User talk:Pugwash

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Again, welcome! --Ivan Štambuk 02:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Your edits

I really hope that your edits will not boil down to mere adding of ===External links=== section linking to a webpage of a $$$ dictionary, otherwise someone might assume you've indulged into spamming promotional material, undo all your edits and indefblock this account ;). Adding missing senses on Wiktionary entries that can be verified using such dictionary is, on the other hand, a completely different thing. --Ivan Štambuk 02:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Gah. I wrestled for a while about doing this before discovering that someone had already put in a link to my site in one entry, and noticing similar links in quite a few other "external references" sections. I reckoned after that that it would be okay. I reckoned wrong, evidently - I'll remove the links I added and go through more carefully to see which entries I can actually provide more information for. Do you think it's okay adding a link to my site if existing information in the page can be verified using my site? I'm also guessing that these should all be "References" links rather than "External link" ones? I have noticed other URLs in "References" links here, but not too many of them so I wasn't sure if it was frowned upon. Anyway, thanks for the message - as I say, I pondered the ethics of this for some time so I'd value your input. --Pugwash 03:14, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, if existing information on slang meanings could be substantiated, I guess it would be OK. The thing with Wiktionary is that it completely ignores the real paper dictionaries as some kind of a reference (as opposed to e.g. Wikipedia) - per criteria for inclusion, all the senses of all words are allowed if there is enough attestation evidence (verifiable usag by different authors spanning a certain time period). So in the end, the ===References=== (that's where the references normally go) section does not make much sense IMHO, unless we're dealing with some copyright-expired dictionary (like Webster's 1913 edition, scanned and digitised online, which was used to jump-start thousands of entries here). There are certain cases where proper references are desirable - e.g. in cases of contentious etymologies, where we're dealing with facts established by professionals (linguists specialising in historical/comparative linguistics), but for the verification of senses where the content is being being creatively written and verified by means of citations - not so. Hence, there are many entries on the Wiktionary you're not likely to see in any dictionary (at least not the common ones).

As for the external-linking your website: Well, the common form for the references to external dictionaries would be to create a template that would automate URL generation. E.g. for Webster 1913 we have {{R:Webster 1913}} which generates URL to the online version of Webster 1913 using the entry name as a parameter. Inspecting the URLs you added, it appears that it would be easy to achieve such templatisation with your website, except that additional parameter would have to be added for the first letter of a word in order to link to LETTER.html. However, the thing that bothers me is the profitable nature of your dictionary, as it is not a work written by some academic or national language institution, and some might argue that you've been given free promotion. So, before we indulge into creating such template, I think it would be the best to inspect whether the community is willing to bestow its blessing upon its usage, by bringing this issue in the community discussion board. I myself am very hesistant for telling you anything for sure, as my primary involvement on this project is not the English entries (hence I don't peruse the discussion relating to them, and might have been ignorant on the relevant policies, some of which might e.g. prohibit the linking to your site), so if you don't mind and are still eager to pursue this further, I'll bring the topic up in the Beer Parlour. Cheers! --Ivan Štambuk 04:02, 12 February 2009 (UTC)