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Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2006/July

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July

Grammar pages and the like

Browsing my favourite namespace on the lookout for indexes to move, I frequently bump on pages like Wiktionary:Czech verbs, Wiktionary:Hungarian language, Wiktionary:Portuguese pronouns etc. I believe these should be in an appendix à la Appendix:Dutch strong verbs, unless they are 100% grammatical, in which case they should be moved to Wikibooks (as has been said before on this page).

Also, the Appendix namespace serves a good purpose for lists like Wiktionary:List of French proverbs, Wiktionary:List of idioms etc. What do others think? — Vildricianus 11:09, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Allpages redirects

Warning... I've introduced a CSS fix so that redirects in Special:Allpages now display black. If that's a problem, or you know of a better decoration (italics?, bold?), please say so. — Vildricianus 13:29, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Main Page bravery

Is it an entry? No... Wiktionary:Main Page is the place to be. MediaWiki:Mainpage will contain the right link... Main Page and friends will remain a redirect for about a year or longer, and will then be turned into an entry. Anyone? — Vildricianus 20:41, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese Wiktionary uses zh:Wiktionary:首页 as the main page (project page) but zh:首页 as an article meaning main page. If there is a desire, I see no problem adding an article called "main page".--Jusjih 01:40, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Move it one week from now, or a month? --Connel MacKenzie T C 15:39, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Go for it - and remove the heading "Main Page" - SemperBlotto 15:47, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I tried something like that before, but the powers that be didn't approve. --Expurgator t(c) 19:12, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I tried just this well over one year ago, but Ec didn't approve and undid it, calling it blindsiding. But I'm still in favour so go for it. — Hippietrail 20:14, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When going for it, should the standard article name be "main page"?--Jusjih 10:39, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Rod (A. Smith) 01:48, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. — Vildricianus 09:33, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

DynamicPageList available for us

DynamicPageList has been experimentally installed on en:wikt. This extension was primarily developed for Wikinews (for pages like these), but might as well be useful for us, to a lesser degree of course. I've been experimenting a bit here, see for yourself if you can use it in any way. — Vildricianus 12:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Connel MacKenzie/Wanted entries seems to be a good demonstration. --Connel MacKenzie 19:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't intended for namespace entries (e.g. the Derived terms section), is it? DAVilla 02:09, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My Word List

I'm thinking that we can create a MyWord list that stores the user's favorite words (either because its page has a particularly good definition, or because of other reasons). Exteray 15:32, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You can use the Special:Watchlist function for that, or simply bookmark the pages in your browser. — Vildricianus 16:24, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not so fast, I like the idea. Besides, I am not about to bookmark 1000's of words in my browser!
A-cai 22:30, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yes, but using anything other than the current existing features would require direct developer effort, which is not available right now. I think that using one's Special:Watchlist for this is the best approach available for this, at this time. That, or editing something like Special:Mypage/Neat words regularly. --Connel MacKenzie T C 15:32, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Connel! Exteray 02:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You can also create a subpage such as User:Exteray/MyWord and fill it thus:
— Hippietrail 20:12, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Boozing

The category Category:English drinking terms sounds rubbish! Can we get it put back to Category:Boozing. "Boozing" reflects the group of words better than "English drinking terms", which sounds quite pompous formal up-its-own-arse in a way. --Expurgator t(c) 19:12, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Templates for English adverbs

This should come as no surprise to anyone paying attention, but {{en-adv}} is now the adverbial counterpart to {{en-adj}}. Rod (A. Smith) 06:42, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bot approval request: ScsRhymeBot

Discussion moved to Wiktionary:Votes/bt-2006-07/Bot approval request: ScsRhymeBot.

Bot approval request: ScsHdrRewrBot

Discussion moved to Wiktionary:Votes/bt-2006-07/Bot approval request: ScsHdrRewrBot.

"Form of" templates output modification

Current Proposed

Plural of word.
Reflexive of word.
Feminine of word.
Et cetera.

Plural form of word.
Reflexive form of word.
Feminine form of word.
Et cetera.

I propose changing the output of these templates to include the word "form", where needed, to improve clarity. – Quoth 06:36, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support. adding the word "form" is clearer.--Jusjih 10:40, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if this is already done or not but I strongly feel that all irregular forms should include the word "irregular". — Hippietrail 20:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I oppose adding "irregular" since it seems likely to open another door to POV disputes. (E.g. with POV arguments on both sides of each of "buses", "busses", "heads of state", "passers-by", and "data".) Rod (A. Smith) 04:54, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No more than it is already. The toggling of regular/irregular should be in the template convention somewhere. The POV disputes will remain with how/which template is used, not with mangling the templates themselves. If a plural is formed with anything other than the three "regular" rules ( s, es, -y ies,) it should have the "irregularly formed plural" label saying so. --Connel MacKenzie 05:10, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support (since wiki is not paper). Rod (A. Smith) 02:01, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Done but a few foreign-language knowledgeable folks need to get together and sort out the naming conventions for e.g. "first-person singular simple present" vs. "first-person plural simple present indicative". Currently "singular" and "simple" are implied, which I would think is fine, but indicative isn't, which is fine for English, but might not be for other languages. {{past of}} is problematic at the moment, and I've removed the to before verbs, unless you want parle = Third-person singular simple present form of to parler. DAVilla 01:58, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Template:first-person_plural_indicative_of"


Will all the entries need ===Noun form=== instead of ===Noun=== ? — Vildricianus 15:59, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I shouldn't see why. I'd hope everyone was taught to know the basic categories of noun, adjective, verb, et cetera in English class, but I know that just as many wouldn't easily understand what the sentence "The reflexive of blah" is trying to communicate. – Quoth 09:06, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That could be helped when reflexive is wikilinked. — Vildricianus 09:07, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That would help, as would a less ambiguous sentence, which there is plenty of space for. It would also break up the busy-ness of all the blue linking— if it were linked. – Quoth 14:34, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Scots language or Scottish English wrt categories?

I have a quandry for you all! Scots and English are in the Wiktionary as seperate languages however, I don't want to upset anyone here but there seems to be no consistency in what language Scottish words are classified under.

This problem is making it even more confusing since Scots is a form of English although it has its own ISO definition.

Unfortunately this has lead to confusion in the Wiktionary categories where some Scots/Scottish English words are under the Scottish English category and some are classified in sub categories under the Scots language category.

I personally think that we should clean-up all the Scottish English words by changing the language header in them to Scots (or adding a new heading in the articles in question if it has an English usage too). All the Scottish words would then be in one place and The Regional English category can then link to it.

I want to ask all of you, espcially those amonst you who are Scottish, what you think to my proposal, I'll not do anything for now until we have a concensus.--Williamsayers79 21:49, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Widsith and I have a small discussion about this at User talk:Dangherous#Scots. I was going to leave Widsith to sort it out himself, but thing aren't as easy as that. --Dangherous 21:56, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd personally say that any Scots English/Scottish English should from now on include the language heading Scots. For words that have usage in both Standard English (i.e. borrowed from Scots) and Scots English we can always add in both language headings.

I'm quite happy to take on the task of cleaning up all the articles in question.

What do you all think? --Williamsayers79 07:38, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The method I've been using is as follows: where a Scots word has entered English and I can find it in an English dictionary (like wee = small), I use =English= with a (Scots) marker. Where I can't find it in an English dictionary (like coo = cow), I use =Scots= as the language header. I know that's not very rigorous. If you want to add separate sections for them then by all means go ahead! I definitely agree we should not use =Scottish English= as that's a bit unclear. Widsith 07:57, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've recently noticed some changes back to some of the Scots words I cleaned up, I've contacted the user (see User talk:Greatgavini) but thought it would be best to include here:

Hello, I noticed your edits to these words, thanks for expanding upon them, I'm not Scottish or Irish / Ulster Irish so may be slighty off-cock when it comes to cleaning up entries in these dailects/languages.
I recently had some dicussion threds with user:Widsith and user:Dangherous around the Scots language and Scottish English categories in the Beer Parlor.
We thought it might be more beneficial to classify the "Scottish English" words as the language "Scots" by putting in the releveant headings and move them from the Scottish English category to the Scots language category for consistency. In the process this means removing the category Scottish English from the words mentioned which I had already done for some of them.
It seems to me that having both Scottish English and a Scots language category is duplicating effort and causes confusion. What do you reckon?--Williamsayers79 07:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to get final consensus on this since we could all end up going round in circles recategorising entries. Its happened before and will probably happen again.--Williamsayers79 08:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please could the administrators provide some guidance here?

I always thought Scots was a form of Gaelic, totally different to the Scottish dialect of English. Am I wrong? --Enginear 11:38, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Scottish Gaelic and Scots are two completely different languages, both independent from English, althought admittedly Scots is far closer to English than Scots Gaelic.

Marking a Scots word as Scots is infinitely better than labelling it as Scottish English, but if there is a word used in Scottish English but not in Scots (like "scheme", a housing estate, which I don't think is in Scots), label it as such. In short, I agree with the proposal of changing the Scottish English categories into Scots categories, because the majority of Scots words aren't used in everyday Scottish English anyway. - Greatgavini 18:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a plan!--Williamsayers79 07:13, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
1 If its definitely not used in English we'll mark it with =Scots=
2 If its used in both Scots and English it can have both lanuage headings to help differentiate between meanings - this should help to keep the articles tidy too :-)
3 If its like "scheme" above we can say that its =English= but a colloquial use (e.g. Scottish English)
Hopefully this does not confuse people too much!--Williamsayers79 07:13, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New namespace

Someone kicked this idea around a while back and it didn't have any opposition. But from the general lack of understanding of how the various namespaces work, it didn't get much support either.

Should we create a new namespace Neologisms:? --Connel MacKenzie T C 08:18, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pfffff. That's a difficult one. On the one hand, yes, I agree, this could make a couple of things a lot easier. Weird and dodgy entries could then simply be moved there. On the other hand... mmm... looks easy to start a POV war moving an entry in and out of that namespace back and forth. But yes, why not. POV wars are fun :-).
The criteria for single words would be pretty simple. If it exists in a list of accepted dictionaries, not marked as a neologism, then it's a "real" word. DAVilla 00:21, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Note: singular please. "Neologism:" — Vildricianus 08:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. My bad. "Neologism:". --Connel MacKenzie 21:00, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support as "Neologism:". Rod (A. Smith) 02:01, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support as "Neologism:". --Enginear 11:40, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose because there is no current need. Neologisms could just as easily be tagged as such and more often they are not. Furthermore there would be a problem with both pages existing, duplicating each other, or separate pages for different senses. This is not a namespace criterion. DAVilla 00:21, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Catagorization Of Verbs

I believe that the trasitivity of verbs does not warrant as much emphasis as requiring ===Tranistive Verbs=== & ===Intransitive Verbs===, but it requires formatting that isn't (transitive) and (intransitive).

The reason is that its much easier to access info when we use the former mode of formatting, but yet there's a problem; the problem that transitive verbs and intransitive verbs are lexically differnt, but are only semantically differnt, which 3 Equals Enclosures does not semantically mean anyways.

But why does it still require different formatting from (archaic), (obsolete), (nautical), etc.? Because, tranitivity isn't on the same level as these catagorizations, [Do you know what I mean?]. [I hope you guys can see that.]

