Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Others

Wiktionary Request pages (edit) see also: discussions
Requests for cleanup add new | history | archives Cleanup requests, questions and discussions.	Requests for verification/English add new English request | history | archives Requests for verification in the form of durably-archived attestations conveying the meaning of the term in question.	Requests for verification/CJK add new CJK request | history Requests for verification of entries in Chinese, Japanese, Korean or any other language using an East Asian script.	Requests for verification/Italic add new Italic request | history Requests for verification of Italic-language entries.	Requests for verification/Non-English add new non-English request | history | archives Requests for verification of any other non-English entries.	Requests for deletion/Others add new | history Requests for deletion and undeletion of pages in other (not the main) namespaces, such as categories, appendices and templates.
Requests for moves, mergers and splits add new | history | archives Moves, mergers and splits; requests listings, questions and discussions.	Requests for deletion/English add new English request | history | archives Requests for deletion of pages in the main namespace due to policy violations; also for undeletion requests.	Requests for deletion/CJK add new CJK request | history Requests for deletion and undeletion of entries in Chinese, Japanese, Korean or any other language using an East Asian script.	Requests for deletion/Italic add new Italic request | history Requests for deletion and undeletion of Italic-language entries.	Requests for deletion/Non-English add new non-English request | history | archives Requests for deletion and undeletion of any other non-English entries.	Requests for deletion/​Reconstruction add new reconstruction request | history Requests for deletion and undeletion of reconstructed entries.
{{attention}} • {{rfap}} • {{rfdate}} • {{rfquote}} • {{rfdef}} • {{rfeq}} • {{rfe}} • {{rfex}} • {{rfi}} • {{rfp}}

All Wiktionary: namespace discussions 1 2 3 4 5 - All discussion pages 1 2 3 4 5

This page is for the nomination (for deletion) of non-main namespace entries. General questions are also acceptable. Remember to start each section with only the wikified title of the page being nominated for deletion.

June 2008

Template:cant

And associated Category:Cant. From cant, does this mean {{jargon}}, "secret language" or simply {{slang}}? Also this is a very technical term that is a best unlikely to be understood by even fairly advanced foreign learners. Circeus 18:21, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

It's supposed to just mean cant#Noun, meaning 1 or 2. Meaning 2 "secret language" is the more distinctive and useful sense. OTOH, I had a deifferent notion of what it meant until spending a lot time here. As with many other grammatical/linguistic terms, it would be more useful if there were a link (blue, black, or some not-too-obtrusive color) to a glossary or principal namespace entry or an appendix that offered a satisfactory definition. DCDuring TALK 18:33, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, all uses of the tag are from the Classic 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue imports, which definitely outlines that the term is at best dated, at worst literary or outright archaic. Circeus 19:06, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I've noted that "cant" terms sometimes appear in etymologies. The applications of the label at present in Wiktionary may be dated. The term is useful even if dated. The phenomenon of secret criminal language is certainly not dated, though it may be hard to document the entries. It might be that we need to label these specific entries as "cant, dated: 18th century". DCDuring TALK 19:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I thought argot was a fairly well-accepted term for "criminal languages". Arguably {{context|criminal|_|slang}} should be able to do the trick? Given that slang is by definition more or less opaque to outsiders. Circeus 19:25, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I like that cant is brief, but I could accept any set of terms that did not contradict generally accepted meanings. It is, of course, extremely unhelpful that the terms argot, cant, jargon, and slang have overlapping definitions. Perhaps the best we can do is use slang with qualifiers. "Slang" in the most common sense is not limited to the "secret language" sense. "Slang" seems to be the term of choice in other dictionaries. DCDuring TALK 20:33, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that deletion is necessarily the right answer, I'm somewhere between a redirect and a rewrite to make it useful, but I don't think that [[Category:Cant]] adds anything useful. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:42, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

July 2008

Category:Metonyms

Is this a meaningful category? A vast majority of words can act as a metonym. Metonymy can be predicated about a particular occurrence of a word in a sentence, but hardly about the word standing alone, isn't it? --Daniel Polansky 13:01, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

True. I think we had a discussion about this before (somewhere). We came to much the same conclusion. Almost any noun can be used as a metonym: "A sad face appeared in the window." or "The front desk will assist you.", so metonymy does not make a useful category. --EncycloPetey 16:24, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment. There are some words that are so frequently used metonymically that it makes sense to include metonymic senses for them; (deprecated template usage) crown is a good example of this, as in "property of the crown" or "succession to the crown". It might make sense to tag such senses, and if we do, it might make sense to categorize their entries. —Ruakh_TALK 20:59, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

We can already do this using {{figurative}}. --EncycloPetey 19:19, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

But that doesn't put it in any category. Using "what links here" on the template yields a list of entries that includes many types of "figuratives", not just metonymy. We would need a more specific context qualifier. We could call it, say, {{metonym}}.

To me the problem with the category is that it operates at the level of the entry, but concerns something that only makes sense at the definition level. This then requires some searching to find within Language, Ety, and PoS the definition(s) that actually demonstrated the metonymy. A context tag would at least mean that a user wouldn't have to actually read all the definitions to figure out what definition was the metonym. If we are going to rely on this method for normal users to actually find something, we would have to make the whole process a bit better documented.

• Keep until replaced, that is, until {{metonym}} is created and each entry in the category has been inspected for placement of the metonym tag. DCDuring TALK 20:18, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Deleted as it is, after depopulating stumps and City from the category. --Jackofclubs 19:21, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

August 2008

Template:fr-ca

This is a regional dialect, not an L2 header language. It must not have a code template. Robert Ullmann 14:06, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Move to {{fr-CA}}, since (according to http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry) the correct region subtag is CA (Canada) rather than ca (Catalan/Valencian). (I might be swayed to vote delete, if you would be so kind as to explain why regional variants must not have code templates.) —Ruakh_TALK 14:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

(note that the IANA subtag registry has had so much junk dumped into it that it is not, if it ever was, useful; there is a reason we refer to the ISO standards)

Because then "fr-ca" passes all the checks for L2 language headers, language lines in translations tables, prefixes for topic cats, context etc. It effectively adds Canadian French to the L2 set. (and thence many, many others we do not want). We deleted {{tlh}} (Klingon) for precisely this reason. If {etyl} needs another parameter, fine. But with {fr-ca} (or -CA) you will see {{context|pejorative|lang=fr-ca}} used, and have to endlessly explain that that is supposed to be {{context|Canada|pejorative|lang=fr}} and all manner of similar problems. Robert Ullmann 15:15, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Delete. Those are good reasons, thanks for explaining. :-)   (Ordinarily I'd say we shouldn't delete this until a better solution is in place, but currently it's used in only one entry, [[Canadien]], and it doesn't seem to be needed there, as (deprecated template usage) Canadien is the ordinary French word, and the OED Online gives the etymology as simply “[Fr., = Canadian.]”. So we won't need some complex purgatory between when we delete this template and when we solve the general problem.) —Ruakh_TALK 16:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The Canadian Oxford, which goes into more detail on Canadian English, says that Canadian comes from Canadian French. I suppose it's reasonable to accept that the word entered the English language in Quebec or New Brunswick rather than in Paris.

I'm fine with deleting this template, but I was going to wait until there was a solution proposed to replace it. There's an ongoing discussion at WT:BP#Replace all etymon templates with proto and etyl (oh, I guess R.U. replied here at Requests for Deletion, so I'll stop waiting), and I've posted a query at template talk:etyl#Regional language tags. —Michael Z. 2008-08-12 22:29 z

Re: "I suppose it's reasonable to accept that the word entered the English language in Quebec or New Brunswick rather than in Paris.": Firstly, I'm not sure that's true; do Anglo-Canadians learn specifically Quebecker (or otherwise Canadian) French in school? I thought they learned a fairly neutral form of the language. Secondly, even if that is true, I don't really see how it's relevant; (deprecated template usage) Canadien is a standard French word. Heck, even the very phrase “Canadian French (deprecated template usage) Canadien”, taken alone, is misleading, because it implies that the term is a specifically Canadian word; there might be a good reason to use it anyway, e.g. if the term entered Canadian English from Canadian French back before it became standard French (which I strongly doubt), but without knowing what the reason might be, I don't think we should. (I don't mean to dismiss the CanOD's scholarship, but I don't think we should include claims from it without knowing what they mean.) —Ruakh_TALK 00:49, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Ignore my speculation then. I still don't see the sense in your argument.

The Canadian Oxford editors make use of Oxford's lexicographic database, and network of contributors to do more detailed research on Canadian English terms. Unless the OED entry has been updated since 2004 with information that contradicts the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, then it is logical to go by what the CanOD says.

“I don't think we should include claims from it without knowing what they mean”—Are you implying that we know what the OED's “claims” mean, that we should accept any of its scholarship? It sounds like you're completely dismissing this particular dictionary, the world's most authoritative source on Canadian English. —Michael Z. 2008-08-13 22:18 z

Sorry, I don't mean to dismiss the CanOD, or any other dictionary. But lifting a claim that we don't understand — what does it mean that this standard and universal French word came from Canadian French, specifically? — should we start marking British loanwords as being from French French? — seems very iffy to me, especially when other dictionaries don't make the same claim. (I'd feel differently if the CanOD were public-domain, like the Webster's 1913 entries that we import, but I don't know, taking their claims this way feels kind of like theft to me.) —Ruakh_TALK 01:33, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

(Firstly, what we are indicating is that this English word, used mainly in Canada, came from Canadian French.)

A look at Category:Regional English, Category:Regional French, and Category:Canadian French tells me that Wiktionary is well invested into the concept of regional versions of languages.

The way I see it, Oxford has a copyright on the wording in their dictionary, but not on the facts they are conveying—this is probably uncontroversial. If we learned of such a fact from the CanOD, then they deserve credit via a citation in the “References” section—I think this is pretty standard academic practice, too. (I don't think we can easily or reliably determine whether it was their own primary or secondary research which first established such a fact.) This is no different than “lifting” the OED's claim that Canadien came from French. —Michael Z. 2008-08-14 05:42 z

I fully agree with your first two paragraphs, and I'm not sure what I've said to suggest otherwise. I also agree with your third paragraph, in that it's not possible to copyright facts, but to me it still seems like theft to take a claim that we can't support because we don't even know what they mean by it. *shrug* At any rate, this whole discussion is an aside — if we agree that {{fr-ca}} is the wrong way to do it, and only one entry is using it, I don't see why we can't edit that entry for now and delete {{fr-ca}}, and re-edit that entry once we figure out what the right way is. —Ruakh_TALK 15:34, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I've removed it from the article, so it's okay to delete {{fr-ca}} and {{lang:fr-ca}}. —Michael Z. 2008-08-14 23:21 z

Keep There are enough terms (Quebecois, felquist, poutine, tuque etc.) to legitimize such an etymology template, whatever its name may end up being. Circeus 02:32, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

But {{fr-ca}} isn't an etymology template. Certainly etymologies need to be able to say "from Canadian French ____", but that doesn't mean we need a language-code template for Canadian French. —Ruakh_TALK 04:03, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Then what's the better way to represent this in Wiktionary? —Michael Z. 2008-08-13 22:18 z

I don't know. :-)   My thought — and I'm not sold on this, so feel free to shoot it down — would something like {{etyl-fr-CA}}, so it's specifically an etymology template in the etyl- namespace, rather than a generic French language-code template in the fr- namespace. (It could then use an underlying {{etyl-variant}} template or something, which could parameters for all the sorts of things we need when we're specifying a specific language variant: language name for categorization, language variant name for display, Wikipedia article title for linking, etc.) —Ruakh_TALK 01:33, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned, this section of Wiktionary might as well be written with hanzis. I just meant that the function it performs for etymology is useful, and should be preserved in some fashion. Circeus 02:21, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

What about adding a separate regional parameter to {{etyl}}, for something like {{etyl|fr|region=CA}}. This is for etymologies only, so it would only indicate locale, as indicated by a dictionary's etymology saying “Canadian French”, and not necessarily dialect. This wouldn't modify the language code (fr, not fr-CA), nor have any impact on L2 headers. The word would remain in, e.g., category:French derivations, and maybe also be added to a sub-category:Canadian French derivations.

Keep in mind that there may well be terms which come from Quebec French or New Brunswick French. Should these be treated likewise, but with a w:ISO 3166-2 country subdivision tag? (e.g., CA-QC or CA-NB. See w:ISO 3166-2:CA) What happens if a dictionary refers to a region without a subtag, like Brayon French (Brayons are French New Brunswickers from Madawaska)? —Michael Z. 2008-08-14 05:42 z

I am keeping that in mind, which is why I don't want to try to overload {{etyl}} to support all the different possibilities, or if we do do that, I don't want that to go directly in every entry. (Imagine the headache for a user adding lots of etymologies from Quebecker French, having to type something like {{etyl|fr|region=CA-QC|wikipedia-article=Quebecois|category=Quebecois derivations}} on every one, and occasionally typo-ing. Surely something like {{etyl-fr-CA-QC}} would be better?) —Ruakh_TALK 15:34, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I would presume that {{etyl|fr|CA-QC}} or {{etyl|fr|CA|QC}} would refer to another template to automatically fill in the text and link, just as it already does. It's better to always use one template, and add an optional parameter as an “advanced feature”, than to add editing and maintenance headaches by creating a fleet of new templates.

Anyway, this bears discussion elsewhere. I'll think about this for a bit, and perhaps introduce a better proposal at the Beer Parlour. —Michael Z. 2008-08-14 23:21 z

(Not sure where to indent this, so I'm starting over.) Since we are (or should be) getting string functions soon, we should be able to parse {{etyl|fr|es|region=CA-QC}}.​—msh210℠ 23:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

But typing {{fr-ca}} is so much easier than typing {{etyl|fr|es|region=CA-QC}}! --Jackofclubs 06:25, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Deleted, but without actual consensus; if, after reading this comment, you still think the template should exist, please feel free to re-open the discussion. I'm just pretty confident that this comment will satisfy everyone's concerns. :-)

• Robert Ullmann (talk • contribs)'s concern appears to be a valid one, and just as important, no one here seems to be objecting to it. And people really were using fr-ca as a general language code, e.g. in {{term}}, thereby creating links to non-existent (and unwanted) ==Canadian French== language sections.
• Bequw (talk • contribs) modified {{etyl}} a while back to check for the existence of special {{etyl:…}} templates, in this case {{etyl:fr-CA}}, to be used with non-languages. This allows {{etyl|fr-CA}} to work exactly as {{etyl|fr-ca}} did. This should completely address all {{etyl}}-related concerns. (Note: if desired, {{etyl:fr-CA-x-Quebec}}, or whatever, can be created as well.)
• No one here seems to be arguing for any use of {{fr-ca}} except in {{etyl}}.

