Talk:Phoenix

"From: WT:RFC"

Has lots of definitions, some of which are really encyclopedic (eg, "A TV show") and some of which are too vague (eg, "A TV show", again - what, any TV show, or a specific TV show?). If we are going to keep all (or even most) of these, then the entry desperately needs translation tables. — Paul G 12:00, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I have added Swedish translations and modified and reordered some of the senses slightly. It is a quite intresting entry because there are some many possible meanings (See w:Phoenix). If we can make this a good entry it could stand as a model for other entries. I'm not really sure exactly what we should do. There are at least 4 important senses (capital city of Arízona, firebird, constellation, character in Illiad) that we definitely should keep and have links to Wikipedia. Then there is the issue of ordering. I changed the ordering slightly moving the 4 that I thought important first. So perhaps we should mark the others as less likely meanings somewhat. This needs to be carefully considered. --Patrik Stridvall 14:35, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The presence of a sense in Wikipedia does not automatically mean that Wiktionary should also give this sense, so this list should definitely be trimmed. For example, the "TV show" definition should go - Wikipedia does a good job of describing these already, and it's hard to see how you could define these usefully without reproducing Wikipedia's content. I feel we should keep:

• the place names (geographical names are OK)
• the constellation (astronomical names are OK)
• the mythological character (mythological names are OK)
• the nickname for Japan (nicknames are OK)

and ditch:

• the firebird (reason: isn't it only spelled with a lower-case p, or was there a particular phoenix called "Phoenix"? The definition as given suggests "Phoenix" can apply to any phoenix)
• the Marvel Comics character (reason: fictional character)
• the web browser (reason: not sufficiently well-known [unlike Netscape or Internet Explorer])
• the missile (reason: encyclopedic)
• the TV show (reason: encyclopedic)
• the software tool (reason: encyclopedic)
• the engine (reason: encyclopedic)
• the ships and steamboat (reason: encyclopedic)

— Paul G 14:50, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

As for the firebird. Well, I'm not sure. The Wikipedia article is not clear on that point, but I have always seen it spelled in Swedish with a capital letter "Fågel Fenix" (English: "Bird Phoenix") so I have always assume there was one particular mythical being that was worshipped by the ancient Egyptians. After all it is an immortal being that was reborn when it died. In later myths and fantasy literature there is sometimes many of them, but there is still one orginal phoenix AFAIK.

On this page it say it could only be one. It is not spelled spelled with capital letter there though so perhaps English does it differently. Swedish does do it as I remember, I have search in Google. But perhaps the Swedish translation should go on the phoenix page instead as a sense for the particular phoenix in Egyptian mythology. --Patrik Stridvall 15:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

As for the others, sure remove them, we always have the Wikipedia page if we wish to readd them. Note that Phoenix is former name of the Mozilla Firefox web browser so the term not used any longer longer either. --Patrik Stridvall 15:56, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I've made the suggested cleanups, and have added information as well to the article. --EncycloPetey 12:17, 11 March 2006 (UTC)