68.148.165.213 10:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for bringing it up here. In a nutshell: this user prefers
===Transitive verb===
above
===Verb===
  1. (transitive).
See also User talk:68.148.165.213. — Vildricianus 10:43, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Is there not a third option? If the "inflection line" is used to state countable vs. uncountable for nouns, could it not be used to state the transitivity of the verb? IMO these categorizations are not entirely of a different nature.
to walk (intransitive; third-person singular simple present walks, present participle walking, simple past walked, past participle walked)
to walk (transitive; third-person singular simple present walks, present participle walking, simple past walked, past participle walked)
Sorry for complicating the matter, apart from the important question raised here on how to present the information on the transitivity of verbs, there is also an imo equally important question on what information to present. I would very much prefer it if information on the valency of the transitivity (monotransitive, ditransitive, tritransitive (not sure English has any)) was also included. However, since these terms are less commonly known than the simple transitive, I could very well live with a binary division of the verbs as is currently the case, but with a strong recommendation (or at least blessing *smile*) to add the valency of the transitivity as a grammatical note. This latter procedure also gives greater opportunity to correctly describe f ex the English verbs as give, write etc which while ditransitive (I wrote you a letter) with equal ease participates in a prepositional construction more typically associated with monotransitive verbs (I wrote a letter to you).
Finally there is the question on whether or not verbs should be organized in various categories depending on the verb type (Category:Intransitive verbs etc.)--sanna 11:20, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly, I don't think categorization is the question here - the topic was wrongly named as such.
Secondly, what your walk example suggests has more or less has the same value of using separate ==headers== for each. This not only requires separate inflection lines, which is verbose, it also stresses the differences between transitivity and intransitivity, unnecessarily (considered by some).
Mentioning valency rather than simple transitivity has been proposed earlier on by Ncik. I don't think we should do so. Interesting for linguists, but hardly so for the regular dictionary user. That's part of our "problems", namely, what kind of users are we aiming at? We should target a public as broad as possible, which we'll be more likely to reach if we limit ourselves to giving the basics of grammatical information. Perhaps extended explanations may be given in a ===Grammatical notes=== section or the like, but what I think we should avoid is cramming headers, simple inflection lines and definitions with undue linguistic information. Wiki is not paper, true, but the more we are what a regular dictionary user expects from a dictionary, the better, certainly in this stage. — Vildricianus 11:46, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I did recommend using a Grammatical notes section for the valency and keeping the "simple" division into transitive/intransitive as the main and prominently displayed distinction, but I would wish to stress that it is a fallacy to think that this information is only of interest for linguists. In fact it is vital information for any foreign student (and I bet a few native speakers could use this info as well... *smile*) of the language to get accurate information on how many objects the verb may take without having to resort to prepositional objects. It is something that is very language dependant, and nothing you can deduct from how the corresponding verb acts in your own language.
Secondly, I do not really follow your comment on how using the inflection line is the same as using separate headers? It surely stresses the division less than separate headers do. The verb type would afaict be best given as a param to {{en-verb}}? If I misunderstand you, please clarify.--sanna 12:17, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I meant to say that I favour keeping one numbering for all definitions, instead of splitting them up between any form of transitivity. — Vildricianus 12:43, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really mind how it's marked, but I think it's vital that transitive and intransitive senses of a verb are in the same section and not split up. Widsith 17:12, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I very strongly agree with User:Widsith. As picky as I am on most formatting things, I really don't care how this is accomplished. We could use the {{transitive}} / {{intransitive}} method or Hippietrail's {{pos_vti}}, {{pos_vt}}, {{pos_vi}} scheme. But the separate headings (used, ironically, to help entry of translations) seems deficient to me. Should we start a vote? --Connel MacKenzie 21:10, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think a vote is called for here. General opinion seems in favour of the ===Verb=== system, and quite some regulars are absent at the moment. It's not something that can be pushed anyway, or quickly bot-changed upon agreement. The change from ===(In)transitive verb=== to ===Verb=== is more like an evolution that shouldn't be inverted by anons like the one who started this topic. — Vildricianus 21:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That the heading should be kept ===Verb=== I most definitely agree with, and I can very well see the great advantages of keeping all the verbs together.
What I do not like with the scheme (transitive) is that grammatical information is presented in the same manner as stylistic information. Placing the information on the definition line, but with a different formatting would imo be preferable. Just "give" me a different style (bold or square parens or whatever), and I will be satisfied. *smile* And I do think that whatever scheme that is chosen, countable/uncountable (when both need to be specified) should receive similar treatment, but here countable can easily be understood as the default that need not be stated. If all definitions are uncountable, the presence of the specification on the inflection line helps explain the absence of a plural form. --sanna 06:35, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's something worth considering, but with the current confusion that is about {{cattag}}, it's more or less a detail. If that one works properly, {{transitive}} can be fiddled with. — Vildricianus 07:20, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some more CFI

Just a link, though. Here's something about M-W adding new entries. Anyone wants to start combing through entertainment magazines and trade journals? — Vildricianus 16:48, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When we have groups.google.com to comb through?  :-)   --Connel MacKenzie 20:59, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Admins, warning.... new blocking system afoot

Read all about it: [1]. — Vildricianus 16:02, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. Big changes, but they all sound good...even the silent deletion of invalid blocks. --Connel MacKenzie 20:55, 10 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Now live! — Vildricianus 09:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to work so far - I blocked my IP adress with the "Block anonymous users only" option checked, so I could still edit while logged in. This was previously impossible.

Can anyone think of a way to use this constructively? Like, re-blocking AOL with the "Block anonymous users only" flag set? That's just an idea, there's probably more useful stuff to do with it. — Vildricianus 14:00, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Excerpts of IRC chat on #wikimedia-tech:, 7/11/2006 - 7/12/2006 

23:44 < Connel> Hello TimStartling.  Thanks for the great new blocking features.
23:45 < TimStarling> np
23:45 < Connel> Question about it: Are blocks of named users supposed to 
        be able to prevent new accounts from that IP?
23:46 < Connel> Tonight, with the new features, I couldn't tell if it was 
        a bunch of new open proxies, or if they are supposed to be allowed.
23:47 < TimStarling> when you block a named user, the next time that user 
        tries to edit, their IP will be blocked, that's called an autoblock
23:47 < TimStarling> by default, autoblocks prevent account creation
23:49 < TimStarling> well, that's the theory anyway
23:49 < Connel> http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&user=&page=&limit=20&offset=3
23:49 < TimStarling> I don't think I tested that particular situation
23:50 < Connel> Clever vandals just creating the accounts, but not doing 
        anything with them, once blocked...(not triggereing any autoblocks.)
23:50 < TimStarling> quite possible
...
Day changed to 12 Jul 2006
00:03 < Connel> OK then.  If you feel like adding that feature, (I'm not 
        sure how you can) that would be cool.  I'll bug some stewards for the 
        other IP addresses.
00:04 < Jude> You don't have a checkuser on Wiktionary?
00:06 < Connel> No CheckUser on en.wikt:, nope.
...
00:15 < AmiDaniel> I love the new blocking options! =D
00:15 < AmiDaniel> Thanks to whoever did that
00:16 < AmiDaniel> Woot ... well, thanks :)
00:17 < AmiDaniel> One question: If you block an account with "block anons 
        only" checked, will it block the account and prevent others from being 
        autoblocked by that block, or will it not block the account?
00:19 < AmiDaniel> Okay, I get that much ... but will logged-in users from 
        an autoblocked ip be able to edit if "block anons only" is checked?
00:19 < Jude> Yes.
...
00:19 < AmiDaniel> Woot ... and it will block the account?
00:19 < AmiDaniel> In otherwords ... the original blockee will still be blocked right?
00:20 < AmiDaniel> It seems a little strange to block an account and then 
        check "block anons only" :)
00:20 < TimStarling> well, block anons only doesn't actually work on user blocks
00:20 < AmiDaniel> Oh, okay
00:20 < TimStarling> it won't be transferred to the autoblock
00:20 < TimStarling> instead you have to find out the IP and do a separate
        anon-only block on it
00:20 < AmiDaniel> Oh, alright
00:20 < TimStarling> then that block will take precedence over the autoblock
00:20 < AmiDaniel> That will be fine
00:21 < AmiDaniel> Thank you for implementing it =D=D=D
00:24 < Connel> OK, I've posted the steward CU request on Meta.  Thanks for
        the tip Tim, and THANK YOU for implementing it!
00:27 < AmiDaniel> Okay, so question: If an AOL user is autoblocked who's
        connected through the 207.200.116.0/24 range, can you now block that
        range with anon-only checked to release the autoblocks?
00:31 < TimStarling> AmiDaniel: yes
00:32 < AmiDaniel> Yay :)
00:32 < AmiDaniel> Thank you again ... this is like the bug fix of the century =D
...
00:37 < Connel> AmiDaniel, Jude and TimStarling: mind if I post snippets of
      the above to http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/WT:BP ?
00:37 < TimStarling> no
00:38 < AmiDaniel> No objections here
...
00:42 < Jude> None here

--Connel MacKenzie 07:02, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Return of the funky notice box. — Vildricianus 16:07, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think this should be moved to the "bottom" (most recent section) of this page once a week, for a while. --Connel MacKenzie T C 16:59, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thou shalt not think, thou shalt act! — Vildricianus 17:01, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think I'm failing the Rorschach test test, in that the red part of Proposal #5renumber to Proposal #6 now seems sexually suggestive.  :-) Maybe this would be a better logo for the WikiSaurus:vagina portion of Wiktionary?  :-) --Connel MacKenzie T C 04:41, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Since someone keeps renumbering the proposals on the meta page, every few minutes, it seems, the picture is the two faces talking to/about the red splotch. --Connel MacKenzie T C 06:00, 30 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We may want to use the sitenotice in case it ever comes to voting. — Vildricianus 08:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please do. Although no vote is going at the moment, it makes sense to have the great Wiktionary community start paying attention. Dbmag9 18:57, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Random word?

I thought a "random word" tool would be nice. It is not of much serious use, but would be invaluable for creating humour ("insert random word here" etc.). Has it ever been proposed? Is there any chance it will be implemented? I thought it would be really simple. It could also have "random verb", "random noun" etc. functions. Well, random sentence generator is probably too much to ask, although I'm beginning to drool just thinking about it. 193.40.16.235 13:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We have Special:Randompage which will generate you a random word. — Vildricianus 13:11, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OUCH, how on earth is it possible that I did not notice that? I feel so low and newbie now... Well anywhay then how about those "random verb", "random noun" etc.? (I got "thus and so" on first click :) And that random sentence generator... I'm rofl already... 193.40.16.235 13:22, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Erm, if you know something about programming, you could make a tool yourself that scans for ===Noun===, ===Verb=== etc. — Vildricianus 13:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You should begin by scanning the languages before the parts of speach. - Dakdada 14:26, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Has already been done (and made available). — Vildricianus 15:19, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh ? Where ? - Dakdada 16:12, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~cmackenzie/rnd-wikt.html (Very hokey setup right now, bombarding my home server downstairs. Replacements are certainly welcome. I'll see about adding Noun/Verb/other parameter.) --Connel MacKenzie 20:52, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is one of several very good reasons to standardize the POS headings such as "Verb" vs "Transitive verb" etc. — Hippietrail 19:36, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly agree. --Connel MacKenzie 14:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So how far are we? (I'm the originator) 217.159.215.9 11:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For me, this has been preempted by other concerns right now (and for the next couple weeks, probably.) But, it also occurs to me, that Patrick's excellent work may suffice for what you are looking for. http://tools.wikimedia.de/~stridvall/ has those breakdowns already, if you are good at scraping the information from the web page directly, that is. He's been mostly absent lately; perhaps a "E-mail this user" message could explain your request for a single random entry of a given section. E.g. http://tools.wikimedia.de/~stridvall/header.php?language=English&header=Adverb --Connel MacKenzie 14:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Request for bot flag: User:TempBot

Discussion moved to Wiktionary:Votes/bt-2006-07/Request for bot flag: User:TempBot.

downloads

Does anyone know why at http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiktionary/ the data in the subdirectory called latest is not the latest data but rather is one dump out of date? (Sorry, I don't knwo where to ask this.) RJFJR 02:25, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, one "part" of the XML dump failed, so it (incorrectly) directs you to the last known complete, good dump. The latest and greatest is at http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiktionary/20060704/enwiktionary-20060704-pages-meta-current.xml.bz2 and uncompressed is 262 MB. --Connel MacKenzie 06:46, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I expect another one to be complete in about 72 hours. --Connel MacKenzie 20:23, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Note: the most recent XML dump is 2006-07-14, BTW. --Connel MacKenzie 13:39, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Request for bot flag User:SeeAlsoBot

Discussion moved to Wiktionary:Votes/bt-2006-07/Request for bot flag User:SeeAlsoBot.