—Ruakh_TALK 23:55, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

September 2008

Category:Buyeo

Category:Buyeo Old Korean

See w:Buyeo languages. This language is hypothetical and completely unknown from any records. As such, it does not belong in the main namespace, and should be treated the same as PIE. --EncycloPetey 05:46, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Not quite the same as PIE; it's more like Hunnic or some other such language, known only through names or the occasional offhand gloss. That said I would be happy to delete/appendicize this and its dubious Old Korean brethren, provided that we apply the same standard across the board. Basically, among the putative OKO "dialects," Baekje, Goguryeo, and Malgal are in the same boat as Buyeo; on the other hand Sillan does have a handful of extant texts (and there are also some Goryeo-period texts that are usually classified as Old Korean). I'm not aware of any other languages of this type currently in mainspace, and I don't think it's something we would want to encourage. -- Visviva 17:06, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

So where are we at on this kind of language? Are attested forms (i.e. forms found in recorded Buyeo personal and place names) with scholarly glosses OK? Or does an includable language actually need to have extant texts? -- Visviva 08:34, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

If it's a real language, that was actually spoken, and these words are actually attested (even if indirectly/mentionishly), then I think we should include them. 16:49, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

There was a Buyeo language, which was spoken in the w:Buyeo kingdom (Korean and Manchuria). A small number of words are known today. —Stephen 21:08, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Knowing nothing specifically about the language, please excuse any errors I may make here. Perhaps the best route is using categories, and possibly also appendices, but not mainspace entries. For example, if a Buyeo word is only known through, say, a Korean place-name, then we could note that in the etymology section. "From Buyeo *xxxx, [[Category:ko:Buyeo derivations]]." We might even want to set up an etyl template for the job. This would allow someone interested in Buyeo to see what we have on it at a glance, without putting too much hypothetical stuff in the main namespace. I intend to do something similar with Pre-Greek. Of course, if something is directly attested in writing, then it certainly merits a mainspace entry. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 08:59, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

template:fb

I believe that two letter templates are reserved for language codes (e.g. {{en}}), however {{fb}} is a redirect to the context template {{American football}}, for which it isn't even an obvious (to me) abbreviation. Thryduulf 14:21, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Orphan and, after some time, delete. Note that a previous (recent) discussion was closed unresolved.—msh210℠ 16:24, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Two-letter codes are only reserved for ISO if such a code exists. There aren't going to be any new 2-letter codes, so we don't have to worry since fb isn't an ISO code. --EncycloPetey 16:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Hyper-technically, the ISO policy is not to assign two letter codes for languages that have 3-letter codes, so that applications using both (us;-) can use the minimum length code and not encounter changes. It is possible for a new language not coded at all now to be assigned both a 2-letter and a 3-letter code. This did happen with Yi (ii/iii). But now is very unlikely.

However, {{fb}} is unused and unneeded: Delete as just that. Robert Ullmann 17:13, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Fyi, it's unused only because I've just orphaned it. (I took the liberty of doing so pending the result of this RFD, as there's nothing wrong with snapping redirects in any event.)—msh210℠ 17:21, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Should we apply the same logic to the other lowercase 2-letter templates that aren't currently language codes? There's: {{bb}} (redirect to {{basketball}}), {{db}} (redirect to {{delete}}), {{ed}}, {{ib}} (redirect to {{italbrac}}), {{if}}, {{pf}} (redirect to {{pf.}}), {{tm}}, {{us}} (redirect to {{US}}), {{ws}}. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 23:35, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Meaning what? Consider them by the same criteria or take the same action? Some of those templates are potentially useful, although some seem unneeded and could be done away with. I think each template would need its own discussion, or else we end up in confusion. For the record, {{ib}}, {{if}}, {{tm}}, {{us}}, and {{ws}} seem to have some value to me. --EncycloPetey 05:13, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree {{bb}} should be treated the same as {{fb}}. As for {{ib}} - where I come accross this (and {{italbrac}}, {{i-c}}, {{italbrac-colon}}) I replace them with specific templates apropriate to where they are used (e.g. {{a}}, {{sense}}, {{qualifier}}) although there are a few uses where this isn't possible, principally outside the main namespace. I suggest that you start a separate discussion about each of them. Thryduulf 12:23, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Kept as a harmless redirect - no ISO code. --Jackofclubs 19:18, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

October 2008

November 2008

Category:ko:North Korea

It was an alternative version of Category:North Korean; now it is empty. Daniel. 20:15, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, no. By our naming standards, this is the category for Korean geographical words pertaining to North Korea. --EncycloPetey 21:11, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

By our context template naming standards, {{North Korea}} should be used when a word is mainly used on North Korea, regardless of the subject. All words in this category were added using this template. Additionally, perhaps Korean geographical words pertaining to North Korea would be better contextualized with {{North Korea|geography}}.Daniel. 09:58, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, that would refer to a geographical term used (primarily/solely) in North Korea. In due time (when we have enough entries), we will probably want to have a Category:North Korean geography and matching context label, for words like 로동자구 ("workers' district") which are used only in reference to North Korean geography. That would allow us to correctly tag the South Korean spelling, 노동자구, as {{South Korea|North Korean geography}}; this is headache-inducing but accurate. The same would apply mutatis mutandis to the case below. -- Visviva 05:17, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

• Delete, and thanks to Daniel for cleaning this up. -- Visviva 05:17, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

  You're welcome, Visviva. Daniel. 18:09, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

• Keep. Just because it does not contain entries is not reason to delete it. Aren't there any Korean entries for places in North Korea that could be categorized here? --EncycloPetey 03:23, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

  This is a good point. Our Category:Countries structure is rather underdeveloped at the moment, but there are plenty of iconic-in-Korean North Korean placenames that deserve entries (though only Pyongyang and Diamond Mountain come to mind as possible English entries). Keep, I guess (and likewise for the one below). -- Visviva 16:57, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

  I agree with EncycloPetey: if a category deserves entries, it should be kept. However, it leads us to another question: our regional context templates ({{Spain}}, {{Portugal}}, {{India}}, etc. - and even, {{North Korea}}) are used to contextualize terms solely or mainly used in those places. How will we contextualize words used in reference of North Korean geography? This is important information that ought to be part of the entry, not just a category link. Would this definition be desirable?

  Pyongyang

  1. (North Korean geography) The capital city.

  If yes, perhaps we should have a Category:North Korean geography (and a Category:ko:North Korean geography), as said before. And Category:North Korean foods, etc. Daniel. 18:09, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

  The context isn't needed at all. The city has the same name when spoken of by either North or South Koreans. The regional context templates only apply when a word's use is limited to a particular region or dialect. The physical location of the referent is immaterial and does not require context. --EncycloPetey 20:15, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Category:ko:South Korea

It was an alternative version of Category:South Korean; now it is empty. Daniel. 20:16, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, no. By our naming standards, this is the category for Korean geographical words pertaining to South Korea. --EncycloPetey 21:11, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

By our context template naming standards, {{South Korea}} should be used when a word is mainly used on South Korea, regardless of the subject. All words in this category were added using this template. Additionally, perhaps Korean geographical words pertaining to South Korea would be better contextualized with {{South Korea|geography}}. Daniel. 10:00, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

The geographical words pertaining to South Korea will not need a context tag at all. The tag {{South Korea}} should be edited to place these words in an appropriately named category. --EncycloPetey 22:17, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Category:Translation requests (Dimili)

Alternative version of Category:Translation requests (Zazaki). Daniel. 20:18, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Deleted -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 05:31, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

....and subsequently restored. These are two distinct languages, {{zza}} and {{diq}}, and merit two distinct translations request cats. Keep -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 05:35, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, there are three main dialects of Zazaki. This situation is comparable to Norwegian, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk; or Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. Please see Category:Zazaki language, Category:Northern Zazaki language and Category:Southern Zazaki language. Daniel. 14:05, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so further investigation reveals that {{zza}} should be deleted, as it's a macrolanguage code. Thus, both Category:Translation requests (Dimili) and Category:Translation requests (Zazaki) should be deleted, in favour of the two (Northern and Southern Zazaki). -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 20:27, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

redirected. --Jackofclubs 19:16, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Category:English adjectives ending in -ridden

Empty category, very unusual description. Alternative version of Category:English words suffixed with -ridden. Daniel. 00:48, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

-ridden is not properly a suffix, is it? DCDuring TALK 01:15, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Not unless *(deprecated template usage) -laden and *(deprecated template usage) -filled are as well, AFAICT. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 20:04, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Certainly speedy delete for these two badly named cats. I supposed -ridden isn't a suffix, see also natured that I recently rewrote thanks to some input from an admin. If you're talking about guilt-ridden that's guilt + ridden rather than any suffixing or prefixing going on (IMO). Mglovesfun 22:32, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Delay deletion of Category:English words suffixed with -ridden until erroneous use of {{suffix}} is corrected to {{compound}}. Should -ridden be a redirect to ridden? Also see ridden. Do we need anything more there? Should we have categories for compounds? DCDuring TALK 23:53, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

deleted I think it is deletable now. --Jackofclubs 19:14, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Category:English combining forms

Empty category. Alternative version of Category:English affixes. Daniel. 12:51, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Keep and use. Properly speaking, I think there is a difference between a combining form and an affix; IIRC — and someone please correct me if I'm wrong — affixes only attach to words, whereas combining forms can attach to other combining forms (e.g., geology = geo- + -logy). We use "prefix" and "suffix" as our POS header for combining forms (because we suck at POS headers), which implies that [[geo-]] and [[-logy]] do have to be in [[Category:English prefixes]] and [[Category:English suffixes]], but I think we should have them in [[Category:English combining forms]] as well. (If we take that approach, then [[Category:English combining forms]] would be a subcategory of [[Category:English affixes]].) —Ruakh_TALK 16:05, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

keep for now. The same argument would apply to the other languages. The effort to rationalise this class of categories cannot be well-addressed one category at a time. Did I miss a BP discussion on this? DCDuring TALK 16:19, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

My Oxford Companion to the English Language agrees with you re "combining form" vs. "affix". It suggests that the distinction was started in the OED, and has been followed by most dictionaries... I think that we should keep the prefix/suffix approach (it's simple, easy to understand, and arguably correct), but a combining forms category is a good idea too. It could even be broken down further, for example into Greek vs. Latin roots, if anyone is so inclined. -- Visviva 17:08, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Does it make a difference to a user whether a given headword is called a combining form or an affix, besides what Ruakh mentions above? If not, is that enough to warrant a less-than-intuitive {IMO, for "ordinary" users} distinction? Perhaps the category would be uaeful to allow us to contemplate the need for a new PoS header configuration for these. What are hypernyms for "prefix", "suffix", "circumfix" (?), and "combining form"? DCDuring TALK 20:20, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Template:yi-Hebr and Template:hebrew

No transclusions. These are synonyms for {{Hebr}}, which aren't consistently named. Discussed at Wiktionary:Grease_pit#Script_templates_to_merge_or_delete. —Michael Z. 2008-11-26 01:39 z

Been redirected. This seems good enough, AFAIK. --Jackofclubs 19:13, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

December 2008

Template:semxlit

Used for Semitic transliterations, specifying font-family: Tahoma, Lucida Sans Unicode;. I replaced all three occurrences in entries with {{unicode}}. Apparently the template is only in use for compatibility with w:Template:Semxlit, which has been deprecated there. This should be deleted or redirected to {unicode}. —Michael Z. 2008-12-06 00:07 z

No objection. I created both anyway. - Gilgamesh 19:55, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Template:IAST

Used for the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, but merely applies class="IAST Unicode". I have replaced the 5 or 6 occurrences with {{unicode}}. —Michael Z. 2008-12-06 03:45 z

As with {semxlit}, should be harmlessly redirected to {unicode} for the purpose of facilitating the process of transwikiing articles (and if AutoFormat could add the trigger of replacing {semxlit}/{IAST} with {unicode}, as it's doing with a number of other obsoleted script templates, it would be great). --Ivan Štambuk 16:05, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Category:ru:Ungrammatical words

Can words be ungrammatical? (I'd say no, but even if they can, it should be renamed to Category:Russian ungrammatical words, no?) Regardless the only word in this category is a misspelling (also listed under Category:Russian misspellings) so the utility of this category is suspicious. Misspellings in other languages haven't been treated as "ungrammatical" AFAIK. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 10:06, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps barbarisms or illiteracies would be better. Russian is very phonetic and has nothing like the spelling difficulties of English. Variant spellings in English are so common that they are often given alternative status, but Russian "misspelling" is usually a typo, a joke, or the product of illiteracy. —Stephen 09:32, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

No, I don't see how a word on its own can be ungrammatical, grammar is essentially about sentence structure. Is the author trying to say misspellings. I dunno, I know FA about Russian. Mglovesfun 22:29, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Deleted - there was only one word in the category, which was a misspelling anyway (and misspellings are by definition [grammatically?] incorrect) --Jackofclubs 19:25, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Category:Noun forms by language

(and its predecessor Category:Noun forms) Not a useful category. What constitutes a noun "form" varies too much by language. This is, in effect "noun forms that aren't the main dictionary form...by language". The relevant category is Category:Nouns by language, which we already have. --EncycloPetey 05:34, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

So then, Category:<language> noun forms would be a subcategory only of Category:<language> nouns, not of any interlanguage category? I'm down with that. (I assume we'd also do away with Category:Verb forms, Category:Adjective forms, and Category:Adjective forms by language?) —Ruakh_TALK 22:34, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'd agree with eliminating all such similar categories in other parts of speech. --EncycloPetey 22:46, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Delete per nom. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 17:11, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Strong keep. Nominator`s rationale completely disregards the strong similarities within groups of related languages, e.g. the Scandinavian languages. Also, maintaining a common structure ensures uniformity in category nomenclature. __meco 14:01, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

There will still be a common structure, just a different structure. I don't see how "forms that aren't the lemma" is a comparison worth making across languages. --EncycloPetey 18:58, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

It's not a comparison worth making, but it serves as a gateway to other indispensable comparisons that would otherwise be difficult to come by. __meco 10:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Boldly Kept against consensus. We still have similar categories e.g. Category:Verb forms by language. Pls restart discussion at WT:BP or WT:VOTE (or WT:RFD) if you disagree --Jackofclubs 19:28, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Category:Spanish plural nouns

and Category:Spanish plural adjectives. Unused. The non-lemma forms are placed in Category:Spanish noun forms and Category:Spanish adjective forms. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 17:48, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

What about using this to categorise Spanish significant plural nouns? pantalones, vías... El imp 14:55, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

The title should be more descriptive for that, to indicate that they are always (or usually) encountered in a "plural" form. --EncycloPetey 19:59, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. That would be a different cat with a different name. But be bold and create it. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 09:05, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

The category for what you guys are referring to should be something like Category:Spanish pluralia tantum — [ ric ] opiaterein — 14:27, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I personally think that this category (Category:Spanish plural nouns) should be the one we use, rather than Category:Spanish noun forms considering the fact that most Spanish nouns only have ONE non-lemma form, and 3 at the most, which is mostly for occupations and words describing people. To compare plural forms of nouns and a few feminine equivalents to languages that have full case systems to me seems particularly silly. I agree with the deletion of Category:Spanish plural adjectives in favor of "Spanish adjective forms", but because they more consistently have 3 non-lemma forms. — [ ric ] opiaterein — 14:27, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that [[:Category:Spanish plural nouns should be used for nouns that are normally or always plural. This category name is more intuitive and would be easier to find than a more descriptive/elaborate category name. Keep category systems simple and intuitive for easier editing. Will help reduce learning curve for general public (non-editors) and newer editors.

