also been working for free on Wikipedia for around 12 years, where we adhere to WP:BITE and WP:BOLD. If you consider yourself an exemplar at Wiktionary - and if you believe this is a collegial environment - I invite you in future to welcome newcomers and thank them for taking an interest in this project before they leave. Which is what I am doing now. -Chumchum7 (talk) 17:19, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

@Chumchum7 Sorry again. I didn't mean to lecture you, and I got the senses mixed up, too. That's what I get for dealing with this on 4 hours' sleep 15 minutes before work. I realized at the last minute that if I didn't say something it would look like I was deliberately ignoring you, but the adage about not opening one's mouth and removing all doubt seems to apply somehow. At any rate, the part about using {{rfv-sense}} on a definition that's been there for 14 years still applies. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:40, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Small Shiny Object school of historical linguistics

Did you coin this de novo or is there a prehistory to it that you want to elaborate?

I find myself wanting to use it sometimes because it sounds cute, but I am afraid my interpretation has evolved. I call it the school of shiny objects for short.

You have explained its meaning more than once, but the details differ from time to time and in the end it simply denigrates the language aficionado who ignores the comparative method, but without suggesting a solution.

> He belongs to what I call the Small Shiny Object school of historical linguistics- no amount of study can overcome the basic, fatal methodological flaws in his approach.

> Any language has tens of thousands of words, so any pair of languages has hundreds of millions of potential comparisons. The law of averages dictates that there will be plenty of coincidences- hundreds of one-in-a-million occurrences are to be expected. You have to be able to show systematic correspondences, preferably in core vocabulary that people learn in childhood from their family rather than from outsiders who may be bringing words from elsewhere. (Talk:coral Jan 2018)

> This is what I call the Small Shiny Object method: wander aimlessly all over the place, then make a collection of whatever catches your eye. Any language has thousands of words, so any pair of languages has millions of word combinations- that means you can expect a few one-in-a-million coincidences just by rolling the dice that many times. (WT:ES Jan 2018)

> Someone from the "small, shiny object" school of historical linguistics: you leaf through a dictionary in Language A until you find something that coincidentally resembles something in Language B, then congratulate yourself on finding a Deep, Hidden Truth that all those academics, blinded by common sense and knowledge of how language change actually works, were unable to see Right In Front Of Their Noses!!!!! (WT:ES Jul 2019)

There are many aspects to this very common problem. A consisderable amount of writing exists on-line and in the literature. The warning has it that rigorous methodology is needed because, if you throw methodological rigor over board, anything can be derived from everything. The problem is that this rigor cannot be satisfied in many cases.

Albeit tongue-in-cheek, even you yourself commit and admit to it:

> At risk of joining the Bright Shiny Object school of historical linguistics, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to mention Biblical Hebrew פִּשְׁתָּה‎ (pishtá, “flax”) in connection with "*piš" (WT:ES Jul 2017)

I can also find DCDuring saying something similar in different context:

> ... , but most of us are in pursuit of bright shiny objects. (WT:BP Sept 2017)

> This has the aroma of a bright shiny object. (WT:BP 2013)

Said idiom is also linked to from all that glitters is not gold, by the way.

This forum archaeology leaves me confused. I remember the cannabis discussion from 2017 (your contribution has unfortunately not made it into κάνναβις), but the verbose explanations do not appear until half a year later. I do remember the BSO entry page, but trying to place it I draw a blank. I think that one was the first time that I had read the phrase.

My understanding of comparative historical linguistics was only beginning to form then, so I drew a random associations with the phrase, some relevant then others. I fail to reconstruct the develeopment, and I cannot succinctly summarize it either, for it is still an ongoing process, but here are a few idioms that strike in the same direction for comparison.

• Small, bright, shiny object and not letting go sound like it describes Gollum, "my precious"

• Shiny, to shine, bright, are frequent, underspecified glosses for proto-language reconstructions. Similar topics are to cut, to grow, to bend, to burn, etc. This recalls two problems. First, synonyms are expected. The "hundred words for snow" idiom is as relevant for the Saami as is "if all you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail" for the iron age, I imagine. Second, too much imagination is equivalent with too little language understanding.

I am afraid that does not capture the extent of the problem. An appeal to the compararive method does not offer a solution, nor is it evident from the phrase itself. What the phrase does offer is comic relief, though it is dangerously close to ridicule.

I commend your good humor and wanted to expand a little on that. Howbeit, the problem is much grander than that. It should be worth discussing. ApisAzuli (talk) 15:49, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

The expression bright shiny object ("BSO") is an example of what it refers to (autonym). I associate it with the behavior of some birds who seem especially attracted to them. But the attraction is in service of attracting mates, I believe, so the element of distraction is not there in nature. The earliest reference to BSO that I found in a cursory search is:

• 1871, Mrs. Sarah Stuart Robbins, Busy Bees: Or, Winter Evenings in Margaret Russel's School, page 200:

  The bird is called the bower-bird, and is found in Australia. The first thing it does, when it begins to build its nest, is to make a platform of small twigs, looking like a doormat. It then finds some long, slender twigs, and pushes one end of these into the platform, fixing them so that the upper ends cross each other, and form a sort of arch. These twigs are put on both sides, and make an alley. The entrances to this alley are decorated with bright and shiny objects, no matter what, only so they shine.

  DCDuring (talk) 17:46, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

I thought up the application of small shiny objects to historical linguistics myself. That's not to say someone else might not have come up with it independently before I did. I started out calling it the "magpie school of historical linguistics", but most people don't know about magpies and small shiny objects, so I decided to make the explanation into the term. The idea occurred to me from seeing the almost compulsive way that some people were drawn to coincidental word similarities. I was familiar with the attraction to small shiny objects among magpies and pack rats, though it seems to be fairly common throughout the Corvidae. Bowerbirds aren't that far from corvids on the passerine family tree, so it doesn't surprise me that they do it too.

By the way: I believe the "100 words for snow" concept was originally applied to the Eskimos, not the Saami. The Inuit and Yupik languages are polysynthetic, so they make use of affixes instead of separate words to convey most of the meaning in sentences. It's very easy for someone who doesn't know the language to mistake various combinations of prefixes, suffixes infixes and circumfixes on the same root for separate words. Of course, the Uralic languages are similar in their use of affixation, so Saami languages might be similarly misunderstood.

At any rate, I've studied so many different things that I'll probably never be a real expert in anything. It does make it much easier for me to pick up a useful level of understanding with various subjects, and I've found that I'm fairly good at and enjoy explaining them. This is what I do for fun. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:53, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Rollback Error

I think your rollback at Special:Diff/61618311 was in error. 131.255.4.196 22:43, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

You may prefer random chunks of word salad to definitions and examples of usage, but this is a dictionary, so I'm afraid you're out of luck. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:12, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

re. booking

I think your rollback is in error, so I've left you a message on your talk page. --Kent Dominic (talk) 09:40, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

denotes

What did I do wrong here that necessitated a revert? If there are issues with the templates I used, I'm not aware of them. Could you enlighten me? embryomystic (talk) 04:31, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

There was a module error due to misuse of an IPA template. Look at the diff in the edit history. The fact that you had to ask me what was wrong speaks volumes. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:35, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

I see it now, but there's really no need to be insulting. embryomystic (talk) 21:11, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Simple drugs

@Chuck Entz I see that you have reverted my edit on the Wiktionary page for "drugs," in which there was a new entry for the term "simple drugs." The phrase is used extensively in medieval literature to describe natural herbs that are used medicinally, and whose efficacy is proven without the need of combining them with other herbal medicines (compound medicines), although they still can be used with compound medicines. Just to see a few of the examples of where and how the term is used, please read the first paragraph here, and read the first paragraph here, this last one being about a well-known composition written by Ibn-Baytar (whose name you can check on Wikipedia), as well as this here, which shows the name of a book written by another medieval scholar, Al-Idrisi (whose name you can Google), who made a pharmacological list of medicinal herbs, which in their jargon was also called "drugs" because of their curative effects. It should be pointed out here that the term "Simple drugs" is also used synonymously with the term "Simple medicines," or at other times simply "Simples". And what will we say about Galen, a well-known Greek physician of the 2nd-century who wrote a book on Simple drugs?! If you wish, you can access a scholarly review of its content here. See also Template:cite journal. You see, this is a term used, principally, in Medieval usage, and which scholars of Medieval literature encounter all the time. Wherefore, and in consideration of all the above, the word entry on Wiktionary is valid and helpful.Davidbena (talk) 17:49, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

I say, you are confused. This usage is already covered by the page simple: “(chemistry, pharmacology) Consisting of one single substance; uncompounded.” … ”A herbal preparation made from one plant, as opposed to something made from more than one plant.” And it does not belong to drugs. Nor did the authorities you adduce use the English language. In Ibn al-Bayṭar’s “jargon” it is مُفْرَد (mufrad, “simple”) and مُرَكَّب (murakkab, “compound”). Fay Freak (talk) 19:28, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

If I'm confused, it was only in the sense that I did not know that an entry already existed in the word "simple". As for Arabic, I am familiar with the language, and when "Simple drugs" are used in their translated texts, it is only in the sense that they are not compounded, which is precisely what we wrote in the edit before it was reverted. The entry "Simple drugs" was actually an adjective describing medicinal herbs/plants that are not compounded. While the Medieval authorities cited by us did not use the English language, their language has been translated and much of their terminology is now used commonly in English translations, such as "Simple drugs."Davidbena (talk) 02:43, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Adjective

1. (chiefly pharmacology) Simple drugs (used in Medieval texts to designate drugs and medicinal herbs that can be singularly used, without being compounded with other medications).

(edit conflict) @Davidbena I'm quite familiar with simples. I've been an herb hobbyist for almost half a century. When I was 15 or 16 I joined 2 different herb societies, and the local one put me in charge of their public herb garden after less than a year. I taught myself Old English so I could read Bald's Leechbook. This isn't about ignorance of the topic. On the contrary: I deleted your contribution because it made very little sense in general- and absolutely no sense at all as a dictionary entry.

First of all, your entry was for an English adjective, like hot, cold, simple, complex. Adjectives modify nouns: big rabbit, simple drug, bad idea. What does "drugs" modify? "That's a real drugs X". It doesn't work. Second, Wiktionary doesn't include Middle English (before 1500) or Old English (already starting to disappear at the time of the Norman conquest in 1066) as English. They're treated as separate languages. That means "Medieval literature" simply can not include English. Dioscorides didn't write in English- he wrote in Greek. I know, because I've seen images of early manuscripts and read the text. The Arabic writers didn't write in English, they wrote in medieval Arabic. I can guarantee you that the phrase "simple drugs" will never be found in any medieval manuscript anywhere. Ever.