Verb form & Noun form versus Verb & Noun

The balance must be about 50-50 I think. Question is, which do we actually prefer as "POS header" for # {{plural of|word}} ? — Vildricianus 12:13, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have a strong preference for the standard =Noun= instead of the non-standard =Noun form=, =Noun phrase=, =Gerund= and other variants. --Connel MacKenzie 17:05, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've been using =Noun form= etc., but I don't really care. Widsith 17:14, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I, too and I, neither. It does seem off balance, though, that lemmata show inflections immediately under the POS header while inflected forms just show the term in bold. Would it make sense to have each inflected form entry show its corresponding lemma on the POS line? E.g.:
==Language==
===POS===
'''lemmata''' (''base'' '''[[lemma]]''')
# {{...form of|lemma}}
Rod (A. Smith) 18:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It would make most sense if such cases didn't have an inflection line... (duh!), but that's a bit counter-intuitive and not very consistent. Your proposal looks a bit duplicating. But the main thing here is either to distinguish Verb form from Verb, or not. Example is burst. Will we mention that it is the past tense of burst? If so, we might want to do so under a different header than the general POS one which discusses the meanings of the present tense. — Vildricianus 18:51, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In that specific case, I think having the definition lines being in the same section is much more valuable, than having ...um, what was the benefit of splitting them out? I see none. --Connel MacKenzie 19:06, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's debatable whether to treat past tense burst in the same way as present tense burst. But I agree that it's complicating things for complication's sake, certainly given the fact that other issues now must take precedence. — Vildricianus 19:36, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is no written law that "inflection line" is the definig term for this section. As far as I can recall it was coined by Ec while I had long been using the term "headword section", which did not catch on. After all not all words are inflected but all entries have a headword, also the section includes other things such as gender and romanization. So anyway don't let any one particular ad-hoc name for the section restrict your ideas about what is proper for it. — Hippietrail 19:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here is one example: slew. The question here is whether the verb senses should be in two or in one section. Currently, they're in two separate ones. If we keep them in two, we should keep "Verb form" as the name for the past tense sense, but in that case we need to transform all "Verb" headers to "Verb form" headers where applicable. If we unite them in one section, we'll need two inflection lines. — Vildricianus 10:09, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't you mean two definition lines? Oh, wait, you mean two inflection lines to correspond to the separate definition lines? For nouns, we have many entries that specify on the definition line itself, (plural only) or such. My opinion is that separating =Verb= into multiple subsections is not helpful (still.) To allow/encourage any of "=Verb form=", "=Transitive verb=", "=Verbal phrase=" or any of the other varieties, seems like a step backwards, to me. --Connel MacKenzie 13:34, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know, there's a big difference between transitive or intransitive senses, and different verbs forms. In many cases they will be split up per different etymology, but I don't know whether that's the case with burst. Compare:
===Verb===
burst (third-person blablabla)

# (intransitive) To break from internal pressure.
# Template:past tense of

and 

===Verb===
burst (third-person blablabla)

# (intransitive) To break from internal pressure.

burst

# Template:past tense of

and 

===Verb===
burst (third-person blablabla)

# (intransitive) To break from internal pressure.

===Verb form===
burst

# Template:past tense of
All variants are currently present. — Vildricianus 17:56, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Same topic, how should we format-wise handle this? One inflection line for two defs, with explanations within the {{en-verb}} template, or two inflection lines, splitting out definition numberings? — Vildricianus 09:50, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Images and image sizes

Is there any good reason to deviate from thumbnails, when including images on a page? The entry for pie has a gigantic image, where the thumbnail seems more appropriate, to me. We have enough layout complications as it is - I think we should recomment using "|thumb|" with no guesses made at the "px" pixel size. Images can be replaced on Commons with a significant delay before the change is recognized here. --Connel MacKenzie 19:02, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As you wish, but notify User:Rklawton. He adds quite a lot of them I think. — Vildricianus 19:09, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Size of headers

I have changed the size of the headers a bit, so that level 6 headers no longer display as tiny as they did. — Vildricianus 11:28, 15 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimania

Wikimania is coming up soon and I'm planning to attend, and even to speak there. I'm wondering who else from Wiktionary I might be likely to meet. If you plan on attending this year, please drop me a line so that we can connect. —Dvortygirl 14:59, 15 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Verbal noun?

From Template talk:present participle of:

This template erroneously states that a given -ing form is also the verbal noun of the base verb form. Might be true, but this shouldn't be mentioned in this template. It appears under the ===Verb=== header, and a verbal noun, if mentioned, should appear under ===Noun===. — Vildricianus 12:25, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It originally said "past participle and gerund of", but that's beside the point. Why would participles (verbal adjectives) but not gerunds (verbal nouns) appear under "Verb"? If a gerund is a noun then a past participle is an adjective, no? Note that we list participle forms (and the gerund form, though not separately labeled as such) under "===Verb===" whenever we invoke {{en-verb}}. Rod (A. Smith) 16:19, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Er, well, I anyway got confused at wounding. Doesn't "present participle and verbal noun of wound" also include what is described at the noun sense? If not, then what is a verbal noun? — Vildricianus 17:14, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think they are identical, both semantically and a syntactically, and I think that observation extends to nearly all "act of ..." definitions here. A professional linguist, however (as opposed to the armchair variety that am I) would be better qualified to declare or deny that equivalence. Rod (A. Smith) 04:06, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Since we have taken on the job to define all semantically different terms (plurals, past tenses, et al.), I think the "act of..." senses certainly warrant separate mention. — Vildricianus 08:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Gerund forms belong under a =Noun= heading, yes. --Connel MacKenzie 13:24, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WOTD

I started a draft of proposed guidelines for WOTD at Wiktionary:Featured word candidates (comment)/guidelines. Once it is improved to a satisfactory degree it could be added to Wiktionary:Featured word candidates. RJFJR 16:29, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a way to get the word of the day sent to me by e-mail, in the same way as dictionary.com does? If this facility doesn't exist at the moment, are there any plans to add it? Or is it not a sensible feature to have? Hedley

I think having a feature to send out the WOTD would be great. To add onto the idea, though, if WOTD get's running regularly, should it be offered via email and RSS/Atom? Foxjwill 22:21, 12 August 2006 (UTC) (I forgot to sign earlier)[reply]

Workshop

The following was posted by Adam Kilgarriff on the Corpora mailing list

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION; Programme now available Fourth International Workshop on DICTIONARY WRITING SYSTEMS (DWS06)

Torino, Italy Afternoon (13.30-17.30), Tuesday, 5 September 2006 (pre-EURALEX http://www.euralex2006.unito.it)

A dictionary writing system (DWS) is a piece of software for writing and producing a dictionary. It might include an editor, a database, a web interface and various management tools (for allocating work etc.) It operates with a dictionary grammar, which specifies the structure of the dictionary.

The workshop is relevant for:

dictionary project managers lexical database users and developers lexicographers students of lexicography, lexicology, computational linguistics The workshop follows similar successful events in Brighton, UK in 2002 and 2003, and Brno, the Czech Republic in 2004.

Website: http://nlp.fi.muni.cz/dws06

Adam Kilgarriff http://kilgarriff.co.uk
Lexicography MasterClass http://lexmasterclass.com
Lexical Computing Ltd http://sketchengine.co.uk
University of Sussex 44 (0)12 73 705 773
mailto:[email protected] 44 (0)79 71 867 845

Brett --72.142.116.7 18:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, despite the incredible relevance, the wording of the above notice makes this sound almost like spam. I think it would be a shame if Wiktionary fails to have a representative there. Has this been posted on WiktionaryZ's International Beer Parlour? --Connel MacKenzie 13:22, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


New functionality WiktionaryZ

WiktionaryZ now has the functionality to add new Expressions and DefinedMeanings. This completes the first important part of the software development. We can now add the core data that we need. The next phase will concentrate very much on the versioning of the data; this will bring us proper recent changes and history data. After that we will work on things like rollback of data.. GerardM 15:23, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations! Truly, a wonderful milestone. --Connel MacKenzie 15:25, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arabic roots

At the moment, the =Etymology= section in Arabic entries, if it says anything at all, usually points back to a basic verb form. But this is a bit misleading; Arabic words actually go back to (usually triliteral) root consonants, which simply happen to correspond pretty well, most of the time, to certain verb forms. Consider the page Template:ARchar for example. What is this page? Is the title supposed to represent the root here, or is it supposed to be an actual word? The page lists many words here which do not correspond to the pagename, suggesting it's intended as a root page. But it doesn't exactly say so.

Wouldn't it be better to JUST have the 3 or 4 words on that page which are actually spelt that way, and to include an Etymology section which links the user to a Template:ARchar page (ie written with spaces)? This would have a level-3 ‘Root’ heading which would list all derived words, probably by part of speech. The value of it is that 1) it's a good place to collect all the related Arabic words, and 2) some roots are ‘weak’ and never appear together as a word, eg Template:ARchar is a root meaning ‘call’, but writing it like that together gives the mistaken impression that it's an actual word. A root page could also link to cognate roots in Hebrew etc.