Template:esbot:conjugation

An old TheDaveBot remnant, but it no longer does anything, since {{es-verb form of}} adds the category. I can orphan it with my bot. Dmcdevit·t 05:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Orphan, then delete, not high priority though. Conrad.Irwin 18:29, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

What Conrad said. —Ruakh_TALK 04:48, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Now orphaned. Dmcdevit·t 08:34, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay, please leave it for now. I'll delete it when all of McBot's edits are reflected in the XML dump. (Else someone using the dump for content finds an undefined template.) Robert Ullmann 10:32, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

January 2009

Template:lang

Wikipedia import/atrocity, completely incompatible with how we handle script and language templates. (which Michael has well in hand). Should be deprecated and entirely removed. Robert Ullmann 00:01, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Aw, thanks.

Nearly 4,000 entries show up as transclusions in “what links here”, but I only found about 1 in 10 with the template still present. Can we sic a bot after it? In translations sections it can probably safely be replaced with {{t}}. Elsewhere, if it immediately follows {{etyl}} then it can probably be replaced with {{term}}. —Michael Z. 2009-01-15 00:35 z

A lot of the inclusions seem to be from templates which use {{lang}}. {{ko-inline}} appears to be one of the bigger culprits. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 00:40, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, quite a few different cases (net here is horrible right now; took me a dozen minutes to set up this edit, who knows what to save it but is 4AM so I can just go sleep ;-) we should be able to sort. Robert Ullmann 01:04, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

FYI, it's transcluded in the following templates: {{ja-adjdecl}}, {{ja-go-bu}}, {{ja-go-gu}}, {{ja-go-ku}}, {{ja-go-mu}}, {{ja-go-nu}}, {{ja-go-ru}}, {{ja-go-su}}, {{ja-go-tsu}}, {{ja-go-u}}, {{ja-honorific}}, {{ja-i}}, {{ja-ichi}}, {{ja-kuru}}, {{ja-na}}, {{ja-suru}}, {{ja-verbconj}}, {{japanese number}}, {{ko-adv}}, {{ko-basic-adj-hada}}, {{ko-basic-doedaverb}}, {{ko-inline-inf}}, {{ko-inline}}, {{ko-pron}}, {{ko-pron/draft}}, {{ko-syllable}}, {{ko-usage-jeogin}}, {{ko-usage-spacing-ida}}, {{okm-inline}}, {{passive form of}}, {{User ja-0}}, {{User ko-3}}. —Michael Z. 2009-01-15 16:59 z

A lot of those are indirect; all of the ja- conjugation templates are (were) getting it from {ja-conj}, etc. I've fixed a lot of your list by fixing 3-4 templates. There are a few more. Robert Ullmann 17:39, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Looks like it's down to about 660 entries now. —Michael Z. 2009-01-16 20:56 z

This may be a foolish question, but couldn't this just be fixed to use {{lang2sc}}? I don't use this template much myself, but it's a lot easier to type {{lang|<language code>}} than it is to try to remember or locate the random 4-letter sequence assigned to a particular script... Or perhaps it could be made auto-substable in some fashion? Compatibility with Wikipedia is not actually a bad thing IMO. -- Visviva

Compatibility with Wikipedia is evil. (More reasonably, anything that is done the same way on the surface tends to make 'pedians think that the wikt is the pedia, with bad results ;-) We can't do {lang} the way they do and get the results we want; for one example, IE just renders boxes in a lot of places on the pedia where we provide the fonts for IE. They also do nothing to correct font size in mixed running text, where we do try at least. So {lang} here wouldn't work the way it does there, and they would be trying to "fix" ours.

{{lang2sc}} will not scale; even at its present size it is way too much overhead to introduce into every call to infl, t, etc. (remember, the template language expands everything) It would need to cover about 7000 language codes eventually (less some fraction for Latin-1, but note that defaulting to Latn is wrong, it has to default to nothing).

Also note that while there are perhaps 10K combinations of lang/script that are valid, only a relative handful are/will be recognized by browsers (the IANA registry has a few hundred). I modified a Korean ety template that was using {{lang|okm|...}} which generates lang="okm", which isn't going to mean anything to a browser (except possibly with the non-standard private-use extension, which we can't permit, as it redefines a reserved area only for Korean; this might be okay for the ko.wikt, but breaks the whole concept of the universal character set). lang="okm-Kore" might, lang="ko-Kore" would probably produce the best results. We need the script templates to generate useful (whether or not "legal" ;-) combinations. (Mind you, if we could shoot IE, then we could just hand the info we have to the browser ...)

How many scripts do you use? Surely remembering {Kore} and 3 or 4 others isn't hard. There aren't that many in total, and I doubt you'll be using {Moon} ... ;-) Robert Ullmann 14:17, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

IFYPFY.—msh210℠ 04:56, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I think lang2sc functionality can be accomplished by transcluding a language-code template instead of using a complex switch statement. A possibility is to add this function to each language template, so while {{el}} returns “Greek”, {{el|script}} could be made to return the script code “Grek”. This is something I plan to try out in the future.

You won't be able to, because you won't be able to make the template subst'ble. If the MW software would allow subst: to appear in a template as a no-op when not subst'd, you could. But it doesn't. I'd suggest you not try to figure out the other details unless you can figure out this problem, else you'll get stuck anyway (has been tried twice ;-). Robert Ullmann 17:31, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh. Why does it have to be substable? Do you mean stuff breaks when the language-code template is substed, or when its parent template is substed? —Michael Z. 2009-01-16 20:56 z

Either one. Either you include subst:<includeonly/> in your parser functions (e.g. {{subst:<includeonly/>#if:…), in which case the template will only work when subst:'d (so it can't be used by other templates), or you don't, in which case the template will produce lots of garbage when subst:'d. —Ruakh_TALK 16:38, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

BTW, *experiments a bit* you can do fancy things to make it work in a bit more cases. For example, right now {{User:Ruakh/Template|subst=}} and {{subst:User:Ruakh/Template}} both produce Greek, and {{User:Ruakh/Template|script|subst=}} and {{subst:User:Ruakh/Template|script}} both produce Grek. This means that the templates could still be subst:'d just fine, and they could be called by other templates, provided those templates pass in a blank subst= parameter. However, {{User:Ruakh/Template}} and {{User:Ruakh/Template|script}} produce total garbage, which means that editors visiting from other wikts couldn't just use {{el}}: in translation tables (which, I believe, was actually the reason these templates were created to begin with).

However, you could make the dependency go the other way — use {{{subst|}}}#ifeq: instead of {{{subst|subst:}}}#ifeq: — and then everything would work fine, except for bare {{subst:el}}: in translations tables (which would still look O.K., but would produce garbage wikitext).

All told, it might not be a bad idea, provided there's a bot that cleans up the garbage quickly. (Bots that perform the subst:'ing themselves would just have to know to specify subst=subst:.)

—Ruakh_TALK 16:59, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

The content of the individual language-code templates may also be a good place to self-document the default and optional script and variant codes for various languages, rather than having a docs page constantly playing catch-up to hundreds of templates.

Another point is that 99.9% of language-tagged elements shouldn't have a script code explicitly included; only unusual combinations should (see “W3C i18n: Language tags in HTML and XML”). Of course we still need the mechanism to automate the generation of correct language tags, and apply font formatting to them. My hope is to eventually have a set of CSS rules for modern browsers selecting strictly on language tags, and supplementary class names to support their dim-witted cousins, MSIE 6 and 7. —Michael Z. 2009-01-15 16:59 z

Indeed. My present thought is the script templates take lang=, generate the lang=".." attribute, suppressing the script in the appropriate cases. But I haven't gone through all of this. The problem is doing something that is multiply dimensioned, where one of the dimensions is ~7K, and doing it in the template "language" ... your CSS classes could use lang() pseudo-classes, since it is for "modern" browsers (;-) and then we use the script classes for IE, and some fonts we still want to "force" on other browsers for now. (see also Nbarth's comments on my talk page; time for me pint, cheers) Robert Ullmann 17:31, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I think I have the script template part figured out; please see if User:Mzajac/Language attributes has any technical problems. We'd just have to make all of the calling templates pass down lang=xx. —Michael Z. 2009-01-16 20:56 z

Oh, do note that one can't just blithely include a language template all the time; we carefully fixed {{t}} so that it doesn't, and one can't use #ifexist either (is "expensive", and the number of uses per page is limited). If every use of term, inlf, t, etc used a lang2sc-analogue that used individual language templates, large pages would not render. I'm noodling something in between, that will accomplish what we want. Robert Ullmann 17:39, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Why is #ifexist necessary? Entering a non-existent template just breaks gracelessly, so why can't we just make an unknown language code do the same thing? I'm guessing that I need to familiarize myself with the legacy codes for Oriental languages. —Michael Z. 2009-01-16 20:56 z

It looks like quite a few of the remaining would disappear if someone with a bot would replace {{lang|ko|foo}} and {{lang|ko-Hant|foo}} with {{Kore|foo}} and {{Hant|lang=ko|foo}} respectively. Also in {{ja-accent-common}} should {{lang|ja-Latn}} be replaced with {{Jpan}} or {{Latn}}, and if the latter, does that need to wait until {{Latn}} supports an optional lang parameter? — Carolina wren discussió 17:42, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll get started on {{lang|ko}} and {{lang|ko-Hant}}. —Michael Z. 2009-04-12 18:52 z

Review ongoing changes at Special:Contributions/Mzajacbot. —Michael Z. 2009-04-12 19:12 z

Done the Korean ones, and a few stray Japanese and Chinese ones.

I think {{lang|ja-Latn}} can be replaced with {{Latn|lang=ja}} even though the template doesn't support the language attribute yet. Once support is added, then the HTML will get the attributes lang="ja-Latn" xml:lang="ja-Latn". Is this being used to mark Japanese Romaji, or transliteration, and is that the right code to use? —Michael Z. 2009-04-13 05:58 z

I got the transclusion count down from about 660 to 90. I'll go ahead and use Latn|lang=ja for the above. —Michael Z. 2009-04-13 16:26 z

About 30 to go. Found some cases I don't know how to resolve:

{{lang|zh|...}} with no script indicated. Is there a correct replacement, or does a Chinese reader need to decide Hant or Hans?

{{lang|zh-hk|...}}: Hans or Hant?

{{lang|zh-s}}: no idea what this is

 —Michael Z. 2009-04-13 16:58 z

I imagine {{lang|zh-s}} was intended to indicate simplified script. The first two could use Hani (which is the code for undifferentiated Han characters, whether simplified, traditional, hanja, or kanji). — Carolina wren discussió 18:52, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I forgot Hani.

I see Wikipedia uses zh-s for simplified, and it looks like that's what we had.[1] (But elsewhere I find draft RFCs with -s- for subtags, as in “zh-s-min-s-nan-Hant-CN (Southern variant of Min sublanguage as used in China, written with traditional Characters).” Yeesh.)

I changed one instance of zh-hk to Hani;[2] if someone knows better, then please correct it.

And, we're done. I've left two instances where the old template was being referred to and red-linking it will do no harm, and two instances of weirdness resulting from template:projectlinks. I declare this orphaned. —Michael Z. 2009-04-13 23:41 z

Remaining font templates

I cleared up the inclusions and found one that I had missed earlier. These are members of category:Font templates which are unused and probably all replaced by literal text in script templates or in the style sheet. —Michael Z. 2009-01-18 18:28 z

• {{Kurdish fonts}}
• {{Kurdish font size}}
• {{Urdu fonts}}

Template:metaphorically

In most cases should be figuratively, so redirect there. (In a few cases might mean in metaphor, that is, only occurring within the context of an explicit metaphor, but to say metaphorically in those cases would be misleading.) DAVilla 15:48, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

February 2009

Template:mammal

Inappropriate context template. This is not a usage restriction, grammatical note, nor a jargon field. --EncycloPetey 03:42, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Delete per nom. I think there are some other similar ones that also need to go: {{bird}}, {{fish}}, etc. -- Visviva 04:10, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Keep and fix, à la {{star}}: {{mammal}} can categorize into Category:Mammals, but display (zoology) or some such. —Ruakh_TALK 14:41, 22 February 2009 (UTC) Striking at 22:11, 28 February 2009 (UTC), per Visviva and EncycloPetey's replies below.

But should it? How often is the vernacular name of a mammal really specific to mammalogy/zoology? Certainly there are cases where it is, but I think we would be better off identifying those cases individually, rather than using a template which naive users will assume can be applied to all mammal names. IMO the same applies to most uses of {{star}}; e.g. the name Betelgeuse is far more likely to be encountered outside the scientific astronomical literature than within it, so the context label is misleading at best. These cases seem to differ from e.g. {{drug}}, {{protein}}, or {{organic compound}}, where in most cases the bulk of use is technical. -- Visviva 14:57, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

The use of {{star}} is different, because the names of stars are used almost exclusively by astronomers talking about astronomy. Names of mammals (or other animals) are used by the general population, not simply as jargon in writings within a specialized field. --EncycloPetey 17:50, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Redirect to template:biology or something and restrict to appropriate use per Visviva. Others to consider include amphibian, organic compound, pharmaceutical drug, protein, fish, bird, amino acid, birds, carbohydrate, carbohydrates, chemical compound, inorganic compound, chemical element, element, chess piece, city, coenzyme, color, colour, computer language, genre, genres, insect, mushroom, mushrooms, plant, plants, enzyme|, and reptile; perhaps this is an issue for the BP?—msh210℠ 17:17, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Each of these should be considered for its own merits (or not). Please provide a list of terms that would use this template appropriately. I can't think of any. --EncycloPetey 02:32, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

No idea: I don't study mammals. Someone who does doubtless knows the jargon in the field, if such a field exists.—msh210℠ 21:44, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

My degree and graduate work were both in biology. While I can think of some terms used in Mammalogy, I can't think of any jargon specific to mammals that wouldn't be better placed in another context (such as anatomy, ecology, or behavioral science). Taxon-specific categories work as topical categories, but not as lexical context categories where cross-taxonomic application is the norm for almost any taxon below the rank of kingdom. --EncycloPetey 03:13, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Mixing topical labels with thematic categories like this is dangerous. For clarity, maybe the label templates should include the label text and category, like {{zoology}}, {{zoology (Mammals)}}, {{zoology (Fish)}}, etc. Even then, their function is not clear, because some entries will need category text added separately but others won't.