This is a dictionary. It's about words and phrases, etc. What do they mean, how do you pronounce them, how do you use them in a sentence. Instead of writing about the word "drugs", you were trying to write about the subject of drugs. That's what encyclopedias like Wikipedia do. You could try adding something there, but they've already got extensive coverage of all kinds of drugs- herbal and non-herbal. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:03, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Chuck, for this explanation. Actually, the Arab writers' use of the phrase الأدوية المفردة (= Simple drugs) is a take away from Galen's Latin phrase "De simplicium medicamentorum" [see Arabic Pharmacognostic Literature (2016), p. 183, above] - and which Arabic phrase entered into the Arabic language and is now understood as such. Those who encounter the English phrase, "Simple drugs" (and which as you correctly pointed out is not a true adjective) may still want to know its meaning, under the entry of "drugs." Currently there is an entry for the pharmacological use of "simple" in the Wiktionary page of simple. Can we agree, with your assistance, to add an explanation note/filler on the Wiktionary "drugs" page? It sure will help alleviate confusion about the phrase. As it is now, I have resorted to two links on Wikipedia, when writing there "Simple drugs." The word "Simple" links to the Wiktionary simple, but the word "drugs" links to the Wikipedia article Medicinal plants.Davidbena (talk) 03:19, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz, with your permission, I would like to say one more thing related to the above.

1. We find in English words gerund, which simply means "a word derived from a verb and functioning as a noun," as, for example, words in English with the -ing form of a verb when functioning as a noun, as writing in "Writing is easy."
2. We also find the opposite, where nouns function as a verb, and which figure of speech is technically called a denominitive, as in the English expression "to man a spacecraft," from the noun man.
3. So, too, some adjectives have evolved into nouns. For instance, the word "simple / simples (pl.)" (in the pharmacological sense) is a stellar example of a construct-state where a noun (= drugs) and an adjective (= simple) have combined to form a noun. Although here the word is shortened, let us not forget that the noun is sometimes used in its original context, "simple drugs."

All that I'm asking is that we show an example (e.g.) of its usage. This venue, at least to me (in my humble opinion), seems to be the logical and natural place for the definition of this word, rather than starting a new article on Wikipedia, just to define for our readers the meaning of this phrase. Be well.Davidbena (talk) 12:46, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Noun

1. (chiefly pharmacology) Simple drugs (noun used in Medieval texts to designate drugs and medicinal herbs that can be singularly used, without being compounded with other medications).

Your Rollback on

Your Rollback on Tamilism is error. Please Change it back! Sources for my definition: https://books.google.co.in/books?id=JFRRl1vv0kwC&pg=PA393&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false and https://tamilreligion.org/home/ Thank you! VelKadamban (talk) 17:30, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

You don't understand what a definition is, and your formatting was all wrong. A definition for "Tamilism" should answer the question "what does 'Tamilism' mean?". "Tamilism" doesn't mean "Tamilism Refers to Tamil Religion". That's just talking about the word. It also doesn't mean "Tamil People native to Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka , and Tamil Diaspora People who live In many Countries Refer their Religion as Tamil". That's just talking about Tamil people and what they call their religion.

Also, each line that starts with "#" is supposed to be a different definition. Your definition is formatted as three separate definitions, two of which make no sense as definitions.

You also don't write English very well: you capitalized a number of words that should be lowercase and you left out several words like "the" and "to". Chuck Entz (talk) 04:43, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Recent bot blockings

I'm just curious, how the heck do you know these are bots when they haven't even made any contributions? User: The Ice Mage ^{talk to meh} 14:18, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Abuse filters. I don't know that it makes any difference, but it's so easy to spot these once you look at the text. There's this one Indonesian bot program that tries to simulate a personal user page, but they've been going through a continuous cycle of paraphrasing to avoid detection by filters that keep being updated to spot them for so many years that the text is really bizarre and ungrammatical. I just do it for a change of pace between other tasks. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:38, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/65.28.70.107

Bringing to your attention this editor who has an anti-Sylheti agenda. Thank you. -_⸘- dictātor·mundī 12:16, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Some sysop please block this vandal! (@Metaknowledge, Kutchkutch) -_⸘- dictātor·mundī 08:59, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

French IPA question

I know you might not be able to help since you list your French level as fr-1 but perhaps you can ping someone else in that case. I recently added French to damnable after referring to fr.wikt and when I did I noticed the IPA that is generated by {{fr-IPA}} is not the same as what is shown on fr:damnable. According to fr.wikt it's pronounced /dɑ.nabl/ but {{fr-IPA}} here generates /dam.nabl/. The fr.wikt pronunciation seems weird to me, but I'm not super confident with pronunciations either really. User: The Ice Mage ^{talk to meh} 14:32, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Probably better to bring it up at the Information desk, though @Mahagaja is usually a good person to ask. If I had to guess, I'd say that frwikt was trying to show that the "-am" is really a nasalized vowel, with the nasalization being due to the following consonant and not, therefore, a phoneme that would be shown in a phonemic IPA rendering. That wouldn't explain why words like French dance have nasal vowels, too. Either that or they forgot to add the nasalization diacritic (I notice that their IPA appendix has nasal vowels). As for our version: one could argue that the nasal vowel is just the surface rendering of an underlying a+[nasal consonant]. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:00, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

French damner and its derivatives aren't pronounced the way they're spelled. You have to use a respelling as |1= of {{fr-IPA}}. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:03, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Your rollback

The clarifying hint is immediately visible at this place for everyone without interrupting or disturbing the structure of the page in any way. I have quite the impression that this vandalistic rollback is a racist action. It is probably intended to prevent readers of the colonialist-influenced name "Swaziland" from learning the truth that this name has been obsolete for 3 years now and is nothing more than an anachronism.--Bestoernesto (talk) 04:08, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Read WT:EL. We have a a very specific page structure that your edit trashed. Also, we don't shout at our readers or rap them on the knuckles with a ruler- we explain the facts from a neutral point of view, and leave it at that. Don't get me wrong: it's certainly relevant that Swaziland is no longer the official name for the country, and I have no problem with including a link to Eswatini in the appropriate place, with a gloss saying that it's the official name.

That said, we're a descriptive dictionary. As long as most English speakers refer to the country as Swaziland, we're going to document that fact. Very few English speakers know or care about the official names for most countries (even ones populated by white people), and pretty much no one is going to be offended by or think less of anyone who uses the officially proscribed name. To pretend otherwise would be to mislead our readers. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:00, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Usage notes: When to use

Thanks for your guidance at here. I'd like to ask when is usage notes necessary in entries? It seems that WT:STYLE didn't mentioned much on usage notes.廣九直通車 (talk) 04:37, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Usage notes are generally for explaining aspects of how a term is used that go beyond what you can say in a definition, or giving more context to better understand the meaning. It's all about the terms as part of the language, not about the concepts they refer to. You were comparing the Singapore legal system with those that use the term "habeas corpus". That would be like adding a usage note at apple saying "apples don't grow in Singapore. Here's what you can use instead." Your usage note might work as a section in Wikipedia's article on Habeas corpus, but it has nothing to do with the phrase "habeas corpus" as a phrase. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:17, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

I think the argument is that 'habeas corpus' is an obsolete term (but TBC) in the English of Singapore - a different term is used for the same concept. It's a bit awkward when externals render words obsolete - how well understood is tupenny ha'penny in England nowadays, where we no longer use halfpennies. I've noticed the changes by being met with incomprehension when asking for a bag of florins (a florin is or was a coin with the value of a tenth of a pound) or a twelvepenny (/-fp-/) stamp. RichardW57 (talk) 07:26, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Locked page

I am unable to edit User talk:Chuck Entz/2014 as the page is locked. It needs an etyl cleanup, so can you do it yourself? Thanks in advance. DonnanZ (talk) 09:06, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Wingerbot does etyl cleanup perfectly, unlike you who indiscriminately changes the deprecated templet to der instead of the appropriate templet. You should be blocked from editing etymologies. -_⸘- dictātor·mundī 12:16, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

That is irrelevant in this case, an edit to a user page which I cannot do. DonnanZ (talk) 12:30, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

You are so obsessed with etyl cleanup that you do not even spare a user page, ha ha! -_⸘- dictātor·mundī 12:58, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Many user page contributions written in the etyl era have to be cleaned up to remove them from the etyl cleanup lists. It's about time you thought about it, and did some etyl cleanups yourself, instead of criticising others. Apologies are due to Chuck Entz for using up his space unnecessarily. DonnanZ (talk) 13:36, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Now cleaned up. Thanks. DonnanZ (talk) 09:46, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Curious about a user ...

If this query is inappropriate, apologies and please let me know.

I'm wondering if AlexiareaNike is the same personage as Mare-Silverus, which account was self-described as tied to one Japanese-incompetent anon from the UK. I'm seeing a similar pattern of possibly-obsessive, leaning-towards-encyclopedic editing. If this is the same person, a protective block may be warranted -- the anon, and then Mare-Silverus, proved mostly impervious to any attempt at explaining, and ultimately I had to block them lest I spend all my time here just cleaning up after them.

Cheers, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:59, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Looks like it- adding same bad content to same pages as Mare Silverus and recent London-area (per main geolocation, not alternate) BT IPv6 IPs. I ran checkuser on them and blocked them, but no need to discuss the details. Unless they change ISPs they should be locked out of our entries until November, no matter what account they use. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:07, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, Chuck! I'm happy to know I have one less tedious anxiety clogging up my time. :D ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:52, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

A note.

Hi. This week, I've sent you 5 emails. You haven't replied to any of them, so I'm afraid you've not read them. They are really important and I request you to read them asap. You can reply back there or just confirm here that you have read them all. Regards. 🔥ಶಬ್ದಶೋಧಕ🔥 04:05, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

This week has been incredibly busy and stressful IRL, so I haven't had the time or the energy to respond. I'll try to get to it in the next day or two. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:15, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

That's fine, but please try to get to it as soon as possible since it's really important; else I'd not have notified you here. I've sent you another mail containing the contents of all the 5 emails as I thought it would be easier to view all of them in one message than searching for each one. 🔥ಶಬ್ದಶೋಧಕ🔥 10:31, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: Can you see it now and reply there/confirm you've read that here? I am sorry for continuously pestering you with this and I do understand you might be busy/stressed but this is super-important. Please try to get to it as soon as possible. Thanks. 🔥ಶಬ್ದಶೋಧಕ🔥 07:31, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Added citations and content

Hello, I have had added a couple of additional content along with required citations. But they were reverted. I feel it might be because of one of the lines was repetitive. However, other information provided were new and was supported by required citation. Pls review. Thanks. Lira Rakshit (talk) 07:21, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

No, I reverted because this is a dictionary, and you were making an encyclopedia article out of it. Please see our entry layout page. The content you added would be fine somewhere else, but not here. As for the references, we don't have the same requirements that Wikipedia does, but, just like Wikipedia, we don't use wikis as references. We do link to Wikipedia so readers can get more information, but we have templates for that- there's no reason to use a raw link. It's especially bad because you linked to the mobile version: people with computers would be left wondering why Wikipedia looks so strange all of a sudden. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:08, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Invitation for Functionary consultation 2021

Greetings,

I'm letting you know in advance about a meeting I'd like to invite you to regarding the Universal Code of Conduct and the community's ownership of its future enforcement. I'm still in the process of putting together the details, but I wanted to share the date with you: 27 June, 2021. I do not have a time on this date yet, but I will let you soon. We have created a meta page with basic information. Please take a look at the meta page and sign up your name under the appropriate section.