I'd welcome any thoughts on this from Stephen, Dijan, Hippietrail and any other interested contributors and usual suspects. Widsith 16:14, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I've brought this up before too. At that time I wanted to go further. I wanted every article on an Arabic word to go back to the Arabic root, every article on Hebrew to go back to the Hebrew root, and every article on either to go back to the Semitic root. I then wondered if there were some standard way of writing Semitic roots that worked for both Arabic and Hebrew. I also wanted the same for words in European and other langauges which have borrowed Arabic and Hebrew terms and of course I also wanted it for the other Semitic languages. Furthermore I wanted articles on the roots themselves that showed which words came from them in which languages. — Hippietrail 02:22, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New heading "Descendants"

There was a minor discussion somewhere about adding another "valid" heading. The =Descendants= third (or 4th) level heading would be used for identifying derived terms in another language. This sound OK to everyone? --Connel MacKenzie 19:05, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think so far this header has only been used for descendants in a daughter language – i.e. for a Latin word, it would show the relevant forms which have evolved in French, Spanish, Portuguese etc. – not words in English which have borrowed the Latin. I use this header quite a lot in OE entries to show modern English forms. It is best to keep this separate from borrowings and so on. Widsith 19:47, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I've always had problems with these kinds of headings, including Derived terms, Related terms, and See also because the titles of the headings alone do not seem sufficient to communicate to people what they are for and they are so easily and often wrongly used even though they've been standardized for years. This does not mean that I don't want such fields because I do and more. In this case I think we need to have a bit of a think and discussion of what the clearest heading text would be for these cases:
  • Words that have descended to child languages such as Latin→Spanish and Old English→English
  • Words that have been loaned to other (related or not) languages such as Portuguese pão→Japanese パン and Japanese 侍→English samurai
  • Do we need headings for the opposite direction or is the etymology section enough? It's worth thinking about a future Wiktionary API - it would be easy for it to parse list headings but very difficult for it to parse a prose etymology.
  • How common are cases where a word was inherited or borrowed but it's not certain from which exact language? How should we handle them? I know there are such cases where English words came from some romance language and where some Spanish words came from some other romance language.
  • What about words which were inherited from a linguistic stock rather than a specific language? Many English or German words are said to come from "Common Germanic" or such. Would that mean to some extent us using language labels that are not strictly languages?
All in all I'm very much in favour but let's work out the fuzzy cases now. — Hippietrail 21:37, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I was writing my above thoughts an old idea recurred to me: that of adding tooltips to our standard headings to provide more clear information on what they are intended for. There are two ways to achieve this: 1) Turning all headings into templates which include an HTML TITLE and 2) Adding code to the global JavaScript. The first seems to unweildy at this point and many won't want it so I've made a first draft of the second at User:Hippietrail/headingtooltips.js. So far it only handles the level-4 Synonyms as a proof of concept. I shall discuss how to improve it in the Grease pit. — Hippietrail 22:48, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't like the idea of having tooltips pop up all over the place just to explain what a synonym or a related term is. It's quite un-wiki to let JavaScript handle this matter, because any description may be controversial and should therefore remain open to editing by all, not just the happy few who have sysop rights and understand JavaScript (three, four, perhaps five people here?). While I think a lot of last month's JS-related improvements are for the better, I'd like to discourage a continued overcomplication of simple matters such as section headersheadings. A simple page with explanations is much better, open to improvement or change and much more transparent. — Vildricianus 08:18, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Did you read my proposal? You would see that I suggested putting the text of the tooltips in the MediaWiki namespace which means you don't have to know JS to edit them. Have you looked at how to edit all the many standard Wiki tooltips? Every single one of them is in a JS file which cannot be edited by everybody. Are you suggesting we remove these "tooltips popping up all over the place just to explain what edit or history is"? How many people check these kinds of things before inventing statistics to show how evil a proposal is (two, one, perhaps no people here?). Can you tell us off the top of your head what the difference between Derived terms, Related terms, and See also is? If so did you figure it out without reading the documentation? Can you explain why the current system doesn't work? Perhaps you'd like to implement this simple page of explanations which you seem to feel will put an end to the confusion. — Hippietrail 12:16, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry if it sounded like an attack on your proposal, which it wasn't. It was just what I thought, yes, after having read it. Actually, I'd pretty much like to see how it would work, so don't take this as thoughtless criticism. I was pointing out that exactly what these tooltips would explain and clarify are partly still controversial topics. Even in MediaWiki messages, they're still editable only by sysops, so not as accessible as any normal page. But do go ahead and show how they're supposed to work, it might be more of a solution than a complication in the end. — Vildricianus 12:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

common misspellings

I have created a page WT:Common Misspellings. If there are words you find that are commonly misspelled or have sub-standard spellings, please append them here, with the correct / standard spelling alongside. Andrew massyn 20:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Um, the WT: namespace is for shortcuts (only.) I think this should be move to WT:CM and changed to redirect to Wiktionary:List of common misspellings. --Connel MacKenzie 20:55, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting Permission to change the bullets to numbers on the Basic Missing Entries Page

I could easily modify the page to get a more accurate count then 18000 for the page. By pasting the text into word then stricking control f (it should bring up a little window) then hitting the replace tab, you can type in * and in the next line # and hit replace all, it will replace all the * with #. Violla You get a perfect count! I will not proceed until i get permission.

thankyou

— This unsigned comment was added by Xavier1234567 (talk • contribs).

I think that would be much more trouble than it is worth. If you were to edit Wiktionary:Requested articles:English/DictList/A section by section, to do that, you'd still have to have subtotals on all 26 pages. And with every addition or deletion, you'd then want to recalculate those subtotals and totals. --Connel MacKenzie 22:26, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Acknknowledged. Now that you point that out i would have to agree.

Thankyou. Also earlier today, a message popped up that you blocked me. Did you block me? If you did then could you tell me why? If not do you know how that could occur. Please do not take offense from this message, just a question not an acusation.

Xavier 1234567

I did block you, in error. The error was immediately pointed out to me on IRC, so I unblocked you. I am not a bot; I do make errors on occasion. --Connel MacKenzie 06:05, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wohnraummodernisierungssicherungsgesetz and friends

Alright, now here is an interesting question for you, which I thought of while adding German words to various wiktionaries :

In the English wiktionary, we do not permit an entry that is only the 'sum of his parts'. So, for example, an entry for a law for regulating the modernisation of one's living space would not merit an enty, because one could figure it out from the sum of the entries for law regulating the modernisation of one's living space. However, in German, it could be written as one word : Wohnraummodernisierungssicherungsgesetz. I am curious : should words like that be permitted in the wiktionary? It is one word, and it meets the three citation requirment -- but so would, in English, almost any other generic, non-idiomatic phrase. What do we do? Beobach972 02:52, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Or, for further example : in English we should absolutely baulk at considering law for the transference of the tasks of supervision of the marking of bovine animals and the supervision of the labelling of the meat of bovine animals. On the other hand, we have an entry for Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz. And as the German wikipedia points out, if we allow that entry to exist, when do we stop? At Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetzvorlagendiskussion? At Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetzvorlagendiskussionspausenverpflegungsbeauftragter (bovine animal flesh labelling oversight task transference law presentations' discussion break catering representative) ? Beobach972 03:15, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When it comes to foreign words and phrases, I think they should be included if they actually exist so that somebody might want to know about it. This is the English wiktionary, and since our users read English, we don’t have to include things that are the sums of their parts ... but very few native English speakers, even if they’ve had several years of German instruction in college, would be able to make much sense of a word such as Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz. It’s child’s play for a German, but a big mystery to an American. —Stephen 04:21, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikibreak

I need to take a wikibreak, at least from my dishwasing duty of anonymous edit review. During that break, Wiktionary:Low water mark may help coordinate the review of anonymous edits. Rod (A. Smith) 04:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimania awards

The Wikimania Awards honors the best writing and media on the Wikimedia projects from the past year. Please nominate great articles that have been written, or almost entirely rewritten, since last August. Please also let the authors know their work has been nominated... —Celestianpower háblame 23:22, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New feature: tooltips for standard Wiktionary headings

This idea was mentioned briefly above and I now have a stable function installed.

  • This is a step to bringing Wiktionary interface items closer to WikiMedia interface items. All MediaWiki interface items have long had tooltips.
  • Tooltip explanations provide more information that the heading alone can. This should help reduce confusion between such things as Derived terms, Related terms, and See also.
  • Standard headings are explained, others are marked as nonstandard. This will promote discussion of new or rare headings and help standardisation.
  • I've added all the headings I often use but it's certain I've forgotten some. Please add them yourself of discuss them on the Beer parlour.
  • Likewise some of my messages could do with improvement, please feel free to edit them.
  • The tooltip messages are all currently hard-coded in the MediaWiki:Monobook.js file. This seems bad for non-technical editors but perhaps surprisingly, this is the same place where all the standard MediaWiki tooltip messages are. If you want the developers to change this, please track this bug.

Comments and suggestions appreciated. — Hippietrail 01:01, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

While I like the tooltips, they don't stand out very much, and you have to move to the individual header to get the feedback. It might be nice if, in addition to the mouse-over tool tips, we could include a note in the preview-render of the page indicating to the user that they have selected a non-standard. Something like

[red]Your header ===Not Standard=== is not a standard Wiktionary header. Did you mean to use it?[/red]

Also, I recommend adding the "Quotations" header (mentioned in Wiktionary:Quotations) Jeffqyzt 12:42, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vildricianus = Wonderfool?

I find it odd that right around the time Wonderfool said he was leaving (January, 2006), Vildricianus appeared.[2] It was pretty obvious Vildricianus wasn't new when he came here. He got right on IRC and started messing with style sheets. Much of the knowledge he displayed was exclusive to wikis. He also dove right into policy discussions. Of course there's the comment he made on an old version of his talk page in which he seems to admit they're the same people. (He later mysteriously deleted that version.) Wonderfool was known to have created many sockpuppet accounts. Wonderfool was also turned down for a renewal of his adminship, and if Vildricianus is Wonderfool, then perhaps he shouldn't be allowed to be one, either.--Theyrm 03:09, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps. The Babel templates don't seem to match, though. And WF does still show up on IRC, now and then. --Connel MacKenzie 05:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Whether or not Theyrm is barking up the wrong tree is irrelevant: If you go to Wiktionary:Administrators/Former, then under Wonderfool's section, it is stated that "These are users who have been removed for serious breaches of conduct. They cannot be readmitted without convincing at least 90% of the community including at least 9 members that they have been rehabilitated." If you track down the discussion for Vildricianus' nomination [3], which was one the most succesful ever with 14 for votes, and no oppose votes; pretty "convincing" it would seem. Also, it would be quite a laugh if Vildricianus was Wonderfool and became bureaucrat, then on September 15th 2006, to celebrate a year after the main page was deleted by the latter, loads of vandals would be recruited and later promoted to admins, in order to carry out deletion en-masse. There are many "if"s though. Coming to think of it, I've not seen Vildricianus speak Dutch - if Vildric can, then it is unlikely that we can be the same person. On the other hand, it would be pretty impressive to have learnt a language like Dutch for the sole reason of gaining trust of a community in order to destroy it. All else I can see is, stewards be vigilant, and do you really want to promote Vild to 'crat with this accussation over his head? One of the reasons I turned down his 'crat decision is cos I suspected sockpuppetry.......Expect a vehemtel response from Vildricianus (whose English is a bit too good for a foreigner) quite soon. All the best, Wildrick. --Expurgator t(c) 07:15, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No – I'm Wonderfool! And so is my wife! Widsith 07:52, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Shh, sockpuppet. Don't tell them! Most admins on here are Wonderfool actually. (p.s. Therym is not me - seriously, I was sleeping at 3 in the morning. )--WildrickExpurgator t(c) 08:32, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Had you all been a bit more attentive, you would have noticed that the en:wikt community consists of three users: Connel MacKenzie and socks, and SemperBlotto and socks, who fight their US vs. UK spelling POV-wars. As such, you're wrong, since I'm one of Connel's, and Wonderfool is SemperBlotto's. In the middle of that is Stephen G. Brown, which is an account used by a dozen people (how else could he understand all these languages?). Connel I lost the password to the Eclecticology account, though. The tricky question here is then, whose was Primetime? — Vildricianus 08:46, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On a more serious note though, I don't think our language skills match. It's clear I'm not a native speaker of English, nor that my French is any good, and that WF doesn't have any knowledge of Dutch or Russian. It would be impressive, though, to have another 5000 edits added up to my count, which is more or less what Wonderfool/Newnoise have been contributing during my presence. That would bring me to 30,000 edits in 6 months time, which is a bit over the top I guess. But if needs be, a checkusing steward can easily prove that this is but a crappy accusation. I wonder whose sock User:Theyrm is. — Vildricianus 10:07, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. No more of this nonsense. Back to work now guys. --WildrickExpurgator t(c) 10:10, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Order for words as English, Portuguese, Spanish

Words as Danish, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish etc. can be noun (the language or the person(s)) or adjective.
In some articles the adjective comes first, in others the noun precedes the adjective.
Wouldn't it be more consistent if these words were dealt with in the same way? Is there a policy for such cases?