If you ask me, in the long run the subject categories should be for senses with restricted meanings to those contexts, while thematic categories should either be separated from them or eliminated completely. Why should we duplicate Wikipedia's taxonomy of subject areas, at the expense of lexicological classification? —Michael Z. 2009-03-05 23:04 z

Amen to that. I have ranted on this subject ("words don't have topics!") in the past, without making much headway. Perhaps I just haven't made enough noise.  :-) Thought: a more robust, transcludable Wikisaurus format might work better than categories for classifying words based on semantic meaning, since synsets can be assigned to specific senses in a way that can't be done with categories. Now that we have LST, it may be worthwhile to try some new experiments in this area.

Still, I think there are a handful of cases where discourse field and semantic meaning consistently and usefully overlap. I wouldn't want to give up {{protein}} or {{organic compound}}, for example; hand-typing "Category:Proteins" in every entry is a pointless chore that would never get done. Of course there are some protein names that aren't part of (or specific to) biochemical terminology, but these are the exception rather than the rule. -- Visviva 04:34, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it makes sense to use convenience subdivisions for huge topical categories if lexicographical ones don't exist – {{biochemistry (protein)}} would be clearer; or, easier to type, {{biochemistry/proteins}}. But all words relating to a subject field shouldn't be lumped in with technical vocabulary.

You're right that general topic is relevant to the thesaurus, if not the dictionary.

New namespaces may be an answer. Does MediaWiki support multiple Category-type namespaces? This could be used to clearly separate POS vs. Usage/Context, vs. Topic/Subject/Theme. It would be clearer for editors to apply distinct categorization with distinct labels: [[POS:Noun]], [[Usage:Zoology]], [[Topic:Mammals]], whether typed directly or label templates, and clearer for readers to browse the corresponding pure category trees. —Michael Z. 2009-03-06 07:14 z

The same inofmration could be stated at the top of any given category with a standard bit of templated text. Having multiple category namespaces introduces problems, and I don't believe it is supported. --EncycloPetey 14:28, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The serious problem isn't where information appears, although certainly documentation is lacking. The problem is that we have mixed up restricted usage with general subject field, and regional dialect with geographical subject field. Not only is the status of existing entries confused in this way, but we haven't even clearly defined these axes of categorization, nor created distinct methods for editors to apply them. This is a serious problem which needs to be resolved before another 10,000 entries are poured into the soup. —Michael Z. 2009-03-06 16:04 z

I'm very sorry for not reading all of the above discussion for this topic, and moreover I sincerely hope that I could be forgiven for being so arrogant in presuming that no-one until now considered the connection between the above discussion and one issue which came to my mind and which I will start. Even more I will start the issue despite the risk of being labeled as arrogant even more than I could potentially be thought of already (for the previous presumptions) - arrogant for presuming again and this time that the question has never been asked here before. So, I wonder this: "What does the inclusion, if not even the very existence, of categories such as: [[Category:Vertebrates]], [[Category:Arthropods]], [[Category:Echinoderms]], [[Category:Mollusks]], [[Category:Worms]], et cetera, has to do with wiktionary... or any dictionary at all. As if it is dictionary's "responsibility" to make categories for the terms that describe AMD/OR define any possible kind of living beings, and then put those categories in the dictionary, again use those categories, finally categorize those terms according to those previously custom-made (custom-made for the dictionary) categories, "et alii" different actions that diligent wiktionary contributors do while enthusiastically and philanthropically contributing to a magnificent common cause. It's biology's "responsibility", in my opinion. Or maybe I am conceptually wrong by ranting all this, and those thing just speed up an inevitable process of fusion between wikipedia and wiktionary - and for that matter perhaps even other wikimedia projects. (These "arguments", which I presented, if they could be considered argumentative enough should go the same for the Template:bird discussion"). All the best, --Biblbroks 16:32, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned and deleted.​—msh210℠ 18:25, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

You should certain replace it with Category:Mammals in all of those pages where you deleted it. I don’t know why you’d want to delete it anyway, it makes it much more difficult to use these templates. If you don’t understand the reasoning, you won’t know whether to add a context or a category or what, so now there will be redlinked contexts and pages left without proper categories. And to what end? —Stephen 00:16, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:anatomy slang and template:slang anatomy

Overly specific. I replaced its sole occurrence in clit with {{slang}}, because the term is not restricted to use by anatomists. —Michael Z. 2009-03-04 22:36 z

Same goes for the second, replaced in head and bum crack. —Michael Z. 2009-03-05 00:07 z

That is the rationale for using {{slang anatomy}} -- to denote slang terms for the anatomy, not slang used by anatomists. Note that the label is simply "slang", but the category is Category:Slang terms for anatomy. This was prompted by the need to distinguish words -- in this case specifically slang words -- about the anatomy from terms used in the field of anatomy. Many slang and vernacular anatomy terms otherwise get filed into Category:Anatomy for obvious reasons... This is just a local hack for a systemic problem with our category system; a more general solution is definitely needed.

As for {{anatomy slang}}, I suppose that could be useful too, but I'm not aware of any terms that would qualify. -- Visviva 02:39, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, maybe {slang anatomy} could be useful, but without any documentation, and without the general acceptance of this kind of construction, it's not useful. In nearly a year it had only been placed into one entry, so if there is a need, it's not being fulfilled.

As to {anatomy slang}, It's barely even distinguishable by readers or editors from {{anatomy|slang}}, and we can only guess what it's meant for. There may be some good idea behind it. Or maybe there isn't. If its purpose is not clear, then all it will accomplish is to confuse editors and readers. —Michael Z. 2009-03-05 15:37 z

Given its creator, I would venture that the only intended purpose of {{anatomy slang}} is to confuse and annoy.

As for {{slang anatomy}}, you're right; I failed to follow through on my original intention, and had quite forgotten about this particular peeve of mine. I would be happy to go and add it to a large block of entries, but I suppose I had better wait for this process to play out first. -- Visviva 15:44, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Is it really intended for all slang terms for (parts of) the anatomy, including (say) (deprecated template usage) yapper, (deprecated template usage) trap, (deprecated template usage) guns, and (deprecated template usage) noggin? Or is it just for, shall we say, parts of the anatomy that the FCC would prefer we didn't know about? If the former, then I don't see how this is different from other kinds of slang, which we don't generally subcategorize by topic; and if the latter, then I think its name is too vague (though I can understand why). —Ruakh_TALK 17:05, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The latter would be tagged with the sister label {{vulgar anatomy}}, I think.

Following through on this idea threatens to create 10,000 specialized labels and categories. Slang is a speech register, or arguably dialect, while anatomy is a subject. We can't cross every combination of usage and subject, much less the other children of category:Context labels. We'll end up with {{dated offensive Cockney rhyming ethnicity}} and its siblings.

Hypothetically, the way to deal with this would be to create a mechanism allowing the reader to automatically cross any two category listings, by going to category:Slang?intersect=Anatomy, or category:Slang/Anatomy, or something. Solved by posting a feature request to bugzilla and waiting any number of days or years. —Michael Z. 2009-03-05 21:22 z

Yes, of course it would include words like yapper. To clarify, it was actually intended primarily to subdivide Category:Anatomy, which is where a lot of these terms have ended up, along with other non-technical words for body parts, such as arm and armpit. I trust we can all agree that that isn't a desirable use of the category structure, so either a) we give up on semantic categorization entirely, or b) we find a sensible way to separate it from categorization by discourse field. This was one attempt at such a separation; looking back I probably should have gone with my first thought, which was simply to create Category:Parts of the body. -- Visviva 04:42, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Thematic categorization is mixed up with lexicographical categorization, in both our topical category structure, and in our use of templates and literal category inclusions – until this is resolved, both readers and editors will be confounded by it.

b) sorting it out would be okay, but a dictionary doesn't categorize terms by theme, and this is redundant with Wikipedia anyway.

a) abandoning thematic categorization and sticking to lexicographical categorization is probably better. So, e.g., restrictive labels like {{anatomy}} should be applied only to senses restricted to the field of anatomy, and category:Anatomy should be inventory of specialized anatomists' vocabulary. —Michael Z. 2009-03-06 06:16 z

This will need to be a BP discussion, but although I agree that a topical system is not appropriate for a dictionary, categorization by referent is both possible and useful. The best example in modern lexicography is WordNet, which categorizes all nouns and verbs under a very compact and robust set of core categories. Roget's has an older and IMO somewhat less robust schema. We should certainly be able to develop something based on these models that meets our needs. -- Visviva 13:31, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

deleted both as unused. --Jackofclubs 19:31, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Appendix:Killers

This is just a list of words, with no commentary or organization. The selection criteria seem to be duplicated by Category:English nouns ending in "-cide". There are some redlinks, but in a quick view they seem very doubtful about passing CFI (aphidicide gets only 124 results on Google Books); we could merge them into Requested entries if someone wants to bother. Or if someone wanted to expand the list with glosses for the words, and some sort of organization (maybe historical?) that would also make it worth saving. In it's current form, it would be trivial to re-create, and just adds to the list of redundant appendices. JesseW 19:47, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge with requested entries, then delete. Should we also be using the standard Category:English words suffixed with -cide?Conrad.Irwin 22:50, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Badly named, should either be merged or renamed. Mglovesfun 19:10, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

law of diminishing marginal utility

Formerly: Transwiki:Diminishing marginal utility

I'm not sure whether the SoPitude of this entry is at the level of diminishing + marginal utility or + marginal + utility. DCDuring TALK 14:08, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

It's slightly more than a SoP, as the "marginal utility" is "diminishing" specifically with more of some input (e.g. more consumption of good 'X'). I'm never good at drawing the line for these though. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 02:05, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I don’t know what it means and I can’t even guess from the individual words, so keep it if it’s a real term. —Stephen 19:44, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I can't find the entry for real term. DCDuring TALK 20:44, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

That’s because "real term" is SoP. It means a term that has a specific meaning and is used by most people in a region or by people in a certain field or application. "Real term" is not a real term, because it is two independent words and not a term of art that might be used in, say, linguistics. balance sheet is a real term, "real term" is not. —Stephen 22:15, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's only diminishing in one dimension, that is with an increase of goods, not with say passage of time. It could probably be guessed from the definitions, but even if the term is sum-of-parts, that isn't sufficient grounds for deletion. It's a term in the field of economics, and one that's more readily recognized than say "increasing" marginal utility, which doesn't make sense logically. I say keep. DAVilla 06:47, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

What difference does the name of the dimension make? Most collocations involving polysemic (ie, virtually all) words derive at least some of their specific meaning rom contet. If any encyclopedic concept from a specialised field is includable, we should say so in plain language in WT:CFI. "Increasing marginal utility" can be abundantly found Google Books among the scribblings of illogical students of economics. DCDuring TALK 10:30, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

As an economist, "increasing marginal utility" does make sense, we just *assume* most of the time the utility function doesn't behave that way. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 23:56, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

This is not a SoP, it's the opposite, it's a fragment from "law of diminishing marginal utility" which, on the other hand, probably warrants a proper definition IMHO. Circeus 17:18, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

As Circeus has found a law and source, I've moved it from Transwiki to mainspace as the law of diminishing marginal utility and formatted it. I think this settles the question. Shall we remove the RFD. Goldenrowley 05:22, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

How does this meet WT:CFI? Does any attestable collocation in any dictionary warrant inclusion? The arguments above don't cite any idiom criterion. Is it a proverb? This just looks like a vote to ignore the criteria. DCDuring TALK 10:31, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Here's a selection of interesting book quotes found in 10 minutes: [3], [4], [5], [6]. 15:58, 9 May 2009 (UTC) — This unsigned comment was added by Circeus (talk • contribs) at 11:58, 9 May 2009.

Beside the point, irrelevant. There are billions of collocations, google hits for which are trivially findable. Is this term an idiom, a proverb? How is it not merely encyclopedic? By what argument does it meet WT:CFI? DCDuring TALK 16:22, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Transwiki:Marginal cost of capital

SoP. Encyclopedic. DCDuring TALK 18:49, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Goldenrowley 01:30, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 02:05, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

It looks like a technical term that might be used in accounting or economics. If it’s SoP, it’s pretty silly: "the barely significant price of a company’s money"? What does that mean? It probably means something completely different, but I can’t imagine what that would be. If it’s a real term, keep. —Stephen 19:42, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Keep research ([7] [8] [9] [10]) makes me lean toward the opinion that this is a technical term in finances, though admittedly providing a definition would not be easy without good financial knowledge. A Google Books search digs up some 7,000 occurrences and apparently MCC is a standard initialism for it, these are definite clinchers for me. The marginal cost of capital is clearly a very specific type of w:cost of capital. I believe it is relevant that there are both a weighted average cost of capita and a weighted marginal cost of capital too. Circeus 17:13, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Template:fruits

This is not a context. 63.95.64.254 23:35, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, it can be a context. Certainly most of its use is not as a context, but I suppose that that merely means that the tag should be removed from those senses. Can someone confirm that none of its current use is as a context?—msh210℠ 17:41, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

The only way I can think of that it would be a context is e.g. "ripe: Of fruits, ..." but it isn't used that way. It's used to denote that something is a fruit, which is just plain incorrect. 63.95.64.254 17:03, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

When I asked "Can someone confirm" I mean precisely that: can you confirm that it isn't used anywhere the way you agree it can properly used for ripe?—msh210℠ 16:29, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

“Of fruits” is not a lexicographical context but a specific reference; it's part of a definition. How can “fruits” possibly be a restricted usage applied to a term? (Chiefly spoken by fruits? Technical term in fruitology?) The onus is on you to provide one real example where it is, just as in RFV/RFD the onus is to provide citations. —Michael Z. 2009-05-16 23:18 z

Uh, how about foreign language entries where (fruit) is needed to clarify whether "orange" is the color or the food? Rfd stricken — [ ric ] opiaterein — 12:49, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like definition, not context: “orange in colour, like the fruit; the colour of an orange.” Can you provide an example?