Thank you for your time.--BAnand (WMF) 15:06, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

found art

Chuck Entz—Rick Lowe's found art is cultural preservation.[2] This is not an instance of the common, everyday article being elevated to the status of art, which is the general meaning implied by the central term "found object". If all of the museums of contemporary art as well as glossaries of art terms use use "found object" in this way, then that should be considered the central usage. Bus stop (talk) 21:00, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

@Bus stop That may be, but you took the text out of the quote and left the introduction to it flapping in the breeze. Please pay more attention to what you're doing. Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 21:06, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

"Bus stop" and I have got a long-running feud about the legitimacy of the term "found art". Wikipedia eventually told me to shut up (see talk page) and yet they still have a redirect. The real truth can easily be seen by our citations at found art. I will defend my home ground. Not because I hate Bus stop but because it's patently obvious that this phrase has this meaning. Thanks for listening. Equinox ◑ 03:11, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I know. Apparently the angels dancing on the head of the pin have to use the right secret handshake in order for it to be a proper use of the term. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:36, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

A "proper use of the term" is a use of the term in accordance with the definition given in the entry. As we know the term "art" has more than one usage. The reference in the example given is to the area of art in which this artist (Rick Lowe) works. Further along, in the same paragraph, is a reference to "found objects". A lengthier quote, with both "found art" and "found object" bolded might help the reader to see how these terms are used. This is the paragraph in its entirety: "Rick Lowe of Project Row Houses [in Houston] has evolved from a young, hard-working artist whose found art is cultural preservation. I am currently working with Rick in Mobile, Alabama. Last week we spent several days out collecting found objects from historically significant shotgun-house sites in Mobile's neighborhoods of Texas Hills and Africatown." Bus stop (talk) 23:21, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I stumbled across this issue by accident, and have been exploring this terminology space.

Bus stop claimed in this edit comment that “... attestations for "found object" vastly outnumber attestations for "found art"...”. Out of curiosity, I did some quick-and-dirty digging in Google Books.

• google books:"found art" -- 23,100 ostensible hits.
• google books:"found object" -- 44,100 ostensible hits.

Based on the above, we might think that "found object" is almost twice as common a term than "found art". However, the hits for "found object" include instances that are clearly not about art, such as “Decision table for transition into state of found object” in the book Risk, Reliability and Safety: Innovating Theory and Practice: Proceedings of ESREL 2016 (Glasgow, Scotland, 25-29 September 2016), or “begin Search ( Name , LevelNo , Found , Object )” in the book Brinch Hansen on Pascal Compilers.

• google books:"found object" art (to limit results to the domain of art) -- 20,000 ostensible hits.

Here, we find that "found art" might instead be the more prevalent collocation.

Bus stop has previously criticized various citations of "found art" as not sufficiently academic or scholarly (paraphrasing). In the Google Books results for "found art", I came across the 1999 book Art and Interpretation: An Anthology of Readings in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, which title at least sounds rather high-brow and academic, and which writing sounds similar (emphasis mine, italics original; Google's highlighting seems broken, but this is in the left-had side of page 259):

On the surface, anyway, there is no mystery about the making of the great bulk of works of artifactual art; they are crafted in various traditional ways—painted, sculpted, and the like. (Later, I will attempt to go below the surface a bit.) There is, however, a puzzle about the artifactuality of some relatively recent works of art: Duchamp's readymades, found art, and the like. Some deny that such things are art because, they claim, they are not artifacts made by artists. It can, I think, be shown that they are the artifacts of artists. (In Art and the Aesthetic I claimed, I now think mistakenly, that artifactuality is conferred on things such as Duchamp's Fountain and found art, but I will not discuss this here.)

As best I can tell, found object and found art appear to be synonyms as actually used (i.e. if we are being descriptive, as is the goal of Wiktionary). Along similar descriptive lines, if sufficient sources can be found explicitly stating that one or the other is the preferred term in specific contexts, we should include labeling and/or usage notes to clarify. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:14, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

@Eirikr You are saying that the goal of Wiktionary is to be descriptive but isn't that the goal of Merriam-Webster? For the term "found art" Merriam-Webster says "The word you've entered isn't in the dictionary."[3] Bus stop (talk) 19:49, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

@Bus stop: You should be well aware that lack of evidence isn't evidence of lack. Merriam-Webster has different criteria for inclusion.

I could just as well counter that the JST科学技術用語日英対訳辞書 ("JST Japanese-English Translation Dictionary of Science and Technology Terms") includes the term "found art", bilingually no less, or that the Urban Dictionary also has an entry. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 06:26, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

@Eirikr: Is there some reason that you apparently want the term "found art" represented? There are other related terms but I don't see you clamoring to give them prominence on Wiktionary and Wikipedia. Yesterday you argued for the presence of the term "found art" at the Wikipedia "found object" article. It is natural for additional language to crop up around the terms representing significant concepts. I would posit that the core terms are "objet trouvé" and "found object". The Wikipedia article has good sourcing to support that. But there are other, related terms, which you are not arguing for—not on Wiktionary and not on Wikipedia. I'm thinking of terms like "found object art" and "found materials". These receive Google hits and I know I have encountered them in use. You aren't arguing to get those terms added to the Wikipedia article and so far as I know you aren't arguing to get Wiktionary entries created for "found object art" and "found materials". Why are you so concerned with the one term "found art"? Wikipedia and Wiktionary are obviously different projects. But there should be a rational approach to constructing both, in which we first regard good quality sources and usages, and only secondarily regard what very well may be offhanded usages and even outright errors. That you are saying that "Urban Dictionary" has an entry for "found art" is problematic as it is a poor quality dictionary. Bus stop (talk) 03:59, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Your intellectual dishonesty is disappointing. You've engaged in multiple logical fallacies above -- ignoring CFI, appealing to authority, misdirection, straw man, to name a few. I think I may be done with this. Good day. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:32, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

OK, I've made the edit. If there are no objections, that ends that. If there are objections, let's discuss this further. Bus stop (talk) 00:14, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Chuck Entz—why are you making this revert? Bus stop (talk) 01:53, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: After reverting me the first time you wrote "@Bus stop That may be, but you took the text out of the quote and left the introduction to it flapping in the breeze. Please pay more attention to what you're doing. Thanks!" You seemed to understand the problem. My edit was done correctly this time. Why are you reverting me this time? Did I leave the "introduction to it flapping in the breeze" this time? No I did not. So, what is the problem this time? Bus stop (talk) 15:36, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

On a related subject, I've reduced the quote at found object. Bus stop (talk) 20:30, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

@Bus stop The technical problem is what initially brought it to my attention, and was enough to justify the revert on its own. After seeing your participation here and being reminded of your past with this term, I no longer trust your judgment when it comes to any aspect of this entry. Simply put, you hate this entry, but you can't delete it, so you're using any excuse you can find to chip away at its content.

In my opinion, this quote fits the definition and there's no reason to remove it: basically it says that he does art with found objects for the purpose of cultural preservation.

As for the edit at found object: it fits the pattern of your removing anything that uses the term "found art", but the removed section was unnecessary in that context and should have been removed anyway. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:05, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: You are misreading the sentence. The word art means "skillful creative activity, usually with an aesthetic focus" and the word art means "skill that is attained by study, practice, or observation". Which "skill" is Rick Lowe proficient in? Rick Lowe is proficient in the skill of "cultural preservation". This has nothing to do with the idea found objects or objet trouvé. Rick Lowe's skill is not in painting. Rick Lowe's skill is not in sculpture. Rick Lowe's skill is not in performance art. Rick Lowe's skill is not in conceptual art. Rick Lowe's skill is in "cultural preservation". Not every occurrence of the two words "found art" is an instance of the particular phenomenon in visual art referenced by the terms found objects and objet trouvé. You do not find discourses on "found art". I have no personal interest in this whatsoever. I am trying to improve the dictionary. Are you aware of the amount of scholarly writing that goes into exploring the concepts of found objects and objet trouvé? Yes, occasionally in non-scholarly writing a phrase like "found art" or "found object art" is used. And by the way I do not object to the very existence of the entry found art. I am merely addressing one inappropriate quote. When I get a chance I would like to create an entry for "found materials", which is a much more substantial term than "found art". As a term, "found materials" is arguably as important as found objects and objet trouvé. A good deal of scholarly writing uses the terminology "found materials". Bus stop (talk) 16:55, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Comment: An alternative interpretation of the quoted sentence at issue is that the found art, which Rick Lowe creates, also results in the outcome of preserving culture. Without more context (which Google Books is currently refusing to show for me), we cannot make the kind of definitive statement that Bus stop attempts to assert above.

Bus stop also claims that "found art" is somehow not as "substantial" of a term, apparently ignoring the Google Books hits I listed further above, where "found art" is actually more common than "found object", in "art" contexts. It is also more common than "found materials". Here is a breakdown of frequencies again, including "found materials" this time:

• google books:"found art" -- 23,100 ostensible hits.
• google books:"found object" -- 44,100 ostensible hits.
• google books:"found object" art -- 20,000 ostensible hits.
• google books:"found materials" -- 40,100 ostensible hits.
• google books:"found materials" art -- 13,900 ostensible hits.

When properly limited to the context of "art", the collocation "found art" is actually the most common of these three. While hit counts are not the be-all-and-end-all of frequency analysis, it is strongly suggestive that "found art" is actually used by English-language writers, and should be given its due as an entry.