No there's not but there probably should be and I'm pretty sure other dictionaries have such a policy. My hunch is that they are currently added mainly in the sense people think of them. Besides that I will expect two camps to want different things: one will want the most basic or original or common form first; the other will want a certain order of POS's even if that means putting a little-used noun form before a very common verb form. Some discussion is surely needed. — Hippietrail 02:18, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I put these in order of development. If a noun developed from a verb, I put it after the verb. This allows several parts of speech to go under each Etymology section and still ‘mean’ something, without the need for too many explanatory comments (‘the verb derived from the noun, which in turn gave rise to the adjective...’). Widsith 06:53, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Wasn't this discussed at length over a year ago? The conclusion then, was to for the "POS" headings alphabetically. There were many well-reasoned arguments for one way or another, but that was the only consistent method that everyone could live with. --Connel MacKenzie 07:03, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's how I remember it too. Ncik 10:21, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

sockpuppets

Do we have any objection to the use of sockpuppets here? For instance, if a person suddenly stops using one Username and creates another - uses that for a while and then creates yet another. The articles added are (well, mostly) good. SemperBlotto 19:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Then it shouldn't matter who is the article-creator. --Anonymous editors 19:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly, sockpuppets are not tolerated, principally. If Wonderfool continues the way he's doing right now we'll have to take action. Jokes are ok, but have their limits. I've noted dozens of accounts he's created, but have always been tolerant. I may lose my patience, though, as others may. — Vildricianus 19:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And definitely a fair few that haven't been noticed... --Anonymous editors 19:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see what the problem is. What can't he have as many accounts as he likes if he's not using them maliciously? Widsith 19:45, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One editor, one account. That's a long-standing rule that has many good reasons and few arguments against. There have been a couple accounts mistaken for being Wonderfool's, and the other way round. Patrolling RC is already enough of a toil without his tricks. — Vildricianus 19:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Then quit your job! --Anonymous editors 20:00, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
WF, I'm sure you remember how tiresome stuff like this is. You dealt with some of it when you were a sysop. Right now, I continue to block Primetime (and Primetime-like sockpuppets) primarily on the merit of them being sockpuppets (of a mendacious, dishonest prolific copyright violator.) Allowing you an exemption to this rule, only because you say some funny things when you've had too much wine with dinner, actually exposes Wiktionary. I do think your sockpuppet accounts should all be permablocked. I really would appreciate it if you'd cut it out. --Connel MacKenzie 07:24, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Normalization issue: blank line or no blank line

{{see|this|that}}
==English==

===Noun===

{{see|this|that}}

==English==

===Noun===

Left or right? Since I misunderstood this, SeeAlsoBot has followed right. Re-format to left, or keep? 1,500 edits only. — Vildricianus 15:30, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer left, as I think right affects formatting (or did, the last time I checked.) --Connel MacKenzie 15:35, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I found out that if you edit section 0, a blank line gets automatically added, so probably, the right example is the correct format to assume as standard. — Vildricianus 16:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If the difference between these two affects rendering, it should be considered to be a bug in the wiki s/w and reported. A blank line shouldn't change anything. You think? That said, I like the one on the right ... Note that anything floated right in that section, e.g. image, wikipedia link if it is there, should be above the see also line. Robert Ullmann 12:07, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, there is no difference in rendering. — Vildricianus 12:20, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Concerning {{wikipedia}} and its placement.

Option 1

  1. no blank line between template and heading
  2. one blank line between template and heading
{{wikipedia}}
==English==

===Proper noun===
'''Seattle'''

# Seaport and largest city in the State of Washington, USA.

Option 2

==English==
{{wikipedia}}

===Proper noun===
'''Seattle'''

# Seaport and largest city in the State of Washington, USA.

Option 3

==English==

===Proper noun===
{{wikipedia}}
'''Seattle'''

# Seaport and largest city in the State of Washington, USA.

Option 4

Or somewhere else near the bottom of the page, consistent with where Wikipedia places its Wiktionary links. 

==English==

===Proper noun===
'''Seattle'''

# Seaport and largest city in the State of Washington, USA.

{{wikipedia}}

Option 5

Any other ideas?

— Vildricianus 15:57, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer option 1 & 2. Deciding which one of the two depends on how much content there is on a page. If there is more than one line of text in "meaning" area, I usually place it above the language tag. --Dijan 16:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Option 2 is the best. The problem with 1 is that it makes it look like the Wikipedia link applies to all languages on a page. Widsith 08:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with Widsith, option 2 is the only one that makes structural sense. The link to the English Wikipedia only applies to the English language section. See beer for an example. Also, it applies to all parts of speech. Wikipedia disambiguates to articles orthogonally from POS. For a spectacular example, see run. We have 31 definitions for the verb, 22 for the noun. Wikipedia has 17 articles; there is no 1-1 correspondence.
Indeed. And I think it's slightly rude to our readers when a "Wikipedia has an article on" link points to a disambiguation page. For this case I created Template:wikipediapl, which makes it say "Wikipedia has articles on". Related to that is Template:wikipediamul, which lets you link to two specific articles (see poker for an example). —scs 17:44, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And the link doesn't apply to the Old English for rune. Also see leopard which has a nice picture and links to the English and Swedish Wikipedias. (Not that we should have the latter in general.) (I was also going to use Arctic Circle as an example, but Connel reverted it!) Robert Ullmann 11:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Further ideas concerning Template:wikipedia

I'd like to make it a bit less wide. That would perhaps allow it to display better when considering option 3 above. — Vildricianus 16:14, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Option two is horrid. Option 1 or option 3 are the only things we're supposed to use, depending on the number of headings (and therefore whether or not the TOC appears.) If there is a TOC, use 1, if there is no TOC, use 3. The template {{pedialite}} is the only one that is supposed to be used at the bottom of the page, in an ===Further reading===

section. The width matches other Wikimedia sister projects, and allows for moderately silly-long entry titles...I do not recommend changing that width. --Connel MacKenzie 17:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The idea of using this when there are n number of headings and that when there are more isn't very solid. The idea is to move forward, and not re-format things when someone adds a synonym. When there is no TOC, there is barely a visual difference between 1 and 3, the only one being that the underline of ==English== stops at the sisterproject box. — Vildricianus 17:15, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
People have had trouble finding the section [edit] link, in the past. --Connel MacKenzie 18:07, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When there are only two sections it doesn't really pay off to use section editing, does it? — Vildricianus 18:09, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If that is where a newcomer has gottent used to looking for the [edit] link, it certainly makes sense. --Connel MacKenzie 21:44, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Changing now, putting {{wikipedia}} between ==English== and the first heading is known not to work. It causes problems. Continued POV formatting pushing, while ignoring this fact goes directly against exsisting Wiktionary practices. That is why that template has not been "allowed" there, since about the time it was first introduced on Wiktionary. Until a technical method for making the float box fit correctly is devised, this needs to be avoided. Simply putting the template where it belongs (before ==English== or after the first subsequent heading) is certainly the easier fix. --Connel MacKenzie 18:03, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oops -- that's where I tend to put it. What are the problems? I notice glitches some of the time (in which case I move it somewhere else), but certainly not all of the time. (Am I overlooking something?) —scs 17:35, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So what is the problem? In what way is it known not to work? Robert Ullmann 14:09, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Balloon Text

I've noticed that a number of headers have rollover balloon text that reads "This is not a standard Wiktionary heading." I can understand not wanting to try to assign balloon text to every header that gets used, but some of them are quite common—for example, Usage—and one in particular, References, appears in at least one template ({{new_en_noun}}). Others include Expression (used in several places to indicate a part of speech) and other parts of speech such as Verb phrase and Adverbial phrase. How difficult would this sort of thing be to address? --Dajagr 19:02, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

These "hint texts" were added last week. Not all of the common headings have been added yet. I'll add those ones now. The conversation about it all is over in the grease pit. Note that ===Usage=== is incorrect, and is supposed to be replaced by ===Usage notes===. References is perfectly valid. But ===Verb phrase=== and ===Adverbial phrase=== are never considered to be valid here. --Connel MacKenzie 19:38, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually the technical proposal was in the Grease pit, but the announcement is right here in the Beer parlour. Discussing which headings are standard belongs here. Discussing implementation details belongs on the Grease pit. — Hippietrail 08:00, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Usage citation.

Someone has bitched about the way I do usage citations, demanding I adhere to Wiktionary:Quotations. I guess you'll have to block me in perpetuity as I have no intention whatsoever of following the guide, and will revert anyone who tampers with the way I've done it. The emphasis is on the cite, not the author or source, but this seems offensive to some who want the quote's author as the most prominent item.--Allamakee Democrat 20:20, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll quote SemperBlotto: What is the point of having standards if we deliberately ignore them? — Vildricianus 20:27, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't threaten to revert editors and suchlike. This is a communal project, and entries you have worked on are not ‘yours’. If you don't like the citation format you should start a more valuable conversation about how it could be improved. For the record, I don't like it much either – though I prefer it to your system, which is too heavy on the italics. Widsith 08:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I follow a reasonably standard academic format, which means I leave a full cite. Footnotes like mine would be wildly inappropriate at the top. The italics are standard academic format too (and notice, I even do the bit with quotes vs italics on works cited, depending on the work quoted). Putting author, work, and links at the bottom with no highlighting at all, moves the eye to the cite, and not who is being cited (bolding the illustrated word adds to the emphasis). I also defend the limited indenting (which works wonderfully for poetry) as limiting the amount of white space (digression: The latest change in the noun and verb template make it very difficult to tightly display images as it is; insisting on extra white space only further defaces the articles). As for my cites, well, I've learned to disagree with the dictionaries I have at hand; I'm following Doctors Johnson and Murray in this. I care about the appearance of the page as much as I do the content. For the moment, the way I do it, while fussy, and offering infinite opportunities for misplaced or missing apostrophes, reads well. And what would you replace my italicized material with? Bold? Citations have to be clearly distinguished from defs, and like the dictionaries tend to do, I do it with italics. Are we to use html here to fiddle with font size? Sorry for the ranting. --Allamakee Democrat 09:08, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You may or may not be right; the point is we have to reach a consensus here, which cannot be done if you refuse to discuss it and threaten to revert those who disagree with you. Widsith 09:26, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(in a Brooklyn accent): I already apologized already. So shut up already. (I awreddy poligized awready; so shuddup awready) (Reverting to my natural, educated North Midlands US accent), so let us find a consensus, with the already-agreed-upon consensus that the current official form is deprecated.--Allamakee Democrat 13:16, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Having lived in Brookyln only about five or six years, I must say: "whaddahellayatawkin'bout?" A whole two non-conformists (Image:Smiley.gif]]) decide they don't like a format, and the two dozen people who reached a consensus last year on the various formats are therefore to be ignored? I don't think so.
If you wish to propose changes to the quotations format, you'll have to bicker over each minor change separately. I agree with Widsith, that "quotation marks" are to be preferred over italics. Dictionaries each use their own style for formatting entries; the formats run the gammut. There is no reason to limit ourselves artificially to a "term-paper" references format, and there are lots of reasons not to. For instance, can you guarantee a certain font is loaded on every client computer viewing this page? Are italics rendered properly on all OSs, browsers emulators, cellphones and who knows what-all else?
There are lots of reasons to emphasize who said or wrote something, over what was said...particularly when USENET citations are considered "valid." Since the point of including quotations in the first place is not to prescribe, but rather to describe how something is said, the context of who said it becomes much more important. (On a side note, I still think we should have a vote to mass-delete all terms here if they appear only in UrbanDictionary, but no other dictionary.)
Your candid dismissal of the format, which was fought over at length, is perhaps misplaced. --Connel MacKenzie 22:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As for italics, it's more complicated than that. When quoting extensively, giving full context, one also ends up including quotation marks within the cite, and one almost feels compelled to tamper with the internal punctuation (which one has to, sometimes, when double apostrophes are used within the text). My main objection, however, is putting the citation apparatus at the top, which overly calls attention to it. I also intensely dislke the extreme level of indentation, which calls more attention to the fact there is a quotation than to the usage citation itself.