Delete; That's inappropriate use of a context label. A gloss following the definition, or additional qualifying phrase is appropriate, not a context label that implies restricted usage. --EncycloPetey 22:52, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Delete Context means restricted usage. “Fruits” is not a lexicographical label, but one of those thematic subjects like Wikipedia categories: doesn't belong in Wiktionary. —Michael Z. 2009-05-16 23:18 z

If this goes, I suppose the "musical instruments" category should go too. Equinox ◑ 23:28, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Not necessarily. There are some obscure muscial instruments (such as the serpent) that could legitimately use such a tag, although the tag should display (music) for the context. --EncycloPetey 00:17, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

And many others. Should we proceed one by one, or ratify a policy and delete them all in organized fashion? —Michael Z. 2009-05-17 00:17 z

A policy would help. An abortive vote to amend ELE has already been initiated, but I think it tried to do too much without discussion first. We might have more success with a vote on the policy of how context tags should be applied. --EncycloPetey 00:18, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been meaning to take some time to help get that back on the rails. —Michael Z. 2009-05-17 05:16 z

A subtlety is that, once a template exists, all terms that relate to the template seem to end up going into it. For example, we have "video games", which really should be only terms that are almost exclusively used by players of video games (perhaps things like "speedrun"), but we end up with everyday things like "joypad" going in simply because they are on that topic. Equinox ◑ 01:40, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

In this case the context is video gaming (without endorsing this particular restricted-usage label). Video games and fruits are exactly what they sound like, encyclopedic categories of things. —Michael Z. 2009-05-17 05:16 z

This has now been orphaned (partially by me, partially by Nadando, maybe also by others) and deleted, as has its redirect template:fruit.​—msh210℠ 00:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:web games

Also has associated redirect Template:web game. Was in use on only one entry web game, which I've gone ahead and recontexted as {{video games}}. Can't see any potential new entries, since I can't see individual web games as being likely to meet CFI. — Carolina wren discussió 18:57, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Why add the restrictive label? Web games is always web games. —Michael Z. 2009-04-03 19:31 z

I admit I can't see a use for it. If it doesn't autocategorize you could just to something like ({{term|web game}}), which is why I don't make a template for every single word I want in italics. Mglovesfun 22:17, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Category:French French

I replaced a template:delete with template:rfd.

There are a lot of words/phrases that are not used outside of France itself. Is this Gallic-centrism at work? It seems rather odd that there's no category for regional French of France itself, since it has regional French, and alot of it, since French entertainment even says things about the provincialness of speech of those outside of Paris. So why was this even marked for deletion in the first place?

76.66.193.69 10:21, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

FYI: there's also Category:European French – I suppose that means the French of France, Belgium, and Switzerland. —Michael Z. 2009-04-04 15:02 z

I think most words are strongly shared between the three countries (also Monaco and Liechtenstein). The only words that are really restricted to France, most likely are those that are either dialectal within it (for which {{regional}} or {{dialectal}} should do) or restricted by political/geographical structures ("statalisms" as one of my teachers called those. They are still used outside the country to refer to these structures: you can't call a "w:municipalité régionale de comté" any other way in French!). Circeus 17:25, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Note that dialectal is used by paper dictionaries when the regionalism is too complex to delineate in the proscribed space, e.g., when it belongs to three or more dialects. Since WT:NOT#Paper, better for us to enter {{France|description}} than just “dialectal”.

What happens to metropole when the category is deleted? —Michael Z. 2009-04-16 17:47 z

Well, I dunno about métropole, but I'm sure metropole will do just fine. After all, it's not a French word to begin with! Circeus 22:04, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Firstly I think that Category:French of France is a better title because it's not ambiguous. Also fr:Catégorie:Français de France does exist, I can already think of quatre-vingt and soixante-dix which AFAIK are only used in France, replaced by huitante/octante and septante according to the country. If nothing else, few regional categories might be ok (do we have stuff like Category:Texan English? Apparently not so maybe that's where my input should end. Mglovesfun 22:15, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

quatre-vingt and soixante-dix are NOT "only used in France". The other terms are NOT universal (though they may be in the majority depending on area) in Belgium and Switzerland, and they are not used at all in North America as far as I know (except septante a bit in Acadian French, I believe). Due to the major cultural attraction of France, very few words are really unique to it, as opposed to its regions: they rapidly spread to the neighboring countries. The usage related to meals is the only one that comes to mind, personally. Circeus 20:21, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

The French taught in anglophone Canadian schools, at least outside of Quebec, has always been standard Parisian French. I suppose that French regionalisms may have been frowned upon or considered inappropriate for formal writing in different periods and places. Perhaps more so than in English, since “proper” French is set by an academy in France? —Michael Z. 2009-05-19 20:41 z

Don't even get me started on that issue. It's a mess. Circeus 00:28, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Is “standard French” a suitable name for the French of France? —Michael Z. 2009-05-20 01:18 z

No I hate that, would you say that British English is standard English? It does come across as a value judgment I think, and even if it doesn't the name isn't accurate at all. Circeus your point is a good one, but I could say the same about US English. With all the American films (sorry, movies) and TV shows in Britain, almost any American words sounds OK in UK English. So I'd hate to see the category deleted. Reformed yes, sure, but deleted hell no (another Americanism). Mglovesfun 01:34, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Category:ja:Sign languages

Not a valid topic, Category:Sign languages is a language family category -- Prince Kassad 17:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks valid to me. Compare Category:fr:Languages (or any other xx:Languages cat listed atop the page [[Category:Languages]]). I'll say keep (unless someone can explain why not).—msh210℠ 20:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

The difference is that Category:Languages is a topical category, whereas Category:Sign languages is not. Compare it to Category:Turkic languages, where we don't have Category:fr:Turkic languages etc. either. -- Prince Kassad 19:58, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

If Category:Turkic languages is not topical then why is there an entry in it? These all seem topical to me. Why do you think that Languages is and the others are not?—msh210℠ 20:35, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

This is an erroneous categorization and should be removed. The Category:All languages with all its subcategories is reserved for language categories only, so we can categorize the languages on Wiktionary by language family, country, etc. Actual entries on languages are only supposed to go to Category:Languages. -- Prince Kassad 20:48, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Category:Altaic languages

The Altaic proposal is not universally accepted and disputed by linguists, also the languages that belong to this proposed language family are not clearly defined. I don't think we should have categories on disputed language families. -- Prince Kassad 20:00, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Delete.—msh210℠ 20:54, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Template:Filmology

filmology is something else. Orphaned and replaced with Template:film. —Michael Z. 2009-04-28 03:00 z

I don't see the problem with the template redirecting to Template:film. --Eivind (t) 14:37, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Filmology is a particular specialized theoretical movement with its own vocabulary. It is separate from filmmaking, film criticism, or film history. It overlaps more with psychology, educational theory, and “aesthetics” than film. It is also a historical movement, mainly taking place in the 1950s–60s.

The problem is that any terms which actually belong to filmology don't really belong to film, and vice versa. —Michael Z. 2009-04-28 15:00 z

Hm, that's not quite right. I guess I would classify filmology under film theory. However, it's still wrong to leave the redirect because:

1. Filmology is not film, nor even a sub-discipline, it is a historical movement.
2. The term filmology has been mistaken by Wiktionarians for “the study of film” for over two years (viz. Category:Filmology), and leaving the redirect would only support further confusion.

 —Michael Z. 2009-04-28 16:18 z

Also RFD'd #Category:Filmology, below. —Michael Z. 2009-05-15 18:34 z

redirected harmlessly--Jackofclubs 19:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:filmology

Same as above. —Michael Z. 2009-04-28 14:31 z

Wiktionary:Multilingual statistics

Not updated; not needed; replace with soft redirect to m:Wiktionary.—msh210℠ 00:50, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

It's interesting to see the early history of some of the projects, which isn't available at m:Wiktionary. ☸ Moilleadóir ☎ 14:29, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Delete or redirect. Unupdated pages give an impression that the project is stagnating. --Vahagn Petrosyan 11:29, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

tagged as inactive --Jackofclubs 19:33, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:bird

This is not a context. Delete or replace with zoology? DAVilla 21:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Delete I see this being used to categorize birds as such, and not to label any terms with usage restricted to the context of zoology or ornithology. —Michael Z. 2009-04-30 01:26 z

Also the redirect Template:birds. —Michael Z. 2009-04-30 01:28 z

Delete, I agree with the above. Mglovesfun 19:07, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

May 2009

Category:Commonwealth English

Orphaned and redirect, per Wiktionary:Beer parlour archive/2009/March#British English. —Michael Z. 2009-05-04 14:23 z

But why redirect to UK of all things? (I don't see explanation for that redirect in the BPA discussion, although maybe I'm missing it.) Why not either delete it outright (my own choice) or redirect it to, say, Commonwealth or the BPA?—msh210℠ 16:00, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

That's just temporary, until this category is deleted. Category:UK will be renamed Category:British English. (Both categories UK and Commonwealth represent British English.) —Michael Z. 2009-05-04 17:10 z

Oh, silly me. I meant to redirect it to Category:UK, not the entry UK. —Michael Z. 2009-05-04 23:39 z

Couldn't it be a larger category containing British English, Indian English, etc? Mglovesfun 21:18, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

But that would be redefining the meaning of British English. Linguists and dictionaries don't use “Commonwealth English” as a grouping – British English is the “standard” language used in both Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth countries, and in the British Empire before there was a Commonwealth. Regionalisms belong to whichever country or territory.

Without any linguistic significance, cat:CE is just a convenience grouping category, equivalent to Category:NATO English, or Category:General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs English. I have no problem with that, but editors will use the category for terms, and create nonsense labels like Template:Commonwealth English, which I have worked hard to orphan. All of our other regional categories correspond to linguistic regions, and that's how it should be. —Michael Z. 2009-05-12 15:51 z

Category:Wildlife of Australia

Surely this category is too encyclopedic for Wiktionary, right? Even more so than Category:Languages of Australia. --Jackofclubs 17:00, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Keep: groups words and definitions that pertain to Wildlife of Australia, nothing wrong with that. WritersCramp 22:05, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Very weak delete, simply on the grounds that it sets the precedent for other similar categories of limited usefulness. I'm basically gonna let you guys decide on this one. Mglovesfun 21:20, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Delete Encyclopedic, non-lexicographical. Wikipedia categorizes things and concepts, we should be categorizing terms. Trans-project linking lets our readers take advantage of both, and keeps the functions clear. We shouldn't be watering down the dictionary with a second-rate copy of Wikipedia's rich categories. —Michael Z. 2009-05-12 15:55 z

I agree with Mzajac.—msh210℠ 17:09, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Delete, not a "lexical category". Mglovesfun (talk) 13:50, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Deleted, 4 votes to 1. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:50, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Category:Spanish noun forms

Spanish nouns do not have "forms" in the same way that Lithuanian, Hungarian, and Latin nouns do. They have plurals, and in some cases (usually denoting the actual sex of something) masculine and feminine forms in the same way that English has actor and actress, lion and lioness, cow and bull. Thus, everything in this category (and Category:Catalan noun forms, which I'm listing under this with the same logic in mind) can fit into Category:Spanish plural nouns, since we've established that Category:Spanish plurals isn't specific enough.

The bot work to switch all the entries for this transition will be cakewalk easy. Perfect for my skill level :p So let's do it! — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 23:26, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

For this one to work, you're going to have to change Template:infl. Good luck! Physchim62 23:58, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Easy. [ for entries in Cat:Spanish noun forms ] [ switch {{infl|es|noun form > {{infl|es|plural noun ] — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 00:09, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

The existence of this cat really should be decided based on how the community plans to deal with feminine forms of nouns (which we haven't fully decided upon yet). Is niña a separate noun, or a form of niño? If we treat it as separate, then we should get rid of this category and use just . Otherwise the category in question could possibly be used to house the feminine forms as well (in which case we'd want to keep it).

FYI, the RAE does use the term "form", as in "feminine form". See their DPD entry on Gender [11]:

Cuando el sustantivo designa seres animados, lo más habitual es que exista una forma específica para cada uno de los dos géneros gramaticales — "When the noun designates animate objects, there usually exists a specific form for each of the gramatical genders".

I personally think we should treat the feminine forms as non-lemma as the masculine can be used to refer to the whole class of entities. I also think, though less strongly, that they should be categorized under the cat in question.

The fact that Romance languages form their m/f equivalents more logically than English doesn't mean that we have to put them in noun form categories. Noun form cats for other languages reflect the inflected forms by case. Genitives, instrumentals, datives... not feminine derivations of originally^? masculine words. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 00:10, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Opiaterein. I just want to add that the meaning of a feminine noun cannot always be derived from its masculine counterpart: e.g. it might mean xxx's wife, xxx's female, or it may have the same meaning that the masculine form, but applied to a woman (I probably forget some other cases). They deserve a full page as normal nouns, with normal definitions. Lmaltier 15:06, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your xxx cases, would you give an example? Thanks. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 03:47, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

The words (deprecated template usage) señor and (deprecated template usage) señora are good examples. The latter can be translated as Mrs., so that Señora Martinez means "wife of Mr. Martinez" and thus has implications that (deprecated template usage) señor does not carry. --EncycloPetey 03:57, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I've been thinking we need to make better use of templates like {{es-noun-mf}} to categorize these and link opposite-gender counterparts. For the record, what we did in accelerating the Galician templates was to use Category:Galician plurals only for plural nouns and to use Category:Galician adjective forms for non-lemmata adjective forms. --EncycloPetey 15:13, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Category:Catalan noun forms

See Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Others#Category:Spanish noun forms for my logic. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 23:27, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

For this category (but not for the Spanish one above), it would be sufficient to change Template:ca-noun-form, with a possible rename along the way. The proposer might wish to have a look at the history of that template first ;) Physchim62 23:54, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Show me a Catalan grammar that says "these feminine nouns are forms derived from the masculine forms and should not be treated as individual nouns" and I'll back off some, but until then, Spanish and Catalan do not have noun forms, they have plural nouns :) — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 00:12, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Keep Can't say about the grammars per se, but show me a Catalan dictionary that has a separate entry for (deprecated template usage) esposa instead of merging it into the entry for (deprecated template usage) espòs. Except where the feminine form has a sense other than "female ___" they don't have separate entries. Not only that, but as can be seen with with (deprecated template usage) roig and (deprecated template usage) roja in both the GDLC and DIEC2, the feminine sense of a noun (in this case a female leftist (i.e. red), is found in the entry for roig, the masculine form, while the other noun senses of roja, (such as a plant that is used to make a red dye [Rubia tinctorum], and a species of beetle whose larvae infest olive trees [Hylesinus oleiparda]) are the ones found at roja, and no mention is made of female socialists at roja. — Carolina wren discussió 01:35, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't have much in the way of formal Catalan grammars, but what I have was written by Pompeu Fabra, so maybe that evens it out! The mestre says: Cada nom comú sol tenir dues formes distintes: l'una d'elles és la que usem quan parlem d'un sol individu; l'altre és la que usem quan parlem de dos o més individus. In translated summary, Catalan nouns have two forms: singular and plural.

