Wiktionary talk:Criteria for inclusion/2002-2003

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the word has been used before and may be of intrest to people.

What metric of interest ?

Well intrest varies form person to person, a word i may find intresting may not be inrtesting to someone else. I suppose Specialist words are allowed would be a better wording. -fonzy

Virtually all specialist words would classify under one of the other categories.

You say that tehn you dont like ceratin "proper names" in Wiktionary, but those main 2 are teh longes

There is no such thing as a longest word, it's like trying to have a largest number. I suggest you consult the The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. For instance the full name for bovine NADP-specific glutamate dehydrogenase is longer than any of the words given in the list.

really only proper names that length, all proper names should be added

Wiktionary is a dictionary, it's not trying to be a listing of everything, as that's not what a dictionary is for, if you want to create entries on proper names do so in www.wikipedia.org where it is appropriate.

as Wiktionary can have them and Wiktionary can do more than ordinary dictionarires

Entries are not a matter of physical storage capacity (hardly any dictionaries are developed on paper anymore) but a matter of if they are words the same applies to virtually all dictionaries, both OED and Websters are by the half million mark in terms of number of words. --Imran 21:47 Dec 19, 2002 (UTC)

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As words that fail this criteria might in the future meet this criteria, I think we should create a new namespace (perhaps pending: or something similar) where we can move entries which don't meet the criteria rather than deleting them. --Imran 14:29 Dec 22, 2002 (UTC)

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I would like that Wikitionary includes also fixed expressions (more than one word) like

1. proverbs
2. happy new year, happy birthday, etc
3. Words that often go together like safe and sound

Youssefsan

My first impression is probably no for 1 and 2 but yes for 3. Proverbs tend to be longer expressions with a single meaning that will need to be linked from a key word, so why not just leave them there? The second item really involves a broader use of the word "happy" in the context of any festive occasion so that the pattern will likely be best illustrated under happy. The third item refers involves idiomatic expressions, where there already seems to be a growing consensus for separate articles. Eclecticology 21:35 Dec 31, 2002 (UTC)

When I think about it, anyone word as long as its not made up intentionally etc. Should be in, as we are dealing with the Language, pronuciation of the word and the eytmology. Even prper names that Imran seems to be mainly against.

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Since I haven't received any feedback on an idea submitted at another page, I'll try it here. In addition to echoing Imran's suggestion, I would ask whether it might not be possible to also include words that people DID just make up intentionally, as long as they were clearly labeled as such (maybe also accessed from a special page dedicated to listing these words). In my mind, this could engage public interest enormously as people could attempt to coin words which meet a need (and have an audience to consider and give feedback on and who can indicate whether such a word already exists, etc.) and then they'd also know where to check if they found someone using an obscure word not available elsewhere (i.e., Wiktionary). Since the newly coined words could also be appended to By Topic pages (but under a separate sub-link such as "newly coined terms" or something like that so as not to clutter the view with words which are not widely accepted), people could subscribe to those newly coined words pages dealing with their topics of interest. Just like getting your cup of coffee in the morning, you could read the "news" about what words have been coined in your topic of interest (or the discussion on these words).

To give an example I gave in the other article, someone could suggest "cousina" and "cousino" to refer to female and male cousins respectively. Others might discuss the page and suggest "cousinette" instead for a female cousin (or start a new page if they wished to insist when their term wasn't accepted). Words reminiscent of the humorous Sniglets which coin humorous words like "lava java" (referring to boiling hot coffee you spill on yourself) could be diffused and categorized under the appopriate topic (separate from the "authentic" words, at least until such time as the words entered into more common use). In any case, such a system would allow a marketplace of ideas to flourish and remove word coinage from the domain of the powerful in that anyone could have an opportunity to have their word heard and considered and possibly adopted by others. It would help scholars to concentrate their debates on terminology. In the past, there hasn't really been any concentrated forum for full public access to a democratic debate on the language we all use and own.

Reactions? Could I go ahead and start a newly coined words page (from under Alternative Categorization Schemes for example) and add links to it (where the new pages were marked in bold at the top of the page that this was a newly coined word)? Brettz9 01:57 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)

First, regarding your previous post on this matter. Long dense paragraphs with challenging material stuck in the middle of a long Main Page talk article aren't the sort of thing that inspire people to respond.