--Allamakee Democrat 19:11, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So, you like it like this, for 9 defs. Just imagine a finished, mature article on put, with full, juicy quotes. This is based on truck):

  1. A small wheel or roller, specifically the wheel of a gun-carriage.
    "Put that cannon up once, and I'll answer for it that no Injin faces it. 'Twill be as good as a dozen sentinels," answered Joel. "As for mountin', I thought of that before I said a syllable about the crittur. There's the new truck-wheels in the court, all ready to hold it, and the carpenters can put the hinder part to the whull, in an hour or two
  2. The ball on top of a flagpole.

The problem, from my point of view, is to make it pretty, while emphasizing the usage, while de-emphasizing the fact its a source but at the same time giving full attribution.

Actually, a full, mature, jucily cited article, on put, with extensive necessary usage notes, will break the wiki software; and I think anyone who looks the word up will agree (such an article would have to be spread over several). O, just the arrangement of put with this software! O just OED turning up at their collective correct noses at such an arrangement!--Allamakee Democrat 05:20, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

POS order

I've been looking for somewhere that states a policy, but haven't found it. Perhaps I am blind? Or clueless? What order do we prefer POS to appear? I would seem to be Adj, Noun (or Proper Noun), Verb. But I can't find this anywhere? (;-) Robert Ullmann 20:35, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Currently under discussion some topics above. — Vildricianus 20:39, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The alphabetic order of POS headings was one of the oldest conventions that actually gained consensus here on en.wikt:. The Webster's 1913 import effort was receiving much more attention then; but it certainly is a less problematic convention than any alternative proposed so far. --Connel MacKenzie 22:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Webster's Online Dictionary - The Rosetta Edition

This is referenced from a number of language name pages, is a number of translation dictionaries. I noted Hippietrail deleted one or two of these as "Rosetta spam"; tried to follow that lead and had my edits silently elided by Stephen G. Brown. It certainly looks spammy. Note:

  • the links were introduced by an anonymous IP on 3-5 April 2004
  • they look spammy " -- The Rosetta Edition"
  • "Webster's" is not a trademark any more, it has been cancelled by the USPTO for common use (IIRC)
  • the pages seem to be the work of one individual, "Phillip M. Parker", who claims copyright 2006
  • he claims association with INSEAD
  • the Terms of Use claim copyright on any sites pointing to this URL address. He does supposedly exempt "Wikipedia", but any competent text would exempt the Wikimedia Foundation.

All in all, looks to me like pure commercial spam. Even though perhaps useful. But I'm not at all sure he has any rights to what he is publishing! IMHO we don't want to be associated with this?

This looks bad news to me. Can we toss these? If not, I would like to create a template to replace them ASAP so that we can blank it if we decide to? Robert Ullmann 21:11, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In general, blankings are simply reverted, quickly. If you blank it and add {{rfd}}/nominate it on RFD with an explanation, it is more likely to actually be cleaned up. I agree that this smells like spam. --Connel MacKenzie 22:13, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's why I'm thinking of converting it to a template; if we decide to keep it, that is a good idea anyway (and we can do away with the spammy feel ...). If we decide to toss it, we can then change the template to blank. Unless you think we ought to just decide whether to toss it now. The standard RfD process is a little difficult, this is on a hundred pages. Robert Ullmann 22:21, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh. Are you proposing complete blanking, or section removal? Also, could you please provide a couple examples? I know I've seen these, but can't find any at the moment. --Connel MacKenzie 06:52, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I shouldn't have used the word "blank". (Scary ...) What I am proposing is to create a template {{websters-online}} that generates the present text, and substitute it. Then we can change it to be less spammy, or to generate nothing if we decide to. It won't result in an empty external links section because I'll add the ethnologue template to the pages at the same time. Examples are (at random) Irish, Magyar, and Xhosa. Robert Ullmann 11:58, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:websters-online

(Note that the space in "Beer parlour" messes up the URL syntax, I'll have to see what happens on language names with two words, if any.) Robert Ullmann 11:58, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Made less spammy. Also means I can find un-templated pages by searching on "Rosetta". Robert Ullmann 20:12, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ethnologue template

I've noted a number of pages with External links to the Ethnologue. Also a number of pages for new (to us) language names in English. Noting that we've established the standard that language headers are appropriate if and only if the language has an IS 639/3 code, and that (IMHO) each such language name ought to have its own entry ...

I've created a new template to generate a line in the External links section:

{{ethnologue|lang=Language Name|code=abc}} (lang defaults to PAGENAME)

That generates:

Ethnologue entry for Beer parlour/2006/July, abc  ⁠

This has the advantage of documenting the 639 code for each language. (I'm using code= as the parameter, will make lang= substitute a language name for PAGENAME when I trip over a page that needs it. Unless someone else cares to.)

I'm very interested in the new language names we have added, see Nyiha, Nyamwezi etc. particularily from my part of the world. Robert Ullmann 21:09, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I added a lang= parameter, defaults to PAGENAME. See Ojibwe. Robert Ullmann 14:34, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bot flag for Minnan-ascii-bot

Discussion moved to Wiktionary:Votes/bt-2006-07/Bot flag for Minnan-ascii-bot.

Feedback on format standards for Chinese entries

In the entry for 懷抱, Hippietrail added the {{rfc}} tag with the following explanation: "no headword/inflection lines, traditional should always be before simplified." I believe by headword/inflection lines, he means:

===Noun===
'''word'''

Evidently, we have a loose standard (ignored by many) to put the headword after the part of speech. There are several reasons why I don't like this, especially for Chinese:

  1. redundant: The word is already in large font and bold at the top of the page. Adding it below the part of speech adds unnecessary clutter to the page. This is especially compounded when multiple parts of speech are included.
  2. Not helpful for entries that include complex Chinese characters: Take for example:

===Noun===
'''保鑣'''
# bodyguard

I don't know about your computer monitor, but even when my browser's text size is set to largest, it is not that easy to make out the individual strokes in 鑣. This is one reason I created the zh-forms and zh-hanzi templates. Template:Hani-forms

This brings me to Hippietrail's second comment, which is that Traditional Chinese should always come first in an entry. This seems a rather odd "standard" to me. Here is my reasoning for putting Simplified Chinese first in the template:

  1. The word "Simplified" comes before "Traditional" in the alphabet, so it reduces the possibility that we are seen as showing preference for one writing system over the other (this is why I have never liked the "Alternative spellings" section, the implication is that the spelling is alternative to the "standard" or "correct" spelling, which is bound to raise hackles in someone's feathers).
  2. Based on the pattern of new Chinese entries by anonymous users to Wiktionary, I surmise that Simplified Chinese is the more popular of the two, all the more reason to put it at the top.

I try to not be too rigid about format standards, because that is in keeping with Wikipedia's Wikipedia:Ignore all rules philosophy. However, it would be good to have some kind of consensus as we move forward. I'm curious about what everyone thinks. A-cai 22:10, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • we have a loose standard (ignored by many): Yes this is sadly true but the majority of us here want to tighten the standard. There are several efforts underway to standardize articles, to make use use of standardized articles, and to find ways where different people can see different display formats using one standard article formats.
  • headword after the part of speech. There are several reasons why I don't like this: This is done because in more than a couple of languages the headword can look slightly different for some parts of speech but still match the article title, plus the same line as the headword carries information on the part of speech such such as gender, countability, transitivity.
  • I don't like this, especially for Chinese: Part of standardization is to find one format which works for all languages. We do not want one format per language.
  • redundant: The word is already in large font and bold at the top of the page: The headword may not exactly match the article title in languages including Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, Old English, Turkish, etc.
  • it is not that easy to make out the individual strokes in 鑣: This is a genuine concern and it has been discussed before. I'm working on a long-term solution but I think not using bold for certain scripts or certain characters would be acceptable in the short term. It may even be worth a new Beer parlour discussion.
  • Traditional Chinese should always come first: This has been discussed and agreed upon. It has also been our defacto standard for a couple of years. The major reason is that Simplified Chinese is ambiguous. There are a subset of simplified characters which match two or even three traditional characters. Putting the least ambigous first is best practice. If both types were not still in use I would put the used one first as in the case with Japanese where non-simplified characters are less prominent in articles.
  • I have never liked the "Alternative spellings" section, the implication is that the spelling is alternative to the "standard" or "correct" spelling: This is also a bone of contention with me. In my opinion the best titles for this section are either Other spellings or simply Spellings. Hopefully changing this will be looked at soon.
    IMO, the answer is to list all the spellings, including the one in the headword in alphabetical order. Either Alternative spellings is probably then a better subheading, but Spellings would do. --Enginear 16:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Based on the pattern of new Chinese entries by anonymous users to Wiktionary, I surmise that Simplified Chinese is the more popular: Wiktionary is not a popularity contest. American English speakers are more common in the world which worries non-American Wiktionary users, but non-American English speakers contribute more to Wiktionary at this time, which worries American users. This is why we try to make decisions based on other criteria.
  • It would be good to have some kind of consensus as we move forward: I agree 100%. Standards are good and bad. We are more rigid than Wikipedia but more flexible than WiktionaryZ. Radical new article formats are generally not a good idea unless discussed and agreed upon here first. I'm open to ideas but there are things to keep in mind for the best future functionality.
— Hippietrail 12:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Traditional Chinese should always come first: I am aware of this policy, and I abide by it in cases where you have a word in two diferent scripts but no labels (ex. 中國, 中国). However, in this case, it doesn't seem that important which one is on top since the template tells you which one is simplified and which one is traditional.
I almost despise debating this stuff though, because we shouldn't be. What we should be debating is how do we separate out presentation, data, and business logic? I should be able to give Wiktionary all the discrete pieces of data that it needs, and then choose how I want that data displayed via my preferences settings (granted, there would be a default look and feel). Maybe Hippietrail wants to see the Etymology section at the bottom, but I want it at the top. One user may prefer to see hiragana only, but another user may prefer to see romaji only. Still another user may want to see both. I see endless debates on Wiktionary about style formatting. The look and feel should be set by the user in preferences!!! It should not be dictated to everyone in a policy that nobody agrees upon, and is impossible to enforce.
One final thought, every time one of us gets bogged down in one of these style debates, words don't get entered into Wiktionary. I could have entered five or ten new words into Wiktionary in the same amount of time that it took me to write this. Of course, I wouldn't have been sure if the format was acceptable ...