I don't think the comparison with printed dictionaries is valid: dead-tree works have economic constraints that Wiktionary can mostly escape. I have the GDLC on CD-ROM, and that version gives separate entries for jutgessa and metgessa; I have DIEC in the paper version, and those nouns are listed under jutge and metge respectively, for obvious reasons of space. It's actually one of the very few differences between the two works! There is still only a single entry for roig/roja on the CD-ROM, btw. Physchim62 01:52, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't draw any conclusions from jutgessa and metgessa. Judging from a distance -essa doesn't appear to be productive in modern Catalan any more than -ess is in Modern English. They also have both have senses other than "female judge" or "female physician" respectively. In any case, following the usual pattern seen with adjective forms jutge and metge would normally not have feminine forms, and if they did the standard feminine forms would be *jutga and *metga. (Note, a Google search came up with 16K Catalan hits for "la metgessa", 4K hits for "la metge", 190K hits for "le metge" and 0 hits for "metga". No way of knowing how many, if any, of the hits for "le metge" were for female physician, but the large number of hits for "la metge" in colloquial usage argues against considering metgessa as the feminine form of metge, any more than dona is the feminine form of home.)

In any case to the degree that Catalan can be considered to have feminine noun forms, if a noun for a female something doesn't use the standard "-a" feminine marker then I wouldn't consider it a feminine noun form, but an independent noun. — Carolina wren discussió 05:40, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

We really ought to have a general discussion about this issue for all Iberian languages (and French, Italian?) in the Beer Parlour, and decide on a uniform and consistent category structure, if possible. It's better to address all the languages in one go than do them piecemeal. --EncycloPetey 22:48, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. BTW, Carolina, you can't have metga and jutga in Catalan, because you need the "e" after the "g" to keep the pronunciation homologous. Still, the -essa ending isn't restricted to these cases, you can find it in mestressa as well, as a distinct noun from mestra (no doubt from the influence of French, that one). Physchim62 11:55, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Category:Filmology

Category:de:Filmology

Category:fi:Filmology

Category:fr:Filmology

Category:hu:Filmology

Category:ja:Filmology

Replaced with Category:Cinematography, because filmology means something else altogether, per WT:BP#Category:Filmology. —Michael Z. 2009-05-15 18:09 z

(Also RFD'd #Template:Filmology, above. —Michael Z. 2009-05-15 18:35 z)

Delete per nom. But for future reference, I think it's backwards to clear out the categories before requesting deletion. You're an admin, so obviously you're not really posting here just to request that an admin delete the category. If the community were to vote "keep", what, would we then have to undo everything you'd done? (This isn't directed at you specifically — I've seen a lot of people do this before, both with categories and with templates — but it just seems backwards to me.) —Ruakh_TALK 20:32, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, I discussed appropriately renaming this category, and waited a long time before acting. In fact, renaming was first brought up November 2007, but nothing happened until I lost patience. After the move is finished, deleting the category page is just clean-up. If the community were to vote keep, then I'd call it rude names and take another hour to restore the changes restore the category page to its last revision. But what would be the point, since the name of this category doesn't refer to what it contains at all? —Michael Z. 2009-05-15 21:38 z

Redirected --Jackofclubs 19:08, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:fr-infl-adj

The template is used on about 150 of our 2400+ French adjective entries. It puts all the inflection forms and pronunciations in a right-floating box that often overlaps into the next language section. The information in each entry needs to be moved into the appropriate sections and an appropriate inflection line template substituted. --EncycloPetey 22:46, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Basically a copy of fr:Modèle:fr-accord-mixte. It does do things that {{fr-adj}} doesn't and can't do, but at a cost. We have tables like this for Latin and German which have much bigger declensions (nominative, dative, accusative, etc). Mglovesfun 01:27, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Correction: We do not have tables like this for Latin. No Latin tables are ever inserted by the inflection line; Latin inflection tables appear only under an Inflection subheader and are never right-floating. --EncycloPetey 01:39, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

It's been repeatedly stated (and I agree) that templates that put conjugation templates floating on the right side should be cleaned up (like the Icelandic ones, not sure about German). --Bequw → ¢ • τ 08:53, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, clean-up is better than just deleting it, IMO. Mglovesfun 00:06, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

The catch is that much of the information it codes needs to be moved to sections in which the template is not placed. --EncycloPetey 02:08, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Keep - it look good, IMHO. The pronunciation is included, which isn't in {{fr-adj}}. --Jackofclubs 06:02, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

While the inclusion of pronunciation is interesting, I don't think any other language does that. Besides the pronunciation, this doesn't include anything that {{fr-adj}} doesn't, so I'm inclined to say delete, but I'll not boldface it right now. No strong opinion - but one thing is certain, it needs to stop right-floating. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 11:57, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Delete, causes all sort of problems, I replace it with {{fr-adj}} where ever I find it. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:08, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:zh-tsp

Bad template; template {{t}} should be used, as it links properly, with the proper code corrections, and will be updated by Tbot, etc.

Also it encourages the improper use of "Chinese" as a language name (the inclusion of pinyin shows clearly that what is intended is "Mandarin", not "Chinese" in general).

There are a number of entries that need to be cleaned up, with "Chinese" changed to Mandarin and the format corrected to standard. Robert Ullmann 13:24, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

keep. No mentioning of the unrelated issue of Mandarin vs Chinese in the template. Provides user with traditional, simplified and pinyin. Anatoli 13:18, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

keep but move to {{cmn-tsp}}, like {{yue-tsj}} (traditional, simplified, jyutping) since I'm fairly sure that only Mandarin uses Hanyu Pinyin... — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 13:28, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:zh-zh-p

Ditto "zh-tsp" above, bad template, a number of pages need cleanup. Robert Ullmann 13:25, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

keep What is wrong with it? And where do you see the word "Chinese" in it and the other template you nominated for deletion? This could be used for etymology, explaing and making sure users know that both traditional and simplified are identical.

It makes Wiktionary harder to use, for newcomers (who need to learn a new template), for data-miners (who must write special code to extract these translations), for readers (who need to recognise the non-standard format), and for experienced editors (who need to remember that the templates exist), and any tools they use (which must be programmed to work around them). In an ideal world, everything would have totally standardised wikitext, making everyone's life simple (and while I acknowledge this is never going to be achieved, there's no harm in trying). Conrad.Irwin 11:41, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, please don't go changing * Chinese for * Mandarin, the current compromise is nested * Chinese ** Mandarin, as per beer parlour discussion. The templates have nothing to do with Chinese vs Mandarin or Chinese Mandarin.

Anatoli 23:36, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Category:Palindromes by language

This either needs deleting or using, currently it has one category in it and just does the same job as Category:Palindromes. Mglovesfun 10:09, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

No, it doesn't do the same job. Category:Palindromes is an English-language category, and should only contain English words about palindromes (if such exist). Category:Palindromes by language should list all language-specific categorizations of words that are palindromes. This parallels usage by other similarly structured categories. --EncycloPetey 13:54, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

delete Wikipedia-style category. Language-specific categories about palindromes go directly under Category:Palindromes, as per other categories (Category:Euphemisms, etc.) -- Prince Kassad 16:51, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

We are not consistent on this point (nor have I seen policy one way or the other). Just take a gander at http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?ns14=1&search="by+language"&fulltext=Advanced+search (for some reason it breaks at the double quote if I try and make it a link?! so you might have to copy&paste). --Bequw → ¢ • τ 23:37, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

From what I've seen, these are all parts of speech. It's a bit understandable for them (if all noun categories were lumped into Category:English nouns, nobody would be able to find them), but we haven't done it for topical categories yet (and "Palindrome" is surely not a part of speech) -- Prince Kassad 04:14, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

It is a lexical category, not topical. The trend has been to apply this restructuring for all catgeories that deal with the nature or function of the word itself, rather than the referent or meaning of the word. A word is a palindrome because of its spelling, which has nothing to do with the meaning or function of the word, hence it is not a topical category as we use them. --EncycloPetey 14:44, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Seeing as there's already a category English palindromes, moving those categories might be in fact easier than discussing it here. -- Prince Kassad 14:56, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

This discussion is still useful for clearing up what community concensus is in the matter, and to alert people that there is a similar question/problem of inconsistency in category structure pertaining to other categories. --EncycloPetey 15:03, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

PK, Look at Category:Nouns by language, Category:Verbs by language, Category:Abbreviations by language, etc. --EncycloPetey 23:39, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I think by "doesn't" you mean "shouldn't" Petey, as it doesn't do that yet. If you or anyone else wants to recategorize the sub-categories, I'll be the first to vote keep. Mglovesfun 00:24, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Deleted, empty category with another one doing the same thing. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:06, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:ref

Previously nominated, but I can't see the listing. Not only does this look like ISO 639-3, it also makes an absolute mess of the pages that use it (c.f. ZD). Conrad.Irwin 23:54, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Delete. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 01:46, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment. The mess was caused by an extraneous newline following the rfd template. This template works in conjuction with Template:note, see meta:Help:Footnotes#Notes at independent positions. There is no "ref" in ISO 639-3 so in that regard this is safe. There are probably few uses for the ref and note system in Wiktionary. Wipe 12:30, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

It's currently safe, the code may of course be used in future. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:32, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Template:hyperforeign

The word "hyperforeign" is too uncommon and neologistic to be part of a dictionary entry that is supposed to be understood by normal people. DCDuring TALK 16:03, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

In all fairness, I think that it’s readily understandable as “too foreign” (or rather, trying to be too foreign); I’m not sure if it’s necessary alongside {{hypercorrect}}, though. Therefore, delete, but not for the reasons you gave (cf. (deprecated template usage) protologism, (deprecated template usage) circumfix, (deprecated template usage) translingual). † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 16:19, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it is likely to be misunderstood as simply meaning "too foreign". "Hypercorrect" wouldn't be a template whose use I would favor, but the term has at least some use (>10x "hyperforeign" on b.g.c., but only once in COCA). DCDuring TALK 17:27, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Keep It's a special-case hyponym of hypercorrect which provides more information. Although it is specialized, so is hypercorrect, and this is a 75-year-old “neologism,” with no suitable alternatives. The glossary link solves the reader's problems through the magic of linking and reading. —Michael Z. 2009-05-30 19:00 z

A surprising number of users do not have good "link-click-fu". The magic of linking is known to overwhelm a number of users who fail to click through, say, an "alternative spelling" link to get the definitions they need. The deficiency seems highly erratic since the occasionally manage to click through to Feedback, Information Desk, and Tea Room to make requests for the definition that is only one click away.

Because the meaning "too foreign" is available to them, they may take that simplistic reading as adequate and choose not to click through to our fuller explanation. Is "too foreign" an acceptable approximation to the meaning we would like them to take away? I think not.

This is in contrast to "hypercorrect", where the sense "too correct" seems acceptably close to any more specialized or precise meaning. DCDuring TALK 19:41, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

You're saying that since some people won't read an explanation, then we shouldn't use the label. If we embraced this principal, then we wouldn't be making a dictionary.

Hardly. My main principle to avoid the excesses of self-indulgence (although I find others' self-indulgences much easier to see than my own). I simply want this to be a dictionary for more than the most educated 0.1% of the species. We don't even take the trouble to have a defining vocabulary of simple words or to rate our definitions for their ease of being understood. A great of the material we add seems the pursuit of various intellectual whims. Whimsy could be a valuable motivator, but not at the sacrifice of the purpose that legitimizes our effort. DCDuring TALK 23:44, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

But “too foreign” is not a bad plain-language summary. Coo de graw (“stroke of fat”) is an example of hyperforeignness, where the speaker is trying to sound more French than he is able to—“too French,” indeed. —Michael Z. 2009-05-30 21:33 z

You could be right, but I'd love to see some evidence that supported the likelihood of its being correctly understood. I don't know how to test this definitively. The facts I can point to are:

1. A few dictionaries have "hypercorrect", none have "hyper-foreign" or "hyperforeign"
2. "Hyper-foreign"/"hyperforeign" is less than one-tenth as common on b.g.c. as "hypercorrect", one-twentieth on News, one-fiftieth on Scholar, and less than one-hundreth as common on Groups and the Web.
3. "Hypercorrect" itself often occurs in quotes with a definition when used in popular writings (News).

— This unsigned comment was added by DCDuring (talk • contribs) at 23:44, 30 May 2009 (UTC).

Perhaps "hyperforeign" and "too foreign" can sometimes describe the same things, but they're hardly equivalent. There are lots of odd language mannerisms that might be described as "too foreign" — for example, the pretentious use of foreign words when English ones will serve as well — but "hyperforeign" has a very specific meaning, that of "hypercorrect due to overly aggressive application of a foreign-language rule". —Ruakh_TALK 00:04, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes. A user's expectation of the appropriate interpretation of "correct" in a dictionary context would probably tend to lead to a more helpful guess at the meaning of "hypercorrect" if the word itself were unfamiliar. (Assuming that the user had good idea about "hyper-" or even just a vague sense that it added a negative valence to "correct".) DCDuring TALK 01:21, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

There are some separate problems here:

1. The term is rare and specialized, unfamiliar to most readers. A solution could be to use a more familiar synonym, but there is none. The solution is to document it as well as possible. One click right on it gives an explanation. Resolved. (It would be nice if we could add a better tooltip.)
2. Some proportion of readers don't want to look up the unfamiliar label. We can't make them. Okay, fine. Is this a problem?
3. Some smaller proportion of readers won't look up the term they haven't seen before, and they will fabricate an incorrect meaning. If we're so worried about people who don't look up words they don't understand, then why are we building a dictionary? And how does removing information solve this problem?

This is all theory. Is this really a problem?—we can only determine that by testing. We can implement the template and see what feedback we get, or we can choose to delete lexicographical information from the dictionary just in case a small number of readers can't handle it. —Michael Z. 2009-05-31 04:12 z

Everybody has theories. Some are explicit about them.

Our so-called "practical test" would consist of using it and having only our own data-free opinions as to whether it worked or not, possibly influenced by one person who, against type, complained about something instead of avoiding it. I'd just as soon have the data-free discussion now. I am picky about defining vocabulary and infrastructure terms. If this is just going to be an elitist playground, we ought to tell WMF and its donors. A lot of prior data suggests that:

1. folks don't understand things,
2. they think they understand what they don't,
3. they don't like what they know they don't understand,
4. they avoid what they don't don't like , and
5. they don't spend a lot of time trying to understand unless they are fairly sure there is a benefit to them.