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:01, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

@Eirikr: What is "found art"? If I find a painting on a bus that someone inadvertently left behind when they got off the bus—isn't that "found art"? And isn't that usage "limited to the context of art"? A Google search that is "limited to the context of art" is not going to filter out such bogus usages as "found art" that was misplaced, or instances in which someone said "When I was in college I found art boring." You say "Without more context (which Google Books is currently refusing to show for me), we cannot make the kind of definitive statement that Bus stop attempts to assert above." Here is more context: "Rick Lowe of Project Row Houses [in Houston] has evolved from a young, hard-working artist whose found art is cultural preservation. I am currently working with Rick in Mobile, Alabama. Last week we spent several days out collecting found objects from historically significant shotgun-house sites in Mobile's neighborhoods of Texas Hills and Africatown." And in the quote that I trimmed back at found object you can see even more context, seeable here. In both of those instances of "context" we find the author, Robert Craig Bunch, using the term "found object". He writes "Over a period of years David brought me a series of found objects to use in my work." And he writes "Last week we spent several days out collecting found objects from historically significant shotgun-house sites in Mobile's neighborhoods of Texas Hills and Africatown." Clearly Robert Craig Bunch favors the term "found objects" over the term "found art". And the title of the book is "The Art of Found Objects: Interviews with Texas Artists". Bus stop (talk) 19:26, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

The term "found material" occurs 19 times in this essay. The term "found object" occurs 26 times in that essay. The term "found art" occurs zero times in that essay. This is an essay associated with the New Museum. The Wikipedia lede to the New Museum article reads: "The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side." We are discussing terms that have their most important applicability in contemporary art. (Also 20th century art in general since Marcel Duchamp.) I truly don't have any vested interest in this subject—not at Wiktionary and not at Wikipedia. I am simply speaking up where I see these projects going astray vis-à-vis a concept of importance in modern art, which is a subject that I am interested in. But I am really not concerned with promoting any idea. I'm simply interested in portraying it squarely. Bus stop (talk) 20:33, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: You are blocking me? Why are you blocking me? I am talking to you about the prevalence of related terms. They vary in how frequently they are used. But do they vary in meaning? Not that I am aware of. Bus stop (talk) 22:17, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: We don't just widen the definitions of terms. That is not what responsible dictionaries do. There are virtually no definitions for "found art" except in poor quality dictionaries like the Urban Dictionary. Neither you nor anyone else has presented the argument that "found art" means anything different than "objet trouvé" and "found object". The definition provided at the entry for "found art" merely refers to the definition for "objet trouvé" and "found object". All good quality definitions are for "objet trouvé" and "found object". These definitions are found at the Museum of Modern Art here and here, the Tate Modern here, glossaries of art terms like ArtSpeak[4] by Robert Atkins, which I have excerpted here, good quality dictionaries like Merriam-Webster: "found object: objet trouvé"; "objet trouvé: a natural or discarded object found by chance and held to have aesthetic value". I do not believe you are at liberty to expand the definitions provided by good quality dictionaries and glossaries of art terms, therefore Wiktionary should not be providing inapplicable quotations to illustrate entries for terms. Doing so is misleading to subsequent users of the dictionary. Wiktionary does its job best when it provides quotations that illustrate the definitions provided by Wiktionary. In this case all of those definitions trace back to the terms "objet trouvé" and "found object". Bus stop (talk) 23:22, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

{{rfe}} and {{rfv-etym}}: edit requests

(because you did the edit request at User talk:Benwing2 § {{descendant}}: learned borrowing)

• {{rfe}}: Add
  -->|y={{{y|}}}<!--
-->|m={{{m|}}}<!--
-->|fragment={{{fragment|}}}<!--
-->|section={{{section|}}}<!--
  

after -->|2={{#if:{{{lang|}}}|{{{1|}}}|{{{2|}}}}}<!--(Grease pit discussion; I have already edited {{rfe/dowork}} (Special:Diff/62693342)).

• {{rfv-etym}}: Add {{#if:{{{y|}}}{{{m|}}}|/{{{y}}}/{{{m}}}}} after [[Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium. J3133 (talk) 22:21, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

There's a huge difference between fixing a typo in a self-contained string of text and making extensive changes to the logic of a complex template. The "dowork" part tells me that this is a relic of the pre-lua days, when people did all kinds of indirect and inscrutable things to get template syntax to do things it wasn't designed for. I might be able to figure it out, but I might also unintentionally trash things.

Besides which, I haven't been following the discussions, so I have no idea if there's consensus for this or not. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:55, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I already created a Grease pit discussion, what else are you expecting me to do? Simply adding a parameter does not change any part of the logic, nor is “extensive” or “complex” : {{#if:{{{y|}}}{{{m|}}}—if the parameters are not empty; /{{{y}}}/{{{m}}}—add “/”, the year, another “/”, and the month; what part seems something beginners would not understand, let alone “complex”? Are we discussing the same template? J3133 (talk) 03:47, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

See Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup § {{rfe}}. J3133 (talk) 04:21, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

follow-up needed

Chuck, could you please look into and comment on this block that I received for making only one reversion within 1 24-hour period? Thanks. --Kent Dominic (talk) 00:24, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Your revert at the entry for two-spirit

Hello Chuck, you recently undid an edit by 67.70.27.180 (talk) to the entry for two-spirit. As far as I can tell, their edit was a correct addition of some derived terms and synonyms as well as a reformatting of how they were displayed. Since you undid the edit, I am assuming there is something more. Can you clarify why you reverted that edit? Thank you and take care. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 16:26, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

My mistake. It looked like they were putting random combinations of numbers and letters in weird patterns across the page. It didn't occur to me that the 2S was a variation on two-spirit. I've reverted my revert. Arranging so few items in columns is a bit funny-looking, but that's no justification for a rollback. My apologies! Chuck Entz (talk) 03:41, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Got it. I agree it is a a bit funny-looking, but to each their own. Thanks for the clarification. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 17:55, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Allahverdi

[5]

Sorry for the mess. At the moment I was editing the code was broken in that line. Lembit Staan (talk) 20:48, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Awful exchanges

[Hundred of lines of pointless arguing redacted- no one will miss it]

Quote at Tung

Why did you delete that? It's one of the most famous Low German songs, if not the most famous. And the link is official regarding copy rights etc. 89.12.4.96 21:15, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

User:XanthaniaBlether

Likely a sock puppet of SlippyLina. J3133 (talk) 05:21, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Misunderstood edit

Your rollback here, I am afraid, missed my point why the wording is misleading. By saying it is considered correct, you essentially imply that it's not universally so, which is, of course, incorrect. If you doubt that claim as well here are the sources:

Constructions where nominative and accusative are in alternation

There are a number of constructions where both cases are found. In most, the nominative is restricted to formal (or very formal) style, with the accusative appearing elsewhere.

(a) Subjective predicative complement

[9] i a. It is I who love you.	b. It’s me who loves you.
ii a. It is I she loves.	b. It’s me she loves.
iii a. Yes, it is she!	b. Yes, it’s her!
iv a. This is he /These are they.	b. This is him /These are them.
v a.?The only one who objected was I.	b. The only one who objected was me.

... Probably the most frequent use of a nominative case predicative is in the it-cleft construction, as in [i–ii]. And here we can make a distinction according to whether the pronoun would be in nominative or accusative case in the non-cleft counterpart: compare [i] with I love you and [ii]with She loves me. In the former, the accusative version [ib] certainly has an informal flavour, whereas in the latter the nominative version [iia] seems very formal and the accusative [iib] relatively neutral in style. Nominatives are also found with it + be without a following relative clause, as in [iiia].

(Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 459).

Rule 2. Subject pronouns are also used if they rename the subject. They will follow to be verbs, such as is, are, was, were, am, will be, had been, etc.

Examples:

It is he.

This is she speaking.

It is we who are responsible for the decision to downsize.

In informal English, most people tend to follow to be verbs with object pronouns like me, her, them. Many English scholars tolerate this distinction between formal and casual English. Example: It could have been them. Technically correct: It could have been they. Example: It is just me at the door. Technically correct: It is just I at the door.

Straus, J. (2008). The blue book of grammar and punctuation, p. 8.

The choice between It is he and It is him is strictly one of formal versus informal style.

Pinker, S. (2014). The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century, chapter 6.

The verb to be can usefully be regarded as a part of speech linking elements that are in the same case. In nouns and some pronouns, the cases before and aft are normally indistinguishable: Paris is the capital of France; what's yours is mine. In constructions introduced by It is or This (or That) is, however, the objective forms of pronouns have infiltrated standard English, esp, in short declarative sentences: thus It's me rather than It is I; This (or That) is him rather than This (or That) is he. The choice of pronoun in such circumstances still needs to be judged with care: a great many writers tend to prefer the subjective forms, esp, when the pronoun is qualified by a following who- (or that-) clause. Examples: (subjective) If I were he, I should keep an eye on that young man—C. P. Snow, 1979; This time it was I who took the initiative-R. Cobb, 1985; It is we who are inappropriate. The painting was here first—P. Lively, 1987; that might very well be he at this moment, causing the doorbell to chime-K. Amis, 1988...

The new fowler's modern english usage, revised edition, pp. 132-133.

it is I; it is me. Generally, of course, the nominative pronoun (here I) is the complement of a linking verb <this is she> <it was he>. But it is me and it’s me are fully acceptable, especially in informal contexts: “both forms, ‘It is I’ and ‘It is me,’ are correct—one by virtue of grammatical rule, the other by virtue of common educated usage.” Norman Lewis, Better English 186–87 (rev. ed. 1961)

Garner's modern english usage 4th edition, p. 534.

it's me The venerable argument over the nominative versus the objective case after the verb to be is a memorable part of our linguistic heritage. Nearly everyone has heard it in one form or another. You should be aware that, while the discussion is still going on, its grounds have been shifted:

The choice between "It is I" and "It's me" is a choice

not between standard and nonstandard usage but

between formal and colloquial styles —Trimmer &

McCrimmon 1988

So instead of the old choice between right and wrong we are now choosing a style; it is a choice that is much closer to the reality of usage than the old one was. The main argument, however, is on much broader grounds. From the beginning in the 18th century, there were two camps. The earlier, apparently, is represented by Priestley 1761, who favors accepting it is me on grounds of custom. Priestley mentions that grammarians opposed his position, but he doesn't say who they were. Lowth 1762 heads the partisans of it is I, who clearly had Priestley outnumbered: Baker 1770, Campbell 1776, and Lindley Murray 1795 were on the side of the nominative. And these were the commentators whose preachments were accepted as gospel by the schoolmasters. Priestley's opinion had to wait until Alford 1864 to find a sympathizer.

If the great tide of expressed opinion favored it is I, how is it that it is me survived to reach its at least semi-respectable status today? The strongest force operating in favor of it is me is probably that of word position: the pronoun after is is in the usual position for a direct object, and the objective case feels right in that position. It is probably just as simple as that—we find the strength of word order at work on initial whom also, turning it frequently into who, even when it is an object in its clause—but early grammarians knew nothing of the power of word order in English, and they had to find other explanations...

Clearly, both the it is I and it's me patterns are in reputable use and have been for a considerable time. It is I tends to be used in more formal or more stuffy situations; it's me predominates in real and fictional speech and in a more relaxed writing style. Him, her, us, and them may be less common after the verb to be than me is, but they are far from rare and are equally good.

Webster's dictionary of English usage. (1989). Springfield, Mass: Merriam-Webster. (pp 566-568).

---

All I want to do is to change the bad wording.
(Btw kudos if you've read all this).
L.T.G (talk) 🦅 13:25, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Edit to Module:etymology/templates

User:Rua recently made a widely impactful change to Module:etymology/templates. I reverted her edit (for the second time), and asked that she start a new discussion on it first, and her reply (similar to how she dealt with Module:gmw-nouns) was to ignore it and admin-lock the template. Since it's now out of my hands, I thought I'd bring it to your attention. --{{victar|talk}} 17:18, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't really know the technical side well enough to get involved. I suppose you could bring it up at the Grease pit or the Beer parlour. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:23, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

It's not a technical issue; the edit is to include the Proto- prefix in {{desc}} and {{desctree}}, a change that was previously shot down in discussions. Also, making Module:etymology/templates an admin-only module is overkill and should be undone, as many non-admins, including myself, edit that module. --{{victar|talk}} 19:40, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Is the latter issue at least something you can resolve? --{{victar|talk}} 04:39, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Recent ban

Hello Chuck, I just wanted to follow up on the recent temporary ban I seem to have received a few days ago from you. To my knowledge, I haven't done anything out of order recently, or added any particularly heated personal comments to my edits. Indeed, the IP (?) address banned was "2A01:4C8:0:0:0:0:0:0/32", but this seems to be associated with an account I do not own, so I am slightly confused. I would be grateful if I could get some clearance.