A-cai 13:46, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As long as entries are entered in a uniform data format, the user preferences stuff (e.g. the demo at User:Connel MacKenzie/Preferences / User:Connel MacKenzie/custom.js) can be applied. But the more divergent the data layout, the more impossible it is to make these things be user preferences. The longer the user preferences stuff is tripped up by non-standard formats, the longer it is before actual "input screens" are devised to make entering entries 1) easier 2) consistent. The debates about which should be the "default" style will never go away; from month to month and year to year, the different styles need different focus. When we have a WT:VOTE page set up, we can debate the default font-sizes and background colors till the cows come home. --Connel MacKenzie 07:33, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I understand the need for standards. But I think that it is unrealistic to force a monolithic standard on all languages. Language is NOT like mathematics. There are no universal rules. There are predominant patterns which differ from region to region. I have to say that I wonder who came up with the "standard" for the Chinese languages. I know I wasn't involved in the decision making process (until recently). I also know that any of the fluent Chinese speakers that may have been involved with such a standardization process are no longer regular contributors. In fact, there are so few regular contributors to Asian languages, that I rarely am pressed for time to review each new entry created by other users. What I would like is to be able to debate this stuff with a lot of people who actually SPEAK Mandarin or Min Nan! But how to attract more contributors? As someone who regularly uses foreign language reference materials, I can tell you that there are two things that I look for:
  1. easy to find the words that I am interested in
  2. a good explanation about what a word means and how it should be used

It's great that we're debating about format, but what would you rather have: 100 perfectly formatted entries or 1000s of semi-standardized entries that provide the reader with detailed and reliable information! I want entries with some meat on their bones like this one or this one. I can find this in about a half dozen other on-line dictionaries[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. A-cai 11:49, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that simplified should come first, because it is becoming more common - young people in China are learning this form and ignoring traditional, not even bothering to learn the characters. Same with Westerners - why bother learning a version that the people you're doing business with don't use? I'd as soon slap an "archaic" tag on the traditional forms. bd2412 T 20:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
 
Replica of ancient Chinese script on an oracle turtle shell
bd2412, I understand your sentiment, but I wouldn't recommend labeling traditional as "archaic." This implies that they are no longer used at all. Traditional characters are still used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea. I think we should reserve "archaic" for written or spoken forms that are no longer in active use. An obvious example:

A-cai 21:58, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps I was edging a bit into hyperbole there, but the single largest Chinese-speaking population has effectively abandoned the traditional forms. So, not archaic, true, but certainly the less popular usage! bd2412 T 02:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A standard exists for traditional vs. simplified Chinese when written horizontally because it is not annotated, so consistency is important. The boxes are clearly labeled and no standard is yet necessary. After all, we don't even know if we're going to keep the boxes. They seem like a good solution for the time being, and we can wait for other developments before trying to implement a consistent pattern. DAVilla 04:56, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

idea: what's that word

What would be the opinion on creating a new page called something like what's that word where people could list questions of the form "I know there's a word that means blah-blah-blah, but I can't remember it" and we'd try to figure out what word they are looking for? It's sort of like the reference desk at Wikipedia. RJFJR 00:45, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's a great idea! (Not sure where we'd put it, though.) One of those came up for me just the other day: a friend needed a word for that urgent, pressing feeling you get when your bladder is full and you, you know, have to make a trip to the loo. Another friend found an (unfortunately rather archaic) word in the OED meaning exactly that, and you can find it by looking at my contributions (just before this one). —scs 14:14, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It really is a good idea. I would put it somewhere to match Wiktionary:Requested articles:Unknown language — Hippietrail 16:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like a job for the Tea Room to me. In fact such questions appear there quite often. Widsith 08:46, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't that the essence of what WT:ID is for? --Connel MacKenzie 07:13, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Min Nan

There is no reason why a word in Min Nan should have a "Chinese" language header, and then a non-standard sub-header saying "Min Nan": Min Nan is an ISO 639-3 coded language (nan), and "Min Nan" (or "Chinese Min Nan") can be used here as the language header.

A Yao, A Cai: the Wiktionary software already does what you want it to do: as long as the sû-tián page has "su5-tian2" on it in whatever format you choose -- like after the POJ reference on the "inflection" line -- the software indexing will do exactly what you are asking for. You can type "su5-tian2" in the search box and it list the page(s). (Putting it in a funky category tag won't help. Just put it on the page in some standard place.)

Note that the index is not updated (rebuilt) in real time! You have to wait a day or so! (does anyone know how long this is?)

The en.Wiktionary.org indexes and special pages are updated twice a week (when the stars are aligned properly, Jupiter is rising, Venus is falling, and the wind is from the East.) The refresh starts approximately at midnight UTC on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. --Connel MacKenzie 06:30, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Go to the search box and type in "qiang1", hit either Go or search and see that it lists all the relevant entries.

This will work in the Min Nan wiktionary too; you don't need the redirects there either. Robert Ullmann 20:06, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad you brought this up because I've been meaning to raise this issue again. I originally tagged my entries as ==Mandarin==, ==Min Nan== etc. The complaint that I heard was that some believe that dialects are not legitimate languages and therefore should not have level two headings. That line of argument is politically influenced, and does not serve Wiktionary's interests. If one method of speech is not mutually decipherable from another method of speech, it should definitely receive a level two header tag. As has been previously acknowledged, Chinese actually refers to a family of languages, not a specific language. The main glue that has held the Chinese family of languages together is the shared use of Chinese characters. I would therefore like to disabuse readers of the notion that the Chinese writing system is monolithic across the Chinese dialects. Example (From the Min Nan Wikipedia's main page):
  • English translation: Do you know how many people in the world speak Min Nan, and exactly where Min Nan is spoken?
    汝敢知影全世界講閩南語的儂攏總有偌儕,到底攏啥物所在的儂咧講閩南語咧？ (Min Nan in traditional)
    汝敢知影全世界讲闽南语的侬拢总有偌侪,到底拢啥物所在的侬咧讲闽南语咧？ (Min Nan in simplified)
    你豈知道全世界講閩南語的人一共有多少,到底都什麼地方的人在講閩南語了？ (Mandarin in traditional)
    你岂知道全世界讲闽南语的人一共有多少,到底都什么地方的人在讲闽南语了？ (Mandarin in simplified)

Let's look at them side by side in Romanized form:

POJ Lí kám chai-iáⁿ chôan-sè-kài kóng Bân-lâm-gú ê lâng lóng-chóng ū lōa-chē ,
Pinyin Nǐ qǐ zhīdào quánshìjiè jiǎng Mǐnnányǔ de rén yīgòng yǒu duōshǎo ,
POJ tàu-té lóng siáⁿ-mi̍h só•-chāi ê lâng tī kóng Bân-lâm-gú leh?
Pinyin dàodǐ dōu shénme dìfāng de rén zài jiǎng Mǐnnányǔ le?

Here's an IPA comparison of the two: {{{1}}}

Min Nan li˥˥ kam˥˥ tsai˧˧iã˥˧ tsuan˧˥se˥˧kai˨˩ kʊŋ˥˧ ban˧˧lam˧˧gu˥˧ e˧˥ laŋ˧˥ lʊŋ˥˥tsʊŋ˥˧ u˧˧ lua˨˩tse˧˧ ,
Mandarin ni˨˩˦ tɕʰi˨˩˦ tʂʐ˥˥tau˥˩ tɕʰyɛn˧˥ʂʐ˥˩tɕiɛ˥˩ tɕiaŋ˨˩ min˨˩nan˧˥y˨˩ tɜ ɻən˧˥ i˧˥kʊŋ˥˩ iou˨˩ tuɤ˥˥ʂau˨˩ ,
Min Nan tau˥˧te˥˧ lʊŋ˥˥ siã˥˥miʔ˥˥ sɔ˥˥tsai˧˧ e˧˥ laŋ˧˥ ti˧˧ kʊŋ˥˧ ban˧˧lam˧˧gu˥˧ leʔ˩˩
Mandarin tau˥˩ti˨˩ tou˥˥ ʂən˧˥mɜ ti˥˩faŋ˥˥ tɜ ɻən˧˥ tsai˥˩ tɕiaŋ˨˩ min˨˩nan˧˥y˨˩ lɜ

I hope that the above example demonstrates how far apart Min Nan and Mandarin are in both their written and spoken forms. If there are no objections, I would like to change the entries per your suggestion. How about the following: ==Chinese Mandarin== (ISO-639/3: cmn), ==Min Nan== (ISO-639/3: nan), and ==Cantonese== (ISO-639/3: yue). A-cai 21:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The policy (which I don't seem to find right now, it is 2 AM in Nairobi ...) is that languages with 639-3 codes can be used as level 2 headers. IMHO, we should use "Mandarin", "Min Nan", and "Cantonese". (The "official" names in 639 are "Mandarin Chinese", "Min Nan Chinese", and "Yue Chinese"). We usually use the common English name of the language; each should have its own entry as an English word, as they do: Mandarin, Min Nan, Cantonese. This is consistant with other languages in language groups. Robert Ullmann 22:29, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine with me. I will give it a day or so, to allow for other people to chime in. If after a reasonable amount of time, no one has raised objections, I will begin to make the changes.

A-cai 22:49, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We've had the NanshuBot garbage for a couple years now; this discussion should have two weeks before you get moving, I think. I hope to comment again in a day or two, when I've read all of the above and comprehended it better. But what you propose seems (offhand) to be a very fundamental change from how we have been working so far. --Connel MacKenzie 06:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(to A Cai) yes, wait a bit more. Connel, I'm not talking about the bot stuff, that's why I started a new section. I'm only saying that Mandarin, Min Nan, Cantonese (and 11 other languages IIRC) are 639-3 languages, and should use their own level 2 headers. And their own wiktionaries: zh-min-nan.wiktionary.org should be moved presently to nan.wiktionary.org where it belongs. Robert Ullmann 11:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(I shall point out, to forstall an obvious worry:) Moving zh-min-nan to nan will not break any links! When it is done, the wizards will create a CNAME RR in the DNS so that all the existing links will continue to work fine. You won't even notice unless you look at the status bar. Robert Ullmann 12:00, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To Mr. Ullmann and Mr. Mackenzie, the main purpose of Minnan-ascii-bot is to create redirect pages (ASCII POJ) to make Min Nan searching faster. Please see below:
  • Using Minnanascii-bot's redirect pages-Just type lang5 in the [search box] then you'll be going to the entry of lâng. Even I use this Unicode input system.
  • Using an Index-It's more complicated. What? Is your idea entering lang5 then the search button will give you what you're looking for? If yes, maybe there will be more difficulty in Searching Wiktionary.
To give you more information, ASCII POJ redirects are proposed in the Min Nan Wiktionary since January this year. It really works great in Min Nan Wiktionary. Please refer with Hiòng-êng's comments. A yao 08:48, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(This is not the topic of this section, see above.) We are NOT going to have index redirects in the main namespace. The purpose -- the only purpose -- of a redirect is to connect variant forms of the same word, usually (I think) because of a page move to correct capitalization. It isn't an indexing method, and it doesn't matter how slick the trick is. Robert Ullmann 11:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To avoid the political issues I would suggest avoiding any distinction between "language" and "dialect", which is not defined linguistically anyways. I don't remember comments from the last time this was brought up, but I don't see any reason to list any of these under indentation in the ====Translations==== section either. Consider them languages or dialects or what you will, but just list them all equally. The system of organization is alphabetical, not by language family, or otherwise :*English and :*Dutch would be listed under :Germanic etc. DAVilla 04:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

pronunciation keys

I'm trying to come up with some grand unifying theories on pronunciation, and tonight I went to compare the vowels in our pronunciation key Wiktionary:English pronunciation key with Wikipedia's at w:IPA chart for English. They mostly line up, but not quite: we've got two extra dipthongs /ɔə/ (gloss more) and /uə/ (gloss cruel) which don't seem to match anything in Wikipedia's key, and on the other hand we don't seem to have anything corresponding to their /ju/ (gloss pupil). Am I missing something (or are the keys missing something :-) )?