Unfortunately, I've been having difficulty treating the proposal seriously. I don't see Wiktionary's function as being the coining and marketting of new words. I'm always inventing new words in my own daily life, but those inventions usually have a context, and are as quickly forgotten as coined. I don't associate word coinage with the domain of the powerful. I believe that a word's success has more to do with serendipity than democracy. With the exception of that produced by the French Academy dictionaries describe usage rather than prescribe it. You would probably agree that they are are always behind public usage, and not ahead of it. For new words and usages that have captured the imagination see http://www.americandialect.org/woty.html For a word to succeed it has to capture the public imagination. Eclecticology 04:57 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. That is a good point about language having to do a lot with serendipity and capturing the public's imagination. However, I think you would agree that placement is an important part of it also. If I could have a forum such as Time Magazine to try out my new words, I do think I'd have a much better chance of getting the word accepted than if I just try to tell my friends, especially if they are not interested in the topic of the word I have coined. Although it does need to capture the public imagination, I think it first has to come to the attention of at least a portion of the population to have a chance, and I think what I have proposed could streamline that need. Yes, I do agree that dictionaries are generally behind public usage (though of course they can and do inform people of some words some individuals have not heard before and also shape usage to some extent), but that doesn't mean, I think, that a site could not be devised to add additional functionalities.

Also, what I have envisioned here does not prescribe what SHOULD be used, it only would attempt to describe what a very select few ARE (or one person is) using (and give a separate forum on the discussion pages for prescriptive arguments). Maybe wiktionary is not up to having all this data, or there is presently not an adequate system for hiding the newly coined words from say alphabetical searches, but I do think it would be a very useful concept--and frankly, in my view, more interesting and engaging (like I think Wikipedia is) than adding another dictionary site (which most people I would venture are not really as interested, I would say--unless they are language buffs--in contributing to; though maybe I am wrong on this latter point) - Brettz9 20:48 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)

One more point...Though some may be skeptical about people's sense of judgment in filling up pages with nonsense words, Wikipedia deals with this concern well by banning the most egregious vandals and using self-governance for the rest. Your thoughts? - Brettz9 20:51 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)

It's important to distinguish common vandals from the rest. The vandal's nonsense word is often nothing more than an unpronounceable alphabet soup with no apparent meaning. I agree that there has to be some avenue for disseminating bona fide new words. Earlier today, I looked at the entry for translationary. Its use as an adjective is already established, but its use as a noun meaning "a translation dictionary" is not; it does, however, carry a certain rationality. This prompted me to put "(New)" before the meaning. I would suggest this as a solution in the absence of any credible quotes using such a word. This would tell the reader that the usage is not established, and it should be avoided in term papers that would be marked by linguistic conservatives. Eclecticology 21:28 Mar 5, 2003 (UTC)

So is that different than my original proposal? (since I also recommended putting "new" at the top). When you say "bona fide" new words, are you distinguishing them from vandal words or some other criteria? I agree that neologisms (the word was on the tip of my tongue) should be based on some rational criteria, but it seems the one question is whether we could add words at will as long as they are rational and labeled as neologisms, but which may have no or few other speakers as of yet. - Brettz9 00:09 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

It looks as though we have stumbled into some kind of agreement, although I would put the "(New):" at the beginning of a definition. Sometimes we are talking about new uses instead of entirely new words. I think we also have consensus about what is usually meant by bona fides. I would hope, however, that we don't encourage people to start a binge of needlessly inventing new words just to be cute even when the etymology makes sense. Let's wait and see what happens. Eclecticology 02:05 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

Ok, I added a page at Neologisms (linked currently from the Main/Temp articles subsection) with some subpages. If you like, we could continue the discussion there. - Brettz9 05:22 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

FYI, most of the material I added (and relevant to our discussion) is at the subpage neologisms:unstable - Brettz9 05:24 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

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Invented language inclusion

Clearly all natural languages belong here, but I wonder about invented languages. The "criteria for inclusion" words seem to be focused on the idea of people submitting bogus words... Some invented languages are common, mature, and well-recognized enough to belong here, like Esperanto or Interlingua or Klingon, but a line should probably be drawn somewhere: to take an extreme case, a hoaxlang like E, aka E-Prime clearly doesn't belong. What about Tolkien's Nevbosh (famous conlanger, minor language), or Toki Pona (small community, has a Wikipedia), Brithenig (well-known conlang, spawned many imitators), or Atlantic? (That last one's mine. I don't intend to add it.)

Possibly the language as a whole should conform to one of the criteria here, although the last one ("three independently recorded instances") would be way too lax. Limit to conlangs appearing in published works? or what? Would I be justified in adding Nalian words, from The Edifice, for example?

Would the line different between artlangs and auxlangs? —Muke Tever 04:34, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

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"By length of word"

The material in this section was moved from the talk page for the defunct [Wiktionary:By word length]] page.