Kind regards, fellow Wiktionarian ArbDardh (talk) 19:16, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Hello again, Chuck. I've seen the addition to the IP exemption list you made recently, so thank you for that. If I do catch any actual perpetrators myself in the future, I'll let you know. Until then, happy editing!

Kind regards, ArbDardh (talk) 03:13, 14 July 2021 (UTC)ArbDardh

Ban

Why did i get banned from "ਲਹੌਰ"? All i did was just remove the false etymology IMPNFHU (talk) 07:03, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

The "city of lava" etymology of lahore is just a theory and there's no evidence that prove it to be true IMPNFHU (talk) 07:10, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Please unban me IMPNFHU (talk) 11:09, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

goosefoot#Etymology

You provided the etymology for goosefoot some years ago. It had been goose + foot. The term goose-foot was used in 1597 in Gerard's herbal. This makes me question whether the term can be said to be a calque of the taxonomic name Chenopodium, especially if we view Linnaeus's works as the start of taxonomic naming. To me it seems fairly likely that both terms come from the appearance of the leaves, as rural folk would have been familiar with both the plant and with geese. DCDuring (talk) 00:00, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

At one time some of these plants were called pes anserinus and herbals earlier than Gerard reported names from European languages that were equivalent to goose or duck + foot. OTOH, I can't find anything in the MED that suggests an ME origin or use. DCDuring (talk) 00:23, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

All of these terms are calqued from a scientific Latin term: I warned at Proto-Slavic *loboda already about the English, German Gänsefuß and Romanian namely.

One surely finds it mentioned somewhere that they are calques, I also found it for Romanian, but I concentrated on getting the genuine Eastern vernacular terms right of course instead of going into the endless calque chains—for example it will stay difficult to decide which smart alec on which model introduced kazayağı into Ottoman Turkish, which I assume to have not existed before the European influence from around 1800 unless proven otherwise—the rural folk of Turkey does not have the same connections to goose as one images in an European village (which?), for there are too many other animals to choose from, so you see we have laid bare another calque of hypothesized many. And actually we see there isn’t “the rural folk”: It is always one guy who formed and then his co-villagers parroted it and perhaps it reached other villages and then with chance literary language. So in fact literary inventions are generally not less likely to seep through but have better chances because the authors are already at the books and journals where they should appear for later scholars and teachers to believe they got the correct term.

So about anyone particular noting the term goosefoot or Gänsefuß is a calque, probably for example the German word history one can find in Heinrich Marzell’s big Wörterbuch der deutschen Pflanzennamen containing attestations copiously (I still wait for it to be digitized, public domain in Canada, but the difficult word lists are always forgotten). But, strange again, I find the whole observation in something primarily about Romanian again if I just search the German word for goosefoot and the German word for calque, but as we see the English word is also mentioned (as a “gelehrte Bildung” of many, which you may freely translate as “learned fabrication”) in this overview of Romanian journal publications which probably would only lead me to a dead-end of undigitized journal artcles that perhaps aren’t even available in two libraries in NRW, so I am glad I don’t have to write a thesis about vernacular names formed on the models of scientific identifiers. Surely loan translation happened a lot.

We read in Genaust, Helmut (1996) “Chenopódium”, in Etymologisches Wörterbuch der botanischen Pflanzennamen (in German), 3^rd edition, Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, →ISBN, page 149a that this “Translingual” word is graecized from pes anserinus, so calqued into an imaginary Greek form before being borrowed back—even that is a calque.

Well, I have dealt with, like, plant names occurring in early medieval Arabic and Persian even, and beyond, even in Punic one has assumed calques from Greek plant names, so one needs to have a nose for translation of organism knowledge—at some point back in time, that’s the only thing one can have, but for this one needs acquaintances with the habits of languages individually and taken together, to notice when something is suspicious. You won’t be so imparsimonous as to assume something complicated like that the English is an independent formation while the German isn’t? I have tried to show you that it is easiest to assume it is all calqued, the taxonomic itself and the European terms from Turkey to Britain and the US. Nobody can make the effort to pinpoint the historical stage of genesis of each word for each language, rarely ever for one word. It doesn’t even use to get recorded that much even if it is by blokes who write much—they also spread the names in classes. But one can tendentially assume the general statement that it is not of rural origin. By the way even the Bedouins have artificial scientific borrowings in their dialects (→ عبيثران), so rural appearance does not exclude laboratory origin, as one can well imagine villagers pick up any word from the outside once only confronted therewith. Fay Freak (talk) 03:10, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

As you can see from the timestamps, I was quickly backing off from by original complaint. I didn't see any evidence of goosefoot before Gerard. He either copied or was clearly influenced by European herbals, many of which contained Chenopodium and its calques. I didn't try to search for early (pre-1500) use in other European languages of the words corresponding to goosefoot. It would be nice to know when Chenopodium came into use in Latin. I does not appear in A Glossary of Later Latin to 600 A.D., nor in Lewis and Short. Pliny had pes anserinus before 100 A.D.

I suppose the only issue is whether a term in pre-Linnean use should be called "scientific Latin" rather than "Translingual". To me Translingual in taxonomy refers to the Linnaean system as enforced by the various codes. Before Linnaeus the terms seemed to have developed more nearly in accord with normal word development, at least of learned words in such languages. DCDuring (talk) 20:55, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

rollback on luteus

I de-linked the term "lutum" on the luteus page because it took people to a completely different definition of lutum than the one intended; the stated definition is "dyer's weed" but the link directs readers to the definition as "mud or clay". You reverted the de-linking of this inappropriate definition, but it says to leave a message for you on your talk page if I think the rollback was a mistake, so here I am. Until and unless a different definition that supports the reference to "dyer's weed" is connected (right now it appears to be completely unsupported), I would argue that the existing link should be removed entirely to avoid confusion. Thanks. 138.23.68.27 16:00, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

You forgot to scroll down to Etymology 2. Even if it wasn't there, this is a wiki, so you shouldn't be removing things based on the current state of the entries. Let's say there's a link to a non-existent Latin entry that you "delink": when someone creates the Latin entry, there's no easy way to find out that there's an etymology that used to link to it in order to restore the link. Links to nowhere are the price we pay for not doing everything everywhere at once.

The problem is that etymology 1 and etymology 2 presently link to the exact same page, despite putatively referencing entirely different definitions. That's why I thought the first one needed to be removed; it is not helpful if the link for etymology 1 takes you directly to etymology 2, as it does now. 138.23.68.27 22:47, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

But that's part of the basic structure of the site. Your solution is an unecessarily destructive way of dealing with the problem- there are ways to make the links more specific such as using {{senseid}}. You're making massive changes without knowing the context or the reasons things are the way they are. A wiki is a community, and you have to get consensus before making that level of changes. As it is, your edits are already a matter of discussion, and apparently no one approves of them so far. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:06, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

important information

i have important information to tell you, but i cant tell that here. i have mailed it to you. you may find 2 of them; one iis a reminder i sent and one is the original mail (both sent yesterday). is there any other way i can contact you such that you see it a bit quickly, without me having to remind, other than email? — Svārtava • 06:48, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

I read it, but forgot to reply. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:51, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

thanks for confirming that you have read. no need to reply if you dont want to. — Svārtava • 06:57, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, not my fault

I am really sorry I don't know what happened the other day. My ride had been driving into a Funkloch with low signal and I was not able to confirm the results of my posting. Even if a few bits got flipped in transmission it should not have deleted the whole page as I was editing a single thread. Do you have any idea what was going wrong? ApisAzuli (talk) 16:46, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm glad you understand. Every once in a while, someone has a glitch that causes them to unintentially obliterate huge chunks of a page they're editing. More often than not it's associated with an edit conflict, but sometimes it just happens. You're certainly not the first this has happened to. No one except a few vandals who are quickly blocked for other reasons ever does that on purpose, so I always assume it's a mistake.

I try to revert it before new edits complicate the edit history, and hope the accidental perpetrator will realize what happened and redo their edit without the deletion. If I have time I'll undo it instead with an edit comment explaining my action, with a ping to the affected editor. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:29, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

175ers

Hi Chuck Entz, you reverted my edit of the pronunciation. I still think it's spoken correctly. Would you like to explain the reason for your revert? Have a nice day Jeuwre 10:36, 8 August 2021 (CET)

@Jeuwre: You added the pronunciation for the singular form of the German word to the entry for the plural form of the English word. I've never heard the English word spoken, but I think it's safe to say that the plural can't possibly be pronounced like that. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:21, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

You're right, I overlooked 'English' in heading. Thanks for your revert Jeuwre 18:24, 8 August 2021 (CET)

thank you.

hello. i just wanted to thank you for the magnificent work that you did on the man down article. i think that this site really does benefit from users like you and i wanted to acknowledge my gratitude for everything that you do here. — This unsigned comment was added by 37.225.15.234 (talk) at 08:08, 9 August 2021 (UTC)..

Posting a sarcastic note on my talk page is okay- I'm used to it. Posting a sarcastic note disguised as content in the dictionary itself is absolutely unacceptable. If you have a complaint, that's what the talk page is for. Besides which, we're all volunteers here. If you don't find the dictionary up to your exacting standards... you get what you pay for. I would say "if you don't like it, fix it yourself", but you don't seem to grasp the difference between a noun and an interjection. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:35, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

ApisAzuli / Rhyminreason

Vorziblix's reaction ("I must admit I’m confused as to what you’re trying to say in much of your response") to this message by ApisAzuli / Rhyminreason makes me wonder if it's a good idea to let this guy run around freely again. I haven't been paying attention to them, but I'm afraid they haven't changed much and are still polluting the discussion pages. PUC – 12:30, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm not so sure it's the same person. AA is a lot better informed on the historical linguistics and doesn't indulge in anything close to the insanity of RRs long-distance comparisons. It's true that they share a similar verbosity and intellectual sloppiness, so it's not out of the question. I'll look into it. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:59, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Oh, ok, I thought I remembered you saying that it is the same person; sorry if that's not the case. PUC – 12:35, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

I've never said anything about it, either way. They might be- I haven't had time to do the checks, yet. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:06, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Template:former name of

I kept having to add nodot=1 to this template, as I usually follow it with a comma and extra text. That is why I deleted withdot=1. Other templates like Template:alt form don't add a dot, thankfully. A dot can be added if required, and less bytes used in the process. DonnanZ (talk) 19:55, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

@Donnanz: You misunderstand- |withdot= doesn't change whether the module requires adding a |dot=, it only keeps the module from throwing an error if someone does. Your edit caused an error in an entry that used "dot=;". Chuck Entz (talk) 20:09, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

OK, I'm no template expert. So can the template be altered to remove the dot, without any repercussions? It must be possible, as quite a few templates don't add a dot. DonnanZ (talk) 20:25, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

@Donnanz: Yes, because other templates used to have it that now don't. The problem is that someone will have to deal with all the entries without |nodot= that will lose their periods/full stops all at once. For previous templates, that meant someone with a bot fixing a lot of entries. There are, by my count, 242 entries with this template. Obviously not all of them will need to be fixed, but you really need to bring this up at the Grease pit. For one thing, I wouldn't be comfortable making such changes to a module myself, and I don't have a bot. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:48, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Metaknowledge: This is your last warning.