We have already run one practical test and found that nobody (me included) cares enough to analyze the Feedback. If you would like to ignore the results of that test, and run another one that is clearly doomed to be inconclusive, I cannot single-handedly prevent you. ::::::My principal excuse is the general dismissiveness toward serious consideration of users. This may well be due to the absence of a good theoretical framework to use for grasping the information. We have used the feedback to repair faulty entries, but have made no other use of it. When we do get precious general feedback about our entries being too confusing, including too many non-English words, or we get questions that clearly indicate that our entries are not delivering the goods to users, we are all too ready to dismiss or even blame the users, whom I thought were more or less the customers. DCDuring TALK 05:25, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that your concerns may be well-founded. Nota, for example, the confusion brought about by the label {{hypercorrect}} here; if {{hypercorrect}} is misunderstood, then what will happen to {{hyperforeign}}? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 22:23, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

All right then, let's start with the theoretical scope. How many actual English entries are likely to have this label on one or more senses? How many on pronunciations? Do we know of any foreign-language entries which could use it?

Theoretical implementation? I've made up one example of this template at coup de grâce#English. What would the alternative look like? (I don't like the previous version because it had pronunciation notes in the Etymology section.) —Michael Z. 2009-05-31 06:00 z

Delete this is a bizarre subset of "affected" - I think for (coup de grâce or claret you could use "affected French", just as fucketh uses "affected archaic"). This has the dual advantage of 1) being more precise, 2) being more commonly understood [although the two seperate meanings of affected aren't great], 3) being able to give greater consistency across the dictionary. Conrad.Irwin 18:39, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

The language is simpler, but the meaning is far less precise—ambiguous and potentially misleading, in fact. The label in fucketh is misleading because it looks like this is an archaic usage which is affected in some way, but I gather it really means a modern affected usage, putting on archaic qualities. Its meaning certainly isn't self-evident, and I'm not even sure which sense of affected is being applied, and I don't see this in WT:GLOSS. What is an affected context? Is this label used in any professional dictionaries? At least hyperforeign has a single, unambiguous meaning. —Michael Z. 2009-05-31 21:46 z

Delete. We'd be better served by some sort of {{see usage notes}}, together with some sort of usage notes. Tempting as it might be to stick on a vague label that's likely to be misunderstood, our readership and our reliability are surely better served by usage notes backed up by referenced. —Ruakh_TALK 21:09, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm mainly descriptionist, so I think a hyperforeign pronunciation should remain with the others others. But I am hesitant to take something which is mainly considered incorrect usage, and remove its warning from it.

But wouldn't (hyperforeign—see usage notes) be better than just “see usage notes?” —Michael Z. 2009-05-31 21:46 z

I'm beginning to suspect that hyperforeignness is a factor in a term's etymology, and perhaps not a usage. (This may be yet another occasion where confusion would have been avoided early on if we used conventional terminology: “usage label” instead of our odd and slightly misapplied “context”.) —Michael Z. 2009-05-31 21:59 z

Strong keep. If a person doesn't understand what hyperforeign means, they can follow the link that the tag gives and learn. Hell, even I didn't know what it meant before I found hyperforeign stuff here. I'd rather we keep links that might help people get smarter than dumb everything down for the... "normal" people DC mentions. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 12:30, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• The dumb users are those that are the principal justification for the financial and volunteer support that Wiktionary gets. Otherwise this is strictly autoerotic. Please remember that we are falling farther and farther behind our principal competitor in on-line dictionaries, despite our privileged connection with one of the very most successful websites. DCDuring TALK 14:47, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:LG.

The only remaining etymology template from a previous discussion of etyl-templates-to-be-deleted-en-masse. --Jackofclubs 13:28, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

There's no single ISO code to replace this with, so it's probably useful. -- Prince Kassad 14:07, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I believe we can use {{nds}} (currently displaying "Low Saxon"). Both Ethnologue and SIL list "Low German" as an alternative name for this code. While Low German is unambiguous, Low Saxon is (it can mean any West Low German variety, any Northern Low Saxon variety, or any Low German variety). But by looking at the dialects listed Ethnologue for nds it appears they mean the unambiguous "Low German" sense. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 01:42, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

{{nds}} is for modern Low German. But looking at the transclusions, many pages seem to be referring to Old or Middle Low German, rather than the modern variant. -- Prince Kassad 08:56, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Category:Hyperforeign

See also #Template:hyperforeign above.

claret seems to be the only term in the Category:Hyperforeign, but the hyperforeign tag seems to refer to one specific pronunciation and not the entry as a whole, so that entry should definitely be removed. So that leaves zero entries; what on earth would the category be used for? I have absolutely no idea. Mglovesfun 21:24, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Re: "the hyperforeign tag seems to refer to one specific pronunciation and not the entry as a whole, so that entry should definitely be removed": I understand that line of reasoning, but that's just not how we categorize. For example, if a word has both countable senses and uncountable ones, we'll tag the former {{countable}} and the latter {{uncountable}}, such that the entry ends up both in Category:English countable nouns and in Category:English uncountable nouns. —Ruakh_TALK 21:38, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Hyperforeign spellings or senses belong here, not pronunciations (at least by the status quo, but it may not be a bad idea to change this). The pronunciation in claret should probably be labelled with {{qualifier|hyperforeign}}.

Terms like no problemo would belong in this category. Not just because it's faux Spanish, but because Spanish-sounding -o is misapplied—the correct Spanish is problema. —Michael Z. 2009-05-31 21:56 z

June 2009

Template:he-root

Prevents transliteration, supports limited range of possibilities, complicates entry code, no apparent benefit. —Ruakh_TALK 16:45, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

You know damn well how easy it is to add transliteration support, and roots aren't vocalized to begin with, so transliteration isn't even particularly necessary. If you think there's no benefit, then maybe you would've liked to have moved all the root entries with - to ones with ־. You just don't want to see the things it could be used for because it wasn't your idea. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 20:36, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Come, now.—msh210℠ 03:53, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

It can use some bettering per nom, and some the nominator didn't mention, too. If we ever decide to categorize by root (as he.wikt does), this template will help a lot. Even otherwise, I see no particular reason to get rid of it.—msh210℠ 03:53, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, it could potentially do a lot. If you can think of anything that could be added to it, I'd be happy to add more to the template, but I made it for a simple purpose, so it started off simple. (We don't usually delete "stub" entries, do we?) — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 12:38, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Category:Northwest Austronesian languages

This is a subdivision of Malayo-Polynesian, so a more appropriate name would be Category:Northwest Malayo-Polynesian languages. -- Prince Kassad 10:06, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

True, though some people break Malayo-Polynesian down differently than Ethnologue - Malayo-Polynesian languages. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 18:45, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Our language family categories are rather messy right now, because they use multiple different categorization systems. Especially for Austronesian, which is not fully studied yet and still analyzed, language families change frequently as more research is carried out. -- Prince Kassad 18:53, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Category:English words suffixed with -s

Rather redundant with Category:English plurals, isn't it? Only 5 entries as of now. — Carolina wren discussió 03:15, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Well it's not quite a 1-to-1 correspondence. Some plurals don't use -s (e.g. alumni) and -s is used to also make [[Category:English adverbs]], [[Category:English third-person singular forms]], and [[Category:English pluralia tantum]]. I'm not sure how we've been handling suffixes that have multiple uses. Theoretically, category could be put to good use. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 18:33, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

True, but all the uses were from things like {{suffix|fossa|s}} apart from one, which wasn't English! I'm trying to think of one word that genuinely uses -s as a suffix other than a plural or a third person; maybe towards, backwards, forwards. That's all I have. So for the moment, I've emptied it without having to do anything other than common-sense edits. Mglovesfun 18:37, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Right, see w:Adverbial genitive. —Ruakh_TALK 19:18, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I guess this is the difference between as (deprecated template usage) suffix and a grammatical ending. Mglovesfun 05:15, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

• deleted — This comment was unsigned.

This deletion makes no sense to me. We intend to have categories for all suffixes, excepting the ones used productively and abundantly for inflection in the same part of speech, namely -s, -es, -ed, -ing. (There may be a few others.) The intent is to have the category for morphological suffixes that create new parts of speech, like (deprecated template usage) -ly. In this case, as mentioned in the WP article Ruakh had pointed out, (deprecated template usage) -s was used productively in Middle English. It is no longer productive. The point of the category would be to collect all of the words that are form -s#Etymology 3. The time spent deleting and discussing would have been much better spent in properly populating the category and possibly including an explanation on the category page. I request that this be reversed. DCDuring TALK 16:21, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Buth -s isn't a suffix when it's used to form the plural, and inflection uses inflectional endings, not formative suffixes. Such endings do not create new words or new senses in most cases. I can see (deprecated template usage) weeds indexed as having an -s suffix, but only because there is a plural-primary sense. I could also see having a Category:Middle English words suffixed with -s. Are we planning to treat English differently from all other languages? --EncycloPetey 16:27, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I must not have been clear. I do not want to populate this with any plural ending in "s" or any third-person singular present indicative verb. I thought I had indicated that I am solely concerned with its use to group together the uses of -s#Etymology 3, that is, in words like (deprecated template usage) upstairs and (deprecated template usage) towards. This is likely to remain a small category because "-s" is not productive in this meaning. Having it has some value in helping people accept both (deprecated template usage) toward and (deprecated template usage) towards, (deprecated template usage) backward and (deprecated template usage) backwards, etc. DCDuring TALK 16:57, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

OK - it is back --Jackofclubs 16:23, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I appreciate the efforts to clean things out on these pages. An occasional slip (if that's even what this is) is an inevitable accompaniment to action. I'm sorry that I'm expressing my thoughts only two weeks after this was brought here. We should probably let this sit a while in case I've misinterpreted our practice about unproductive suffixes. My model and precedent for this is the unproductive suffix (not a combining form) (deprecated template usage) -head, as used in a small number of words like (deprecated template usage) Godhead. There are probably more. If this is contentious, It might have to go to BP for resolution of any general issue. DCDuring TALK 16:57, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

• I have begun populating the category. I had not realized how many entries might have adverbial forms with "-s" that go here: All 12 months, all 4 seasons, all seven days, almost everything ending in "ward" (perhaps 30), time words ending in "end", "night", "day", "time", almost any noun referring to a holiday or an event ("Labor Days, we'd have a barbecue.") I could imagine someone saying "Ten-thirtys we'd go on break" (though I've yet to find it outside my imagination. (For that matter, consider: "Breaks we'd play cards".) Though there are a good number of these (100-200?) that would be attestable, it is not unmanageable. Any thoughts on this? DCDuring TALK 05:47, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Labor Days seems like a normal plural noun serving as a fronted temporal locative. It could be replaced with Every Labor Day, Brock 20:34, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we can expect our users to find that description helpful any more helpful than what we have. We make some effort to connect with concepts a casual user would already know, even if they are not the latest and best. Serving a mass audience is inherently conservative in many ways. Your classification would allow us to justify not adding Adverb sections to words that don't really need it. The problem is that we do not have a WikiGrammar for rules so we end up treating many things lexically. That does make us a resource for detecting some conflicts between rules sometimes.

The "Labor Days" example might as easily mean "on some Labor Days" or have a more context-specific meaning like "on the Labor Days following the summers I've been talking about." I looked at as a grafting of adverbial "days" onto "Labor Day". If that violates an analytical principle of the science (?) of linguistics, please refer me to a source, because any valid simplifying concepts would be welcome. DCDuring TALK 23:37, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I misinterpreted your previous as claiming that the -s was an adverb-forming suffix. According to Wiktionary's classification, Labor Day is an adverb. But Labor Days is clearly a plural. I am new here, so I have no suggestions on how to deal with plural adverbs. I don't think this s has any relation to the s in -wards though. Brock 00:03, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Is backwards really backward suffixed with s? Ah well. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:59, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

template:blend and category:Portmanteaus

{{blend}} is an etymology-section template: {{blend|foo|bar}} displays as:

and categorizes in category:Portmanteaus. The explanation for this discrepancy in terminology is explained at template talk:blend as follows:

"Blend" is the correct linguistic term for a word made by merging two words. The word "portmanteau" refers to a blend in which the meanings of the words are merged as as well as the words themselves, and so is more restrictive than "blend".

This template is used for all blends, so it should not be renamed "Template:Portmanteau".

The category is "Category:Portmanteaus" because this was in use before this template was created.

Be that as it may, the discrepancy is a problem: if the template is to be used for all blends — as its name and documentation both indicate — then it shouldn't categorize into Portmanteaus. That's true especially if — as is claimed — a portmanteau is a type of blend, but even if a portmanteau is a blend: we still shouldn't use two terms.

Another issue: Since the category is for a type of word, like category:English nouns and English back-formations, I it should have a name starting with English.

So I suggest as follows:

1. Recategorize entries calling template:blend by editing the template. The new category will be category:English blends; for foreign words, French blends or whatever.
2. Any extant words in cat:Portmanteaus will then be examined to see whether they are in fact portmanteaus, blending semantics in addition to morphology. Those that are not will be moved to cat:English blends (and forced to use the template, if possible).
3. Cat:Portmanteaus — now containing only "real" portmanteaus — will then be examined for size. If it's useless, it will be deleted, with entries moved into cat:English blends. If it's useful, it will be made a subcat of Blends (with the language structure mirroring that of category:Back-formations, say), and, if possible, template:blend will be modified to allow a Boolean portmanteau parameter for use on portmanteaus, which categorizes correctly.

Thoughts?—msh210℠ 23:21, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Sounds sensible – may be useful to have some idea of the size of the categories.

Portmanteau lists a number of English portmanteaus (blending meaning), so it seems a legit category, and note that there are a massive number of portmanteaus in languages such as Japanese. (See Japanese abbreviated and contracted words.)

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 00:51, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Moved from WT:BP. Please continue discussion here, where I suppose it belongs.—msh210℠ 04:52, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Seeing no objection on BP or here, I've modified template:blend and created category:Blends and some of the language categories. I'll wait for the queue to catch up and see what's left in category:Portmanteaus.​—msh210℠ 16:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I worry, though, that some foreign words use {{blend}} without specifying a language, so that they will now be categorized as English blends. To allay that concern, I have manually looked through the list of template:blend's whatlinkshere and edited any words that looked not to be English. If anyone has any other suggestions on how to deal with this problem (e.g., analyze the database for uses of {{blend}} in FL sections, which I, for one, don't know how to do), please voice them! (Using CatScan for this isn't working. It didn't find [[תשחץ]] as within depth three of category:Hebrew language using {{blend}} even though it is and does. Merlissimo said this is because the entries haven't been "touched" since, well, whenever, and is fixing this.)​—msh210℠ 17:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Category:Min Nan

This should probably be merged into Category:Min Nan language. -- Prince Kassad 07:54, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, merge. —Ruakh_TALK 13:49, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Merge. Furthermore, the whole category tree for the Chinese language is a mess. --Jackofclubs 15:53, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

The category tree for Chinese has additional issues that have prevented a restructuring in the past, including the way that the various languages are done at the Chinese Wiktionary. I wouldn't want to try to change things without A-Cai's input first. --EncycloPetey 19:25, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:vulgar slang

Orphaned after WT:BP#{{vulgar slang}}, then found previous discussion in 2006 and 2007. A total of 18 occurrences, all looking exactly like {{vulgar}} + {{slang}} to me. —Michael Z. 2009-06-25 03:21 z

delete --Bequw → ¢ • τ 23:12, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned, so, deleted — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 00:01, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:generally

Orphaned. It was used 8 times to mean {{mainly}}, and 8 times on its own, presumably to indicate “not so specifically” or something indeterminable. —Michael Z. 2009-06-25 05:09 z

Deleted --EncycloPetey 18:47, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:quite

This is a qualifier, with 6 transclusions. To me, it doesn't change the meaning one bit—given the subjective nature of our labelling, there's no meaningful difference at all between rare and quite rare. If you disagree and feel that it constitutes an intensifier in a particular instance, then please replace it with e.g. very rare. —Michael Z. 2009-06-25 05:13 z

delete --Bequw → ¢ • τ 23:13, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Quite is not very. I see no harm in keeping this. If consensus is to delete it, someone must first change all instances of {{quite|foo}} to {{context|quite|_|foo}}.​—msh210℠ 17:33, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll be happy to do that.