A couple of issue,

1) Some of these appear to be proper namess and thus inappropriate for a dictionary unless in common use in the English language in uncapitalized form.

2) I seriously doubt that several of these words can be found in more than a couple of texts and that if we plan to keep them we should find some quotes for them.

--Imran 00:13 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

Point 1, there not written down alot because, there so long. Point 2, Wiktionary can have them. Point 3, they are real words. Point 4, You wont need quotes for tehm, as no one will use them, but tehy may want to know what they mean for genral intrest

If they're not written down and they're not spoken then they're not real words anymore than any other word someone chooses to make up, we have to have a minimum standard of evidence that these words atually exist, and that means evidence of use. --Imran 11:14 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

For your information tehy are real words, the longest one has been wrtten down several times.

Then could we have some quotes to prove it ? --Imran 11:23 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

The point of qoutes is so that a person can know how to use the word, these long words do not need qoutes as, they will nto be used in speach, but they aree intresting for anyone who wants too know long words. You are the only oen so far that has complained about having these long words. If yhou dont beleive tehy exist then, I can't help, that. -fonzy

No, they are primarily to prove that words exist, are in use, and for dating words, it's a standard practice in most major dictionaries. --Imran 11:35 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

The first three do exist, because they are totally correct names for specific chemials as they have to be named by international standards. -- Riptor

Unless they are used in the English language as a noun/verb/adverb/adjective, as for instance hydrogen is, then they're inappropriate for a dictionary. To paraphrase wikipedia, Wiktionary isn't an encyclopedia. --Imran 11:35 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

But the pages, are nto enclopeadia articles...

-fonzy

No, they're pre-stubs with little to no content. However fuller articles under those names would perhaps be appropriate in Wikipedia. Now that I look I see some of them do already have fuller articles in WP--Imran 11:46 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

I dont see why your so agasint tehm, tehy are words, wiktianry cna have them, tehy belong here.

Wiktionary is a dictionary, and as such is for words not for proper names. --Imran 13:47 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

Yes wiktionary is a dictionary. Dictionaires contain words, methion....serine is a word.

Find me some quotes where it is used as a noun as opposed to a proper name and I'll accept that --Imran 14:44 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

Why are you mad on getting quotes for Methion...serine? You seem to be forggeting atht wiktionary can have mroe in it then any other dictionary. No-one else is objecting to having them hee except you. -fonzy

Because we need a minimum criteria for entry to,

1. Stop fake words being entered
2. To stop proper names being entered

As neither of these are appropriate in a dictionary. --Imran 22:27 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

besides dictionaries consern tehmseleves with the langauge, how to pronuce it, rather than, teh full god damn history of it.

I suggest you look at one of the major dictionaries like the OED. --Imran

I'm not about to say that these strange long words should be banned. They exist, even if only as curiosities of the language. Being able to use them in a meaningful sentence would enhance their acceptability, but is not the only way of doing that. It would be sufficient if there were evidence to show that the contributor did not make up the word just to be able to post a long word.

A few days ago I saw a link to a web site where if you enterred the chemical structure of a substance its bot could generate the correct name for it. The physical existence or even the chemical possibility for the substance did not appear relevant to its having a name. That's quite an open-ended situation!

As an observation on human nature, if you don't like Wiktionary becoming clogged with uselessly big words, your goal is better achieved by saying little or nothing about it. Complaints about this sort of thing only encourage people to add more of these Snorlax-like words.

I also have no problem with proper names in Wiktionary, but they must be treated differently than on Wikipedia. The matter did arise in a Wikipedia dicscussion when an article on Phoenix, Arizona said nothing more than that it was a city in Arizona. That was a fine example of a useless stub. Here, we are talking about the usage of words and the word "Phoenix" does exist as a word. After discussing the use of the word as applied to the mythical bird, adding the stub that was inappropriate in Wikipedia would be quite right here with the added note "See Wikipedia for more information." Eclecticology 22:02 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

Sorry I'm not sure I follow, are you suggesting that an article on Phoenix should link to the wikipedia article on Phoenix, Arizona ?

Of course. That is after all one of the uses of the word. Since this is a dictionary rather than an encyclopedia, we can concern ourself with the name, but always without a lot of detail. Similarly, our entry about zymurgy will tell about thw word and what it means without a lot of detail about how it's done. Eclecticology

That seems a tad excessive, after all we have to consider what people will use dictionaries for, and finding entities named after words is not one of them, after all Wikipedia and to a greater extent Google are far better for that purpose. Of course going the other way if a word is named after a proper name, for instance the verbs xerox or google then we should link to the appropriate wikipedia article. --Imran 00:02 Dec 19, 2002 (UTC)

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