Hello.

I would like to bring to your kind notice that I am repeatedly being accused of making personal attacks, but I refute the charges. Because I know I have not done so. If I make some jocular remarks, they must not be counted as a personal attack. Because I never intend it how some poor fools grasp it. Make no mistaking here— even though many think I am an eejit and gobshite, I do not hate any of my fellow editors; on the contrary, I admire them all. Now, it becomes a serious issue when I am harassed for my possibly mild, albeit friendly, words used to describe others. Note that none of my comments have ever violated WT:NPA. Perhaps only a twisted interpretation of my innocent comments (probably done in bad faith as part of a bigger conspiracy against me) could go so far as to make me seem to be an offender. I never shout at others, nor do I say or do anything in bad faith. If I really hated people then I would have not made any comments at all, I would have kept mum, just went on with the fight instead of bickering— like a knight. If I am harassed once more in the future, I am thinking of starting a vote (after a brief announcement in the BP) that an editor should not be warned or blocked or otherwise threatened for any nonaggressive remarks. I am tired of all the hypocrisy here. It would be a shame of course that we would need a policy for’t, but am afraid I have to take that step.

Also, it should be borne in mind before taking any action against me, that I am not a native speaker of English, nor am I a European. I am not supposed to know what word can cause a tempest in a teapot in an online forum dominated by people of European heritage/culture. I am upset with the narrowmindedness of the people here. Let an editor be judged by one’s contributions to the project alone. Only in extreme cases where a comment or an action jeopardises the wholesomeness of our community, police action could be taken.

Sorry for wasting your time. But I was a wee afeared of my safety here (I mean, who knows when I would get permablocked?), so thought ’twas worth the while posting this message on your talkpage. Kind regards. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 10:53, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Sometimes I feel excluded from the rfd and rfv pages. I am a noobie in terms of policy or the inner workings of Wiktionary (though I have made advances since constructive help has been made) and am highly specialized in the area I work in (and know little else). I appreciate pointers when offered, and I modify my behavior based on such help. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 17:19, 28 August 2021 (UTC) (Now: I was pinged and helped legitimately in the immeidate hours after this comment, and one would not marvel at the coincidence that my comment here might coincide in timing with that help.) I would like to suggest that, as a hypothetical viable alternative strategy, certain things neither spam nor advertisement could be safely ignored rather than excised; I of course am not confronted with the serious issues of management of the site so I do not know [6] --Geographyinitiative (talk) 19:03, 28 August 2021 (UTC) (modified)

Why

Why did you delete my edit. It was an assumption.(Deutschland1871 (talk) 02:28, 30 August 2021 (UTC))

I didn't delete your edit. I reverted it because it seemed like you were just using it as an excuse to scream about Victar. I hid your edit summary because it's inappropriate to use edit summaries as a soapbox. Victar can be grumpy and annoying at times, but your edit summaries are part of the public record on what should be a serious dictionary. Why do you want people 15 years from now reading this stuff? Chuck Entz (talk) 02:41, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

If you look in to the history, you will find that I edited the same thing that I did and he reverted it for no reason, that's why I wrote that in the summary. (Deutschland1871 (talk) 03:04, 30 August 2021 (UTC))

Edits

I did not think my edits were wrong because the links were dead, if I was wrong do let me know of course. Ffffrr (talk) 18:53, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Ok I read your message on my talk page I understand now. Ffffrr (talk) 18:57, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Planet

Hey, are you actually know the meaning of Mercury in Santali, i want re-edit it Tài Khoản Một (talk) 05:53, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

thanks for your edit

Your comments are helpful. I didn't realise that was a language code, I was going to look up the template docs after coming back from dinner (as you probably guessed I based it off a toki pona entry to have a framework to start). I'll have to think about how to approach the part-of-speech Láadan headings since they largely are defined by position in the sentence and sometimes affixes; roots often can fulfill most roles in a clause. Arlo Barnes (talk) 02:06, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

It was entirely selfish: I figured it would be less work to clue you in than to keep fixing the same unintentional errors. As for part of speech: look through the other Láadan entries to see how they handle it- you should be able to find them by clicking on the Category:Láadan lemmas link that's now at the bottom of the entry page (one of the reasons why language codes are important). Chuck Entz (talk) 03:44, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

On combating vandalism

I've seen that you've recently rolled back this ([7]) change. My question is, seeing as you've never before edited the page (and are thus unlikely to watch it), how did that change come to your attention? I'm interested because I'd want to do the same, that is help against vandalism / absurd changes. --Fytcha (talk) 15:07, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

@Fytcha See Special:RecentChanges. Admins can filter out more things, but it's basically the same as what I use.

If you're going to be undoing edits, the most common mistake is to only undo the latest edit and leave all the other bad edits in place. It helps to understand how to browse through the edit history: at each edit in the list, you have the choice of clicking "cur" or "prev". The first one shows you the difference between that edit and the current state of the entry, while the other one shows you the difference between that edit and the state of the entry just before the edit. "prev" is what you use if you want to look at a single edit, and and "curr" is what to use if you want to see the result of all of them. Some vandals are sneaky and do one bad edit with their computer and one with their phone so that it looks like two different people. Not only that, but the rollback tool that admins use only reverts a single user, so the first edit isn't touched.

Anyway, when I see a suspicious edit, the first thing I do is check the edit history. I do "prev" on the first edit and click through to see who did what, but that's because I'm an admin and can hide edits and block editors.

For your purposes, you're better off clicking "cur" on the last edit before the first recent one, because you can see whether someone else has already undone the edit. The really neat part is: if there's still unreverted vandalism, clicking "undo" will take everything back to that first edit with just the one click- regardless of how many edits there are between. This can save you a lot of undoing individual edits. Back before I became an admin, I used to click "edit" on the last good diff and then save it. That does basically the same thing, but this is a lot easier and cleaner.

There are also ways to view the difference across blocks of edits not including the current one using the radio buttons on the left, and there are other things you can do with "undo", but I'll leave that for you to discover.

Also, if you have problems with vandals who won't stop vandalizing, or there's personal information or spam that needs to be hidden, the best thing to do is report it at Vandalism in progress so an admin can take care of it. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:07, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz Thank you! Lots of good and helpful tips in here. I'll see how it goes in action using all the tools and tricks you've described. Thanks again! --Fytcha (talk) 09:32, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Sorry about that

Sorry about that error. I thought that the sentence was talking about the Convolvulaceae in general 😂 Prahlad balaji (talk) 03:22, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

I suspect your rollback may be in error

Can you explain the motivation? Contribber (talk) 06:36, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Readers should be able to understand what we write, but you can't seem to write an English sentence that makes sense. Why use a mangled pseudo-phrase like "a misunderstood interpretation" when you could say "a misinterpretation"? One doesn't understand an interpretation; understanding and interpretation are the same thing.Chuck Entz (talk) 07:36, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Though it's perfectly legitimate to use 'misunderstood interpretation' the way I did, 'misinterpretation' is arguably even better, so why not improve it yourself instead of abusing rollback privileges to revert good-faith edits with no explanation? I had to change a lot of words to accommodate quickly. If you don't mind, I'll undo your contribution but appreciatively implement your suggestion. Contribber (talk) 07:48, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

You were edit-warring to prevent a clearer and better wording from being used. That's why I stepped in. And no, "misunderstood interpretation" does not make sense. What was the interpretation that that was misunderstood? Who was doing the interpreting and who was doing the misunderstanding? It doesn't add up. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:08, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

No, clearly the other editing was not making the language better but introduced several mistakes, while repeatedly removing relevant content. See the edit history. I won't discuss 'misunderstood' now, as I think your suggestion is an improvement anyway. I welcome more such positive suggestions. Contribber (talk) 08:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

… I have to give it to you, obviously you're right about 'misunderstood'. I ended up shuffling around words hurriedly and 'misunderstood' chanced to appear but was then inadvertently replaced before the other word mistakenly, erasing other context, and then I wasn't able to quickly extricate myself from it once done, probably by virtue of having over-internalised German. Granted, it would be defensible by a rather far-fetched elaboration, but is infelicitous English. But the other assertions about imperfect language are moronic. Contribber (talk) 10:30, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I believe your rollback of my edit was in error

This is the rollback in question. Do you disagree with the justification for the edits that I left in my edit descriptions? If so, we can start a talk page and I can cite some sources. Maxlaumeister (talk) 23:52, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

@Maxlaumeister: See our Criteria for inclusion. Wiktionary is a descriptive dictionary based on documented usage rather than on authoritative sources such as other dictionaries. You got it 2/3 right in your edit summary: 'The term "link bait" is not used to mean that. That secondary definition does not show up in Oxford Languages dictionary, nor is it used elsewhere on the internet.' You may be right, but usage doesn't always follow logic.

The normal procedure is to add {{rfv-sense|en}} ("en" only applies to English entries, and you would use {{rfv}} to challenge the whole language section), post it at Requests for verification/English (the simplest way is to click the "+" in the template message to automatically start a topic on the right page), and others will look for usage in the right places that supports the challenged sense. If they can't find any, it will be deleted. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:29, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the guidance. I have submitted an RFV to kick off that process. I do want to express though that I find it a bit frustrating to see that the addition of the definition in question was put through quickly by a newly-registered user without justification or citations, but that reverting that edit will be be a month-long process. Perhaps I should have submitted my edit as a revert of that user's unsubstantiated edit, instead of as a fresh one. Maxlaumeister (talk) 00:59, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Citation template request

Hi, can you make a citation template for Vytautas Ambrazas - Lithuanian Grammar? I guess the name could be something like R:lt:Ambrazas, although that is already taken by another template, so some disambiguation would have to be added. The citation can be copied from here. The last time I tried to make one it didn't work. 70.175.192.217 17:37, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

agario

Does this term meet the CFI? I created the page with the title above. Fomfeider (talk) 15:04, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Probably not. See WT:BRAND. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Should you go ahead and delete that page? Fomfeider (talk) 15:07, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Done. I left our welcome template on your talk page so you can familiarize yourself with our rules. That's all I have time for this morning. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:20, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

it was valuable intentional edition

if it is too gib for static paradigmatic ,,, check/compare this source [Redacted]

Easy to snap on background of Góralski, or replaying it at slower speed. That song is old folk song sung around Indian Oceans. E.g look in Abyssinia for psia synia more dramatic version.

[Redacted] 99.90.196.227 15:05, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

For someone who geolocates to the US, you show surprisingly little ability to communicate in English, and this is English Wiktionary. If you can't write a sentence that makes sense in English, don't be surprised if you get misunderstood. I would have reverted your edit anyway because there was only one word that made sense and it was unformated, and I would have hidden it due to the youtube link. The only thing I might have changed was the summary when I hid it.

