Category talk:Etyl without second param

RFD

The following information passed a request for deletion.

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

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Category:Etyl without second param

I don't see why we need a template tracking category for templates used correctly. Nitpick, Etyl should be etyl in the title. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:34, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

diff seems to show that I'm not the only one who prefers specifying "en". —CodeCat 17:50, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I've been known to add en, too, but only (or chiefly) to entries I create. - -sche (discuss) 18:34, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I've been known to add en, too, but only for the purpose of removing the entry from this very category. The existence of this category led me to believe there was consensus that {{etyl}} was supposed to have a second param and that leaving the second param empty had been deprecated. If that isn't the case, then delete. —Angr 14:08, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I would certainly support deprecating it, but I think changing these entries is beneficial even if we don't deprecate it. —CodeCat 14:11, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

No one's stopping you from changing them, but the existence of this category—even though it's hidden—leads others to believe that what it contains is necessary cleanup. You can spend your Wiktionary time however you like, but when I do cleanup, I want it to be actually necessary cleanup. Is there some other way you could get a list of such pages besides a category? Could your bot make a list in your own userspace for you? —Angr 14:55, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Another: diff —CodeCat 02:22, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Meh, keep. - -sche (discuss) 18:34, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

What about other hypothetical categories (that could easily be made real) like Category:plural of without lang. Such a category would contain pretty much all of Category:English plurals, and furthermore all such entries would be correct, too. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:11, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

The difference is that people generally expect lang= to be optional (with {{term}} as an important exception), whereas language codes that are numbered parameters are, as a rule, mandatory. I wouldn't mind adding lang=en to all of those too, though... —CodeCat 14:14, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. We have enough formatting issues needing fixing here, without literally inventing some more for ourselves. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:16, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not asking anyone else to make these changes, so it wouldn't be any issue. I would just like to do it myself. —CodeCat 14:25, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Delete. If anything, those with en as the second param should be added to a cleanup category. If this is kept, then the template's documentation should be modified to explain the new correct usage, as it currently states that one should leave out the second parameter for English. A note at N4E might be useful, too. --Yair rand (talk) 22:43, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Why should those with "en" as the second parameter be added to a cleanup category? —CodeCat 23:12, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Because it's formatted incorrectly, of course. Standard practice is to leave out the second parameter for English. --Yair rand (talk) 00:03, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. —CodeCat 00:08, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Weak delete per Yair and per Mg's "Etyl should be etyl in the title", but strong disagreement with bot-editing pages to add |en, contra standard practice for this template and contra its documentation. That's not what the bot flag was granted for, and the temporary flood flag (or off-label bot action) is for uncontroversial actions only AFAICT.​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:33, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Since it's valid to have "en" as the second parameter, and others have been making those edits as well, it's not a controversial edit. As far as standard practice goes, it is either to omit the language and default to "en", or explicitly provide "en" instead of the default. What is standard is the provision that the language defaults to English, not that this is therefore the only possible way to indicate English. That is what the documentation says; I don't see it say anywhere that "en" is explicitly disallowed or discouraged. If you wanted to disallow "en" as the language parameter entirely, why didn't you discuss that instead? —CodeCat 19:45, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

As long as "en" is permitted to be absent, there's no need for a maintenance category to keep track of pages where it is absent. —Angr 19:59, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, so far the category has helped me find quite a lot of entries that were missing the code where one was needed. Presumably, they had been either copied from an English entry or just entered by someone who is used to making English entries (and therefore didn't think to add the second parameter). That is one reason why having "en" everywhere is helpful: it helps find mistakes much more easily. Another reason is that it forces the user of the template to think about what it means and why it's there, which prevents mistakes altogether. Even if optional, its presence is a strong mental clue for anyone who is learning our templates, and therefore very valuable. —CodeCat 20:04, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Using {{etyl|la|en}} is a bit like using {{en-noun|s}}, replacing the default with itself. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:31, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

That's one of the reasons why {{nl-noun}} no longer has any defaults. I believe that defaults only make sense if they are sensible defaults that work in the majority of cases, so that the chance of getting it right by defaulting is high. But there are a lot more cases on Wiktionary that do need the second parameter than there are that don't. So I don't think a default makes much sense here, it's really just an artefact on earlier days when Wiktionary was relatively more focused on English. I would not be entirely opposed to {{en-noun|s}}, but it already works as a default for a substantial percentage of cases. I foresee that when the template is converted to Lua, the default will become applicable in even more cases because Lua can choose the correct ending based on the letters of a word, so it knows to add -es after -s. —CodeCat 12:40, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

You don't have to force your ideas on to everyone else though. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:11, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to. Things still work as they did before, I didn't change how any templates work. People can still edit as they've always done, can't they? The category has served its purpose now so I don't mind if it's deleted. —CodeCat 13:36, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Keep per CodeCat’s 20:04 comment. It promotes good practice. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 14:46, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

RFD-passed. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:20, 19 July 2013 (UTC)