If quite is not very, then what is it? According to the OED it is I. completely, II. actually; very much, and III. to a certain degree; moderately. In Wiktionary, it's used to form quite rude (1 instance), and quite rare (5). So is cut the muster completely rare, very much rare, or “moderately” rare (and is that not the same as both somewhat rare and rare?).

Ambiguous labels are worse than useless, because they will mislead unless every single reader makes the same assumption as an editor did (that is, they will all mislead). —Michael Z. 2009-06-30 04:11 z

What would you consider a good complete list of qualifying labels, then, Michael?​—msh210℠ 16:59, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't really know, but I think none would be better than all. A good practice might be to only introduce qualifiers which are used in labels in good modern dictionaries. Applying a professional precedent and setting a theoretical limit may please the minimalists like me, but allowing labels from a variety of dictionaries might just please the free-for-allists. Of course, if everyone ends up unhappy, that would mean we'd have achieved a compromise. —Michael Z. 2009-07-03 00:30 z

Category:Spanish verb indicative forms

Superfluous clutter. We've already discussed removing such categories for Finnish, let's please not start adding them to Spanish and Portuguese. --EncycloPetey 17:53, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Delete — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 00:03, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Delete per EncycloPetey. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:49, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Category:Spanish verb second-person forms

As above. There is no reason to have a category for verb forms in the second person, and especially not irrespective of number. --EncycloPetey 18:46, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Delete — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 00:03, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Delete per EncycloPetey. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:49, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Delete, agreed. Including various tenses (indicative and subjunctive, past/present/future, etc.) every verb in the language will have around 30 forms of second person, when one includes singular, plural, formal and informal. More if you count variants with "vos," for example. A list of all these forms, with no context is going to be 1) almost endless and 2) essentially useless. [User talk:Carmensays|Carmensays]

Template:User en-6

Used only on two pages. What does "professorial level" mean anyway? --Vahagn Petrosyan 19:22, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I think this is a WP imported template. "Professional level" means that the user writes or edits as his/her profession, or perhaps serves as a translator. --EncycloPetey 01:19, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

But the template doesn't say "professional". It says "professorial". And two of the three users who use this template do so without indicating another language that they speak well (though presumably they speak some coded language well), which would imply that they use this template to indicate something better than native: something like "not only am I a native speaker of English, I speak it really well". (The other user might also mean that, but I don't know: he lists nl.)​—msh210℠ 17:33, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

BTW, we don't have Template:User en-5. --Vahagn Petrosyan 14:36, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Keep, it's for the userspace only, and what harm does it do? Can anyone think of any userpage rules that this violates? Mglovesfun (talk) 20:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

This template if kept should be orphaned (with a note of explanation left on the userpage in its place) and reworded to avoid ambiguity: not both EP and I interpreted it correctly, which implies it's ambiguous.​—msh210℠ 17:33, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Keep and improve then, I admit it doesn't make much sense. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:29, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, since (I think) it should be orphaned, I therefore shall say delete: it's not so useful that we need to orphan it, inform its users, and reword it.​—msh210℠ 21:42, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Template:User cu-0.5

Does not really fit into the babel system. Could be adequately covered by -0 or -1. -- Prince Kassad 20:08, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

delete --Bequw → ¢ • τ 05:11, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

delete --Vahagn Petrosyan 14:37, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

strong delete, otherwise why not 0.25, 0.125 (etc.) Mglovesfun (talk) 15:49, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

No votes for a week, deleted per all. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:25, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Template:User lang-5

We don't use -5 Babel templates, making this template useless. -- Prince Kassad 14:06, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

delete --Vahagn Petrosyan 14:39, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Deleted, the only page it appeared on was this one! Mglovesfun (talk) 09:54, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:particularly

Completely misused, so I orphaned all 8 uses. In half it was used on its own, sometimes as a sort of conjunction to join two definitions. In other cases it was used to qualify typed-in free-text context labels, so I made it part of the label. Redirected it to {{chiefly}}.

It should probably be deleted, because the precise meaning is ambiguous: it can be taken as either chiefly/mainly or very/extremely. —Michael Z. 2009-07-02 02:16 z

Delete. In general, I don't think we should ever have any such redirects; all that can cause is confusion. If it really bothers us that people use them manually, we can always keep tabs on their use (via e.g. Special:WhatLinksHere/particularly, which works whether or not {{particularly}} exists) and fix them — intelligently — manually. (Personally, I don't get why it should really bother us that people use them manually, but whatever.) —Ruakh_TALK 16:08, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Delete, adds nothing that we don't already have. Too many templates can cause confusion. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:36, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Turned into redirect which suits me. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:29, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Template:primarily

Zero uses, replaceable by {{chiefly}} and its ally, {{mainly}}. —Michael Z. 2009-07-02 02:25 z

Delete as previous. —Ruakh_TALK 16:08, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Delete, adds nothing that we don't already have. Too many templates can cause confusion. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:37, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Turned into redirect which suits me. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:29, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't really mind that, because this one's meaning is clear. —Michael Z. 2009-07-15 03:27 z

July 2009

File:Wikipedia-logo.png

Possibly redundant to commons:File:Wikipedia-logo.png.--Jusjih 21:45, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Not quite the same image. I'm willing to trust Connel had a reason for having this one, unless he says otherwise. In any event, no harm in keeping it. It needs a copyright tag, though: unlike most of Wiktionary, it is not free content.​—msh210℠ 15:16, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

File:Wikipedia-logo-en.png

Duplicate of File:Wikipedia-logo.png, see also above.--Jusjih 21:45, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that today and mentioned that in IRC. I don't want to question Connel though, he probably has a good reason for uploading the same file twice. -- Prince Kassad 21:46, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

It's uch used and would first need to be orphaned (unless we switch to using the Commons' file of the same name, which looks different). I'm willing to trust Connel had a reason for having this one, unless he says otherwise. In any event, no harm in keeping it. It needs a copyright tag, though: unlike most of Wiktionary, it is not free content.​​—msh210℠ 15:19, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Wikisaurus/format/archive

This page is a malformatted attempt at archiving Wiktionary:Wikisaurus/format. AFAICT, it can be safely deleted, as the material that was supposed to be archived is still in the revision history of Wiktionary:Wikisaurus/format. --Dan Polansky 13:14, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Yup, gone. That's why pages have histories. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:28, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Project -Template renaming

This was an old discussion started by User:Richardb about how we should name the example page layout that eventually became WT:ELE. Useless and Inactive. All the participants are inactive as well. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 22:36, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah delete, no edits whatsoever for four years, very short page, plus the syntax looks bad to me [[Wiktionary:Project:Template renaming]] would have been better. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:33, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Delete: permanently irrelevant. (Not all the participants in the conversation are inactive, Bequw: Eclecticology at least has edited recently. But activity of the participants is irrelevant AFAICT.)​—msh210℠ 17:11, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Deleted. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 03:19, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Category:In London

See: WT:BP#Category:In London

Too encyclopedic. Sets a dangerous precedent for things like [[Category:fr:London]], [[Category:ja:Paris]], [[Category:hu:Washington]] etc. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:34, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Please do not duplicate discussions. You've started a discussion on this topic in the BP. Please let that discussion reach a conclusion or we'll have two threads on this topic in two locations. --EncycloPetey 21:37, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Well since the pages have different functions the discussions should be different too, plus there seemed to be a consensus on that page, so I decided to go for the deletion. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:24, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I can imagine three kinds of “London” labels and categories.

1. Regional dialect label, for terms used chiefly in London. The label is {{London}} and Category:London English. (Somewhat misused, because at least half of the category members are not chiefly restricted to use in London.)
2. Thematic label. Encyclopedic, classifying things, not words. Wikipedia already does this, and they will always do it better than we will. What's the point of wasting energy and causing confusion by duplicating their efforts, badly?
3. Geographic label for the referent: {{in London}}, Category:In London. The COD and its descendants use these in a consistent, documented form (e.g. “in the UK”, in contrast to the dialect label “Brit.”). This could be used to disambiguate the two Sohos for example, but editors would immediately start confusing it with either of the two kinds of labels. I thought this would be a good idea, but I'm starting to think that in practice it's best for us to keep this in the text of the definition.

Delete —Michael Z. 2009-07-15 03:21 z

Template:ex.

Confuses usexes with cites, potentially duplicates all our R: templates.​—msh210℠ 19:28, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Exterminate. This abomination is from Russian Wiktionary, the most tasteless Wiktionary out there, IMHO. Just look at собака. --Vahagn Petrosyan 19:40, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Keep. And please let us withhold comments on which wikt is uglier. на вкус и цвет товарищей нет. -- Wesha 19:48, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Delete, we already have a mess of formatting, and a mess of citations/quotations templates, adding more to both mixes is terribly unhelpful. (Though efforts to unify everything would be appreciated) Conrad.Irwin 00:32, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Delete; not a useful template. --EncycloPetey 18:41, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

It's very big for something that does so little - what is our templates for request for example, btw? Do yes, delete. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:52, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Deleted, everyone but its creator agreed. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

August 2009

Category:IRC

Empty category. Also I don't think there are many IRC jargon words which are not used elsewhere. -- Prince Kassad 09:34, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Delete, too specific, [[Category:Internet]] could cover this. Anyway, it's totally unused right now. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:23, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Category:Trademark

Duplicate of Category:Trademarks -- Prince Kassad 09:53, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Deleted, I think {{delete}} would have been okay in this case. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:56, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Category:Australian Aboriginal languages

This overlaps a lot with the similar Category:Languages of Australia. Since presumably all Australian aboriginal languages are spoken within Australia, this category is essentially "all languages of Australia, minus English" and should be deleted. This duplication has caused some confusion among users, as is easily visible by the contents of the categories. -- Prince Kassad 10:25, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Keep. Rather, it is a subcategory. It is also the closest thing we have to a "language family" for many native languages of the continent, because linguists have not worked out the relationships yet for many of them. To remove this category would deny many Australian languages a genetic classification on Wiktionary. --EncycloPetey 14:29, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

None of these "languages" you speak of seem to be represented on Wiktionary, as I had a look at the contents of the category. Of the 43 languages, 38 are also categorized in a genetic classification category. Of the remaining 5, 4 are clearly classified. So we would deny at most one (1) language a genetic classification. I think this is acceptable. -- Prince Kassad 14:51, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

"None of these "langauges"...seem to be represented on Wiktionary." ...yet. And how many language families are there in Australia? Should they all be listed separately because we do not know their inter-relationships yet? Or should those families be grouped usefully for those who wish to find them? --EncycloPetey 14:54, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

A possible alternative would be to move all the individual languages out of there, and lump all the language families of Australia in there, plus the occasional unclassifiable language. This is for example what Category:Amerindian languages does, and I think it would be more useful than the current situation.
I don't know much about Australian languages, but the amount of individial languages is estimated to be 250. The amount of language families should be at most one sixth, maybe less. -- Prince Kassad 15:01, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:User aa-2

Blanked by creator. Never worked anyway. -- Prince Kassad 20:18, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Might be worth wikifying this and keeping it. So I abstain. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:57, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Make it into something or delete it.​—msh210℠ 16:32, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Might as well delete this, my transwiki didn't work because it was incompatible, and since it's used by zero users, why bother? More useful to create templates for users that are requested. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:00, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Template:NPOV entry

Is this still used/needed? Does not really look like it. -- Prince Kassad 20:19, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Strong delete, {{rfc|not neutral}} would do the same thing, wouldn't it. Plus not wikified and used on zero pages. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:59, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

It was created and added to [[neutral]] as a joke by 82.42.151.164. It was removed therefrom (six months later!) by DAVilla and never deleted. I can't tell whether it was ever added to any other entries, but certainly it's not in use now. Delete.​—msh210℠ 16:28, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Right, deleted as a fatuous entry. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:09, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Requests for etymology

Never really took off. I think {{rfe}} usually suffices, and we now have the Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium to deal with the more difficult cases. -- Prince Kassad 16:12, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

delete. --Vahagn Petrosyan 16:22, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Delete or redirect to the category.​—msh210℠ 16:23, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Merge into Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium, surely we're not going to delete the requests that are already there, we're going to copy them across, right? Mglovesfun (talk) 17:05, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

There are four requests there, of whihc only one had any discussion. That discussion should, yes, be compied to WT:ES, but the other three's items can be replaced by {{rfe}} in the entries (if they lack it). I think a redirect to the category will be useful than one to the scriptorium, since the page seems to be for requests for etymology rather than discussions thereon. But either way.​—msh210℠ 17:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Wiktionary:WikiProject template sharing

Never managed to get anywhere beyond the drawing board. -- Prince Kassad 13:39, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Destroy, completely, said drawing board.​—msh210℠ 19:44, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Delete, most of the big, useful templates are too project specific, (the little utilities are already imported). Conrad.Irwin 21:23, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The Wikipedia version is only kept as an "archive", and given there's virtually nothing on the page, might as well just delete this. WT:GP deals with templates. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Appendix:Arabic numerals

Either needs a massive cleanup or a delete... right now I think it's in the no usable content bracket. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:50, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Category:Arabic numerals

Tagged by someone else, not me. I actually think keep. While some of the pages *might* be suitable for deletion, not all of them! Although Arabic numerals are translingual, aren't they? In the same way languages other than Latin use the Latin alphabet. So maybe clean up a little. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:53, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Category:fiu-vro:*Topics

Needs to be moved to Category:vro:*Topics. Includes subcategories and all pages included in the categories. Probably needs a bot. -- Prince Kassad 22:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Wiktionary:WikiProject

Wiktionary does not use the concept of WikiProjects since they do not really fit into the dictionary environment and the language specific About pages (like Wiktionary:About German already fulfill many of a WikiProject's jobs. -- Prince Kassad 20:51, 12 August 2009 (UTC)