Even here, "too gib for static paradigmatic" reads like gibberish. Nobody uses the word Abyssinia anymore- it refers to a nation that no longer exists. They might say Ethiopia or Eritrea, but neither of those has speakers of any indigenous language even remotely related to Polish. I'm not going to listen to your youtube clip because it's no doubt in a language I don't speak, but based on the nonsense you've shared with me so far, I doubt it has any relevance at all. You can try making your case at the Etymology scriptorium, but don't be surprised if you get nowhere in that venue, too- even with those who speak more languages than I do. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:04, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

User page deletion

Hi there, what did you delete from my user talk page? I have a feeling I may have left something that had been useful, even if in some way wrongly placed, on that page. Would you mind letting me know what you deleted? --JimKillock (talk) 02:27, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

@JimKillock: It was the word "blah", posted by an anonymous IP address. Equinox ◑ 02:51, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

REMOVE ALL MY WORLD

HI PLEASE REMOVE ALL ARTICLES I CREATED I DONT WANT VANDALISM THANKS AND REMOVE ALL ARTICLES I CREATING I 3 YEARS AGO Amirh123 (talk) 16:41, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Usercheck

@Chuck Entz Hi! I hope you're well! I wanted to ask whether you could do a Usercheck on this IP User:2402:8100:24E6:B495:0:0:4DD8:5D97 (dynamic IP I believe) - they've been adding a lot of Urdu lemmas and seems to be making repetitive minor errors, and was wondering if it's just a user who doesn't realise they're logged out?
-Taimoor Ahmed^{(گل بات؟)} 14:49, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

@Taimoorahmed11: why would it matter? According to the privacy policy, I can only use the checkuser tool to look for people using multiple accounts deceptively to break the rules or otherwise cause disruption. Whoever this is, their edits wouldn't be a rule violation if done logged in or logged out. Maybe wrong and a nuisance, but not aganst the rules or a deception.

Besides: given the huge influx of clueless African and Asian IPs in recent years due to the sudden increase in availability of smart phones, an incompetent IP (this one geolocates to Pawapuri, Bihar) would be more plausible than an incompetent user with an account who forgot to log in.

Sure, someone with an account would be a lot easier to contact and set straight, but I can't abuse my checkuser privileges for that. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:49, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: Ok no worries. I wasn't aware that user check was only for specific reasons. My only reason was so that I could let the user know of the minor repetive mistakes, rather than me having to monitor Category:Urdu lemmas for new words and consistently check for errors.
-Taimoor Ahmed^{(گل بات؟)} 01:46, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

A vandalic attack

Hello, Chuck

Some days ago, the sysop MetaKnowledge deleted my comments on the Talk-pages.

This is contrary to the guidelines of the Wiktionary.

ShlomoKatzav (talk) 02:11, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Old Georgian word for 'phoenix'

Regarding this edit: I had changed it to 'see also' for a reason. The Old Georgian pwiniksi is not the origin of modern peniksi; they are both borrowings ultimately from the same Greek word, but they arrived in the language at different times and via different routes. The phonological changes that would be required to derive the modern peniksi from the old pwiniksi would be unheard-of for Georgian. The Nicodene (talk) 07:27, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Chuck_Entz, The_Nicodene, I created that page and now that I think about it it, The_Nicodene is correct. If Modern Georgian directly inherited from Old Georgian, it would have yielded ფინიქსი (piniksi). cf. Old Georgian სჳნდისი (swindisi) -> Georgian სინდისი (sindisi). 46.242.14.191 08:05, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

@The_Nicodene: I reverted it because you caused a module error in another entry that used {{desctree}} to link to that Descendants section. It's also odd to use {{desc}} for a non-descendant, but I wouldn't revert over that alone. It was a borderline judgment call, and now that I've had a little sleep I think I should have handled it a bit differently. Chuck Entz (talk) 12:18, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Why did you delete Constimplation?

It is a combination of two words and it makes perfect sense to be added. 97.119.236.78 14:07, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Because it's something that someone just made up (see our criteria for inclusion), it's incorrectly capitalized, it's completely unformatted (see our entry layout page), and it reads like a plug for someone on Tik-Tok. This is a descriptive dictionary, so if it isn't something that that's already in use as demonstrated by examples of independant usage (not mentions) in durably archived sources, preferably over more than a year, it doesn't belong here. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:35, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Am I blocked??

It says that I'm blocked for "edit warring" until June 2022. Yet I can still edit just fine? I don't see a massive block page preventing me from editing like I do on Wikipedia. 24.246.118.194 17:00, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

You're only blocked from editing the article Robinette. See Wiktionary:Blocking_policy#Partial_blocks. Fytcha (talk) 17:29, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

How to get something done?

Hey Chuck. I've tried to be active in the discussion pages of Wiktionary to change some things for the better but it seems like not a lot of progress is made (see e.g. [8] or [9]). What can I do now? Can I just push through the first matter according to my liking, seeing that there is some approval? What about the second example where I don't have the permissions to edit Module:languages/data2? Should I start a vote so that there has to be progress made? Fytcha (talk) 14:02, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

Wikis are strange beasts. They can do amazing things, like create a huge online dictionary with 6 million+ entries out of nothing in 17 years. They can also be frustratingly slow to change. What you have to understand is that a wiki is a community, and a community runs on consensus.

Consensus tends to be vague, ill-defined and hard to work with. That's just the way it is. After almost a decade here, I'm as close to a leader here as you can get: I've been elected an admin, bureaucrat, and checkuser. People ask me for advice, and pay attention to what I say. Even with all of that, I'm reminded all the time that I don't run this place. Nobody does- or more precisely, everybody does.

Look at the {{bor+}} fiasco for what happens when you do things too fast: people get offended, they dedicate themselves to undoing everything you do, and there are bad feelings all around. Occasionally there are people who have good ideas and a clear vision of what they want to accomplish who make big changes.

Wyang started out as an IP editing Chinese entries. At the time, we had no Chinese entries, just Mandarin, Cantonese, etc. I reverted several of his first edits because they were incompatible with our entry format at the time. When he asked why, I pointed out that you can't go someplace where they drive on one side of the street and expect to drive on the other. When considered in the abstract, there's no reason why one should drive on one side or the other, but in practice, driving on the wrong side can cause accidents and get you arrested.

He came up with a new framework for Han character entries that systematically integrated data on all the Chinese lects using a sophisticated module infrastructure. He spent a lot of time explaining it, advocating for it, and persuading people to vote for the necessary changes. He worked tirelessly to implement it and roll it out to all the entries. More importantly, he brought all the Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Japanese editors onboard and cultivated a community that has adopted his ideas and improved on them.

Quite a success story- but he eventually burned out. Even with all the changes, he still wasn't entirely happy with how things turned out, and got into some pointless disputes and eventually left.

There has to be a moral to that story, but I don't have any more time this morning, so it will have to wait. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:09, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: Thank you for sharing this parable. To be honest, I feel like I have the potential to follow in the footsteps of this person in the future (not in terms of productivity, I mean more in terms of becoming burned out by trying to change everything and stopping caring). I have vigor and the will to change things but at the same time it's only natural for one's vigor to wane when faced with considerable resistance. I'm in general also less of a "changing peoples minds" person as Wyang (at least how I perceive them through your narration; I have no personal experience with them). On the other hand, as there is way less interest in gsw (my primary focus for the time being), there would also be less resistance as compared to CJK, so at least I've got that going for me.

I agree that consensus is of paramount importance and I wouldn't want to go against the community's conventions or express wishes. There is value in consistency even if I happen to stand on the opposite side of a particular dispute. However, even recognizing the importance of consensus, I don't know how to actually proceed in certain matters as for instance the phrasebook. I have tried to draw people's attention to my concerns in two places and there has been some support, though I'm unsure what the correct next step would be: Change Wiktionary:Phrasebook to my liking seeing that there is (some) support? Trying to canvas more people into the discussion? Start a formal vote? I think this question, the how, is what's holding me back the most right now. I want to be strategic, I recognize that opening too many BP threads, pinging too many users, (starting too many votes (if I were to do that)) or making too many changes to policy pages without strong consensus will only earn me the disfavor of the community. At the same time, I don't want my list of open topics to grow more and more uncontrollably without any progress. Fytcha (talk) 16:37, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Rhyminreason redux?

ApisAzuli – similar inconsequential pseudo-learned protracted rambling, hardly any productive edits. Account created 27 March 2021; 109.40.0.0/16 was blocked 25 February 2021. Likewise German as Muttersprache.  --Lambiam 21:17, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Swiss Canton abbreviations

I just went through (almost) all Swiss cantons and supplied their official abbreviations as an alternative form (see e.g. Luzern). At the same time, I've added a small alternative form entry to the abbreviation's page (see e.g. LU). However, when I first took notice of the translingual entries (e.g. in LU) and how they're formatted, I started to have second thoughts because I felt like my formatting should follow that of the ISO 3166-1 entries.

Do the cantons' abbreviations belong under the translingual header? Should I just make the formatting as similar as possible to that of the ISO 3166-1 entries? On the one hand, US states' abbreviations are under the English header, not translingual (see NV). On the other hand, the Swiss cantons are abbreviated according to an ISO standard (not sure if that's the case for US states; at least it's not cited on Wiktionary). Another point to consider: There are four national languages (see e.g. NE/NE).

I will be back tomorrow again and I will change all my entries according to how you advise me to do it. Fytcha (talk) 05:02, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

@Fytcha I can't really give you a good answer on when to use translingual and when to use German- the only Translingual items I deal with are taxonomic terms. In general, translingual terms are those which are independent of the languages that use them and are basically the same regardless of language. If you look at an article in a Chinese scientific publication, everything is in Chinese text using Chinese characters, but taxonomic names are in the Latin-based taxonomic-name format.

One question, though: I don't know much about ISO 3166, but isn't the code "CH-LU"? The US states are represented in ISO 3166 as "US-[two letter abbreviation]", but the two-letter abbreviations are the same as the ones the US Postal Service has been using for years (I'm not sure which came first). Of course, we don't have to worry much about whether terms in official use are translingual in the US, since the default is English with specific things being translated into other languages as needed. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:18, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

You're right, the ISO 3166-2 codes are "CH-LU" and "US-NV" respectively, I've overlooked that. I also think that the ISO standard is merely a standardization and documentation of the official codes for each country's subdivisions; as such the actual codes predate the standard.

Now on to the should instead of the is: On the one hand, I acknowledge that the case for referring to ISO 3166-2 in entries such as NV or LU is weak (they are abbreviations of the ISO code anyway, not the code itself) and that it might conceal their etymology (namely that these abbreviations were not born out of the ISO standard but in fact predate it). On the other hand, I think there is value in adding a link to the corresponding Wikipedia pages such as w:ISO 3166-2:US because these are really neat and helpful overviews. What's more, if we don't list them as abbreviations of the ISO code, then the case for adding them to the Translingual section is kind of weak and we would have to have duplicates of each Swiss canton abbreviation entry 4-5 times (de, it, fr, rm(, gsw)) which is also subpar in my opinion, especially as the abbreviation is identical in all of them. Having them in Translingual would also be consistent with our current treatment of ISO 3166-1, the country codes.

I'm really unsure as to how to proceed with this matter (for the cantons, I slightly lean towards Translingual and referring to them as abbreviations of the ISO code, though that would necessitate we change all the US states too which I'm not sure about). Would you advise me to bring up this topic in a beer parlour e.g. in the form of an informal vote to find out where the broader community stands on this issue? Fytcha (talk) 17:07, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

@Fytcha: Standard codes or not, usage contravenes them. You can well use CA and NY in a German sentence, hence they are translingual, but US-CA will less likely appear and appears outside the realm of natural language. Like you might have it somewhere in XML metadata, which these codes are also for, but not necessarily in language, so these combinations are neither English nor German nor translingual nor anything else covered by Wiktionary. It is productivity which tips the scales in whether something is a lexical entry at all.

For an analogy, today I noticed that the arsch in arschkalt is not an adjective or adverb whereas the scheiße in scheißekalt is, for you can use that morpheme in more contexts (naggy IP does not like my analysis because according to Duden rules it is always written together so according to him it can only be a prefix or a noun in a compound but apparently I base my POS as well as language ascriptions on overall assessments).

The language label cannot be affected by a state being a constituent of another state, though usage be slanted towards the national language(s) of the superstate as for any speaker of any language situated outwith a particular superstate there is less reason to refer to constituent states than to states which aren’t part of other states. In other words of course CA and NY are “marked” as of US use but this does not mean they aren’t translingual but English, this is an absolute non sequitur.

There is no passage of quantitative changes into qualitative changes postulated by the Hegelian logic denialists of dialectical materialism, it is just the paradox of the heap, a problem brought to light by too firm decisions about language, which is unfortunate in so far as our headings postulate binary division—of something that is not overall clear, without shrewd considerations. Fay Freak (talk) 05:22, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

@Fay Freak: What about not settling this issue on (fuzzy) ontological grounds but rather in terms of utility? Utility trumps truth anyway. The offset in utility on the editors' side comes from not having to go through the executive hassle of applying some arbitrary cutoff criterion to all standardized subdivisions for whether to add them to translingual or the "donor" language's section. On the recipients' side, there is also an offset of utility in the same direction by virtue of having nice links to the corresponding Wikipedia tables. When the range of a classification predicate is constrained to be discretized (as is the case on Wiktionary w.r.t. language classification), most people (rightfully) become ontological error theorists anyway, denying the claim that any discretized predicate epistemologically tracks, taking this question wholly out of the domain of epistemology.

I'm only making the case for the abbreviations of the -2 codes; adding the full -2 codes is nonsensical as per your argument and I didn't intend to propose that in the first place (I was misinformed about the exact nature of the standard).

As for the structure, see my suggestion here: User:Fytcha/FR. Fytcha (talk) 13:25, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

{{tt+||...}}

Hi,

My translation-updater-bot emits a warning about the wiki-text of [[Portugal]], because it expects {{tt+}}'s first argument to be the language code, but in that entry its first argument is empty and its second argument is the language code. (The relevant edit: Portugal?diff=64031779.) So the bot just skips those translations, rather than messing with something it doesn't understand.

Is this intentional? No other entries seem to do it this way, and I'm surprised that it even works!

(If it is intentional, then I can of course change the bot to support it; but I'm guessing that was not intentional, and that I should just change each {{tt+||...}} to {{tt+|...}}?)

Thanks in advance!

—Ruakh_TALK
21:35, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

@Ruakh When I do these conversions I simply copypaste the translations to a text file, do a simple replacement of <nowiki<{{t| to {{tt| and {{t+| to {{tt+|</nowiki> and copypaste it all back. I must have typed the pipe twice in this case. I just did the same with the double pipes in the entry, so it should be fixed now. Feel free to fix any others you find.

While I have your attention: I have a post at the Grease Pit re: {{w}} as a template argument that could use some input from someone who knows something about the Wikimedia backend. After a lot of trial and error, I think I've narrowed it down to the parser getting confused by <includeonly>safesubst:</includeonly>. A simple expression like [{{w|whatever}}] was expanding to something along the lines of [[[wikipedia:whatever|whatever]]], so the code was enclosed in empty opening/closing nowiki pairs as a "fix" This resulted in strip markers being left for Module:ja-ruby to try to parse. You can see the result at toa in the Indonesian section's etymology (if someone doesn't "fix" it by hardcoding the link before you get to it).

I was documenting what I did as I tried to figure it out, so I'm afraid it's a bit of a wall of text, and people are ignoring it. It does seem to be something that really should be addressed, though- it could cause unexpected results when just about any substable template is used as a parameter. I created a copy of the template at {{w-test}} if you want to play with this yourself. Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 22:31, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Re: [[Portugal]]: Thank you!

Re: the Grease Pit conversation: I've replied there, though I don't know how helpful my comment is . . .

—Ruakh_TALK 03:53, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Vandalic edits

Could you please remove the pornographic contents in this diff? Thank you in advance. Fytcha (talk) 22:45, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

@Fytcha Done. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:51, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Taxonomic categories on slang terms

Now you know I never have enough to complain about. I do question the value of scientific categories like en:Procyonids on slang entries like trash bandit. Just a thought. Equinox ◑ 06:28, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Life

Cereal sounds great. 2607:FB90:B931:3AAB:B994:D1BA:BC8E:84A9 08:35, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't know- I don't listen to cereal. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:54, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Explain

Please explain why you are deleting my Karia alphabet request message, thanks.--Music writer Dr.Intobesa of Japanese idol NMB48 and BNK48. (talk) 02:10, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

@咽頭べさ: It wasn't actually removed, it was merely moved to a more appropriate location, namely here. Fytcha (talk) 02:15, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

ищца

This page had ridiculous duplication vandalism, please ban the offending account and IP. 37.110.218.43 13:27, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Ooh, looks like Surjection already took care of the account. 37.110.218.43 13:28, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Correcting an edit comment

Can I correct an edit comment of mine that is misleading? If so, how? Is that within an admin's remit? That of an ordinary contributor? My edit comment doesn't violate any policy or code of conduct, though it does violate at least one of Grice's maxims for discourse. DCDuring (talk) 18:51, 15 December 2021 (UTC) @DCDuring

As far as I know, you can hide it, but you can't change it. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:45, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

It's better than nothing. Thanks. DCDuring (talk) 05:24, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Is it also possible to hide the message for deletions? There are quite a few deletions (Special:Log/delete) where the vandalic contents are visible to everybody who visits the deleted page. See chaloppe, this is NOT what you want to see as a user. Fytcha (talk) 17:29, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

I hid it. On my watchlist appears on the left "change visibility", which allows edit comments to be hidden. I don't know what user classes have this power. DCDuring (talk) 19:16, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. As for the second part: Surely that must be administratorship. Fytcha (talk) 21:34, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the system has an automated default message for the deletion form that includes the content of the deleted entry. Selecting this text and getting rid of it so you can type your own isn't very convenient, and most admins don't bother. I really hate to see deletion messages like "[Admin x] deleted [Entry y]: Potentially libelous. Content was '[someone's real name] is a complete [viciously obscene insult] who likes to [some vile and unnatural act]'". It bugs me enough that I make a point of always typing the extra keystrokes. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:38, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Ban

I don't know where else to state this, but you have blocked my IP address for "unacceptable behavior" and I don't know what I did in my edits. Thank you, MisterSpellerMan (talk) 01:58, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

@MisterSpellerMan I believe the standard reason that I would have used is phrased as "unacceptable conduct". Either way, I only very rarely use that reason, and the only time I've used it recently was for another account, not an IP address. I decided to give that a three-day block that also applied to any IP address they might use during that time. I only use that option for short-term blocks to limit the damage to unrelated third parties, which is apparently what you are. That means the block should expire after tomorrow. If it doesn't, there are other things I can do- but I'd rather not resort to those if I don't have to. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:38, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

"Unauthorized bot"

You have infinitely blocked some user accounts like this with reason: Unauthorised bot (see WT:BOT) and there isn't even 1 edit with these accounts! How do you conclude that these are bots? Is it based on some check-user data? —Svārtava ^{[t•c•u•r]} 16:28, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

No. Abuse filter logs. These are mostly spambots trying to give totally unrelated websites a higher search-engine ranking by creating fake pages that link to them. Blocking them doesn't really have much practical effect, since the filters are preventing their edits, but I like to do it for a change of pace and to let the people who are running the bots know that someone is watching them. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:53, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

drawknob

Hi. Can you recreate drawknob and cargoman, please? I believe they were prime examples of my advanced lexi-skillz Br00pVain (talk) 02:00, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Mass-protecting pages

Hello. I've seen that you've spent quite some time protecting a big batch of pages. I just wanted to tell you that I could in the future write a script for that (once I have the necessary rights) so that you don't need to do all that tedious work manually. The protection API is documented here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Protect Just reach out to me! Fytcha (talk) 00:50, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

It turned out it was worthwhile, because I moved one. BTW, sorry about that, I was a bit drunk last night. I was this close to going on a vandalism spree, but managed to control myself. Br00pVain (talk) 11:44, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

A question regarding the admin tools

I've noticed that some of the preset reasons overlap to some degree:

• Page deletions have both "No usable content given" as well as "Vandalism" (say someone creates a page with "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa")
• Revision deletions have both "Inappropriate personal information" as well as "Potentially libelous" (say someone writes something bad about "Chuck Entz")
• Blocks have both "Adding nonsense/gibberish" as well as "Vandalism"

I take it it doesn't matter much which ones I use in these cases, right? Fytcha (talk) 05:24, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@Fytcha: The preset reasons can't possibly cover everything, so just try for the best fit. I personally don't like to block people for "Vandalism", because I believe interactions with vandals should be as boring as possible. Such people like to think of themselves as evil geniuses like a James Bond supervillain, or clever tricksters outsmarting the normals, like Bugs Bunny vs. Elmer Fudd. Calling them "vandals" gives them too much of an antihero mystique. Anything I can do to drain the fun and excitement out of vandalism is worth it in my book. I hide edits a lot more than anyone else, because I would prefer not to leave souvenirs in the edit histories for the vandals.

I'm not saying you should do things my way. Find what's right for you. We all have our own strengths and interests. The main thing is to keep a level head and be as calm and as even-handed as possible. Not only does it help to be fair to sincere contributors, it also frustrates those who push your buttons to make you react for the feeling of power it gives them. You also need to be philosophical about your limits: no matter how good you are, there's always a certain amount that gets by you. It's not at all unheard of for things that should have been reverted or deleted 18 years ago to turn up with nothing but bots in the edit history. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:08, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, that's some good advice; I will keep it in mind, especially the part about making vandalism as boring as possible. Fytcha (talk) 13:06, 4 January 2022 (UTC)