I notice that we don't even use this /ɔə/ thingie at more; there the (UK) pronunciation is /mɔː/, which is more what I would expect. (/ɔː/ corresponds to the Wikipedia vowel with glosses law and caught, which seems odd to me, but that old cot/caught distinction will get you -- er, at least it gets me -- every time.)

—scs 03:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Related question (prompted by another pronunciation key I was perusing): do we have, or should we have, a line in the pronunciation key explicitly listing a dipthong for the glide in fire, ire, sire, tire, and wire? (I see that Paul has invented the notation /aɪə(r)/ for these, as seen at Rhymes:English:-aɪə(r).) —scs 03:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
/ɔə/ in the sense of a dipthong is basically the result of removing the /ɹ/ from the dipthong /ɔɹ/; however, I'm pretty sure it is never actually used as a dipthong on its on. As for /uə/, it's not actually be considered a dipthong. Foxjwill 03:57, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The OED (second edition) distinguishes /ɔə/ and /ɔː/ as Foxjwill points out, using the former for non-rhotic pronunciation of "or", making "flaw" and "floor" non-homophonic in non-rhotic accents as well as rhotic ones, but the distinction is not common among UK speakers. The latter is used in most other UK dictionaries that use IPA.
So /ɔə/ should probably be listed as an alternative for /ɔː/ used by some speakers with non-rhotic accents in words containing an "r" in the appropriate position.
/aɪə/ (as in "Maya") is a triphthong, not a diphthong (three sounds are combined). When followed by an "r" (as in "fire"), this is /aɪər/ in some UK rhotic accents, but typically /aɪr/ in US pronunciation and other UK rhotic accents (compare "īr" used in what we term AHD).
So I think we need to include all three of these: /aɪə/, /aɪər/, /aɪr/, carefully indicating where and when these are used. — Paul G 10:14, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The parentheses should be reserved for other uses, IMO. First of all regional labels are more useful than assuming the user knows what it means. The meaning of parenthesis is generally "optional" so they could be used for drop sounds or liasons. I've asked before but I don't know what the standard format is for these. DAVilla 04:37, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

brang and brung

Do we need to overhaul/refine our WT:CFI? This is beyond absurd. --Connel MacKenzie 08:29, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean that the number of "incorrect" forms has "growed like Topsy"? I suspect that brung is citable, if only from the common UK educated jocular "I've bin brung up real good", etc. Perhaps not brang though I vaguely recall they're both dialectal somewhere in UK. --Enginear 19:43, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
brang and brung are backformed as strong verbs by analogy, on regular strong forms such as sing/sang/sung. They occur in casual speech, but never in formal writing. Compare snuck instead of sneaked and dove instead of dived for examples of this phenomenon which seem to have attained full status, for even formal English. --Allamakee Democrat 20:14, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As a descriptive dictionary we need to include common nonstandard forms too and mark them accordingly. I would be shocked if the OED does not include brang and brung. They are both common enough in uneducated speech in Australia too. They are slightly different to snuck because the latter has been ocurring even in relatively formal writing for some time, accompanied by a lively debate from language mavens. I would expect every sizeable dictionary of English to include snuck. — Hippietrail 04:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(Back after a long break, and excited to find that my local library now allows electronic OED access from home) I find OED says (in etymology of bring) "OE. had also a rare strong pa. pple. brungen (mod. dial. brung), to which later dialects have added a strong pa. tense, so as to conjugate, bring, brang, brung." If I ever find out where those dialects are used, I'll note it in our entry. --Enginear 17:53, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We already have thunk (as in "Who'd've thunk it?"). Just to echo what Hippietrail says: yes, we must include these terms if they exist, as we are descriptive rather than prescriptive, provided they are labelled appropriately as non-standard, dialect, etc. (Note that while these labels might appear prescriptive, but are actually descriptive of the way the terms are used.) "Snuck", "dove" and "shined" are all current in the US and I would expect to find them in any good dictionary. — Paul G 09:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As an aside, do we want to deal with the use of past participles as past tenses? It is common to hear people in some parts of London say "I done it" for "I did it". This is considered to be uneducated speech. I think we probably don't want to include this, not because it is non-standard, but because it could be said of every verb that has distinct past tenses and past participles, even though these are limited in number.

However US English does use the past tense "got" irregularly as an infinitive: "Did you got it?" (where UK English requires "Have you got it?" or "Did you get it?"), "Have you got any money?" - "Yes, I do" (where UK English requires "Yes, I have"); and as a present tense: "I got you babe" (where "I've got you babe" would be the grammatically correct form). These differences should certainly be included under got, appropriately labelled as US/slang/non-standard or whatever if they aren't already.

Others' thoughts? — Paul G 09:55, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could it really be said of every verb? "I written the test"? I say do it separately for every verb. DAVilla 04:21, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mandarin: more ISO-639 issues

I have one more issue that I would like to raise with respect to Mandarin. Currently, all Mandarin words are placed in a zh category according to the following (semi-standardized) scheme: [[Category:zh:___]] (Mandarin Pinyin), [[Category:zh-cn:___]] (Simplified Chinese), and [[Category:zh-tw:___]] (Traditional Chinese). The reason that I chose to use these ISO-639/1 codes is that they are the most well known (at least among the 15 people in the world who care about this stuff). I am wondering whether this is acceptable or should the cmn code be used instead? It is less well known, but it is specifically reserved for Mandarin.
Secondly, the ISO-639/ISO 3166 codes accurately describe languages and the regions in which they are spoken. However, I cannot find any standard for how to document that something is a Romanization. For example, it is common practice to use cn (China) for Simplified Chinese, and tw (Taiwan) or hk (Hong Kong) for Traditional Chinese. What code would I use for Pinyin? It would be nice if cmn-pinyin, yue-jyutping and nan-poj were legitimate codes but I don't think that they are. My dilemma is that without a more precise code for Romanization, I fall back to the language code without the Country code. This only leaves one choice for a Romanization (I have opted for the most common Romanization in each case, ex. Category:zh:Phrasebook uses Pinyin). I am not completely happy with what I have come up with so far, but I am not sure how to fix it.

Any opinions about either of the above would be appreciated. A-cai 13:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The combination of IS 639-1 and IS 3166 codes was a very bad temporary hack, because there was nothing better. It is NOT accurate. I'd suggest you look at 笑顔. (I'm intentionally picking a CJK script example outside of the Chinese language group.) This is a perfect example of how an entry for Min Nan or Mandarin or Cantonese etc. should be made in the English Wiktionary. It has the language, the part of speech, the "inflection" line with hirigana and a romanization, and then the simple definition in English. Period. You don't use a "code" for pinyin. You show the Pinyin or whatever (if desired) on that line, for a word in an IS 639-3 language, entered with a headword (the page title) in a script used by that language. There is no need for script codes anywhere, the categories should (and will) refer to the headwords, e.g. 笑顔. The category for a word in Mandarin should be zh or (preferably) cmn.
If I sound a bit exasperated, I've been working on IS 10646 and related things for two decades now ;-) Languages are not scripts. Languages are written in scripts. (deep sigh, thinking of what it took to do Han [CJK] Unification ...) Robert Ullmann 15:12, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at sû-tián, I've edited it to serve as an example. (so it would be nice to leave it that way for a little while; we can always fix it later ;-). If you wait a few days, su5-tian2 will show up in the search index just as you want. I'm not going to mess with 辭典 now, but you can see how it could have an entry for each of Mandarin, Min Nan, and Cantonese; and then it has room for the other languages in the Chinese group; just as it does for Japanese? Robert Ullmann 15:29, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I decided (after a few hours of cogitation) to modify 辭典 as well; please go look at it. As with sû-tián, we can always change this to whatever we agree on. (BTW, Min Nan has 40 million native speakers in at least half a dozen countries, I think there are more than 15 people who care!) Robert Ullmann 21:31, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You should also look (IHMO) at a new entry 賛美 (さんびする) (sing praises) and consider whether the zh-forms should be generalized to han-forms and include (if applicable!) the Kanji and Korean Han Ideographic forms. (We will stay away from Hangul for the present time, eh?) Robert Ullmann 21:51, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with everything that you have done to 辭典 and sû-tián with the exception of one thing. 辭典 should be described as zh-tw (and 辞典 as zh-cn), and not just plain zh. This is NOT something that I just made up (in English, we have en-us, en-uk "color/colour" etc). It may very well be a bad hack, but it has been done this way for quite a long time now, so it's not so temporary. If you go to language options in preferences, you will find it there. In html, if I want to set the language code to use a Traditional Chinese font, you would do something like <font lang="zh-tw"> (ex. 晚/晩). The reason for this is that very few native speakers mix and match Simplified with Traditional scripts. If you lump everything into zh, we get Pinyin, Traditional and Simplified all dumped into the same category. I must emphasize that this is not the best approach. For one thing, when you go to put in a table of contents (once you get more than a few thousand words in a category), what do you use? For example, with Simplified Chinese, it makes sense to have a table of contents according to Pinyin order but not for Traditional Chinese. A person who regularly writes in Traditional Chinese is much less likely to know Pinyin. This is why words that use "zh-tw" have a table of contents based on radical/stroke order. I have no problem with using zh or nan for the Romanization, such as what you have done for sû-tián, but POJ is not the only game in town for Min Nan, and Pinyin is only the most common Romanization for Mandarin. There are others still in use (such as Wade-Giles). Do we really want people mixing various Romanizations, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese all in the same category?

A-cai 22:36, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, the "15 people in the world" remark was my attempt at humor (apparently it failed). There are indeed 40 Min Nan speakers and millions of Mandarin speakers. I meant that out of all of those people, not that many seem to care about what we're talking about. OK, Chinese speakers of the world: prove me wrong! Post something to this Beer Parlor debate so that I know that despite the fact that I have been almost single-handedly building the Mandarin and Min Nan pages over the last six months, that I am not alone. Come on now, don't embarrass me :)

A-cai 23:03, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently my response was also insufficiently-marked humor ... ;-) I don't know what should be done with the Categories; it just looks bad to me that Traditional and Simplified forms are tagged with -tw and -cn. That the PRC bans Traditional while Taiwan bans Simplified (in official publications) just seems to me like a morass we should stay as far away from as possible. Just some neutral tags maybe? I don't have any opinion myself on how things are categorized; I think I should leave that to you (and the other Gang of Four(teen) ...) (NOTE: very well marked humor here!) We can move along to pre- and post- 1947 Kanji? Robert Ullmann 19:13, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I like the zh-forms, but I do have some issues here when used on a Min Nan entry, for example lâng. There are Min Nan words which corresponds to a set of han characters. If the zh-forms is put after the ==Min Nan==, then how do we distinguish another Chinese character for lâng?
Can we just put it after either the part of speech or after the headword... but with the form on the left and not on the right. The from does not look that right for me when used in the right under the part of speech. Maybe it's just me. Or else, is there any other way to fix this?
-- Hiòng-êng 08:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We may need to create more templates for different situations. Min Nan has a more difficult time with this because the Chinese characters used to write Min Nan are less standardized than Mandarin. I will have to think some more about this. I like having the various written forms in a template at the top, but if you put too many characters in the template, it might start to look ugly.

A-cai 09:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hiòng-êng, look at lâng now. Do you like this any better or is it still not quite what you were thinking.

A-cai 12:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Urk! please don't use an explicit font size. This shows up about 2.5 cm high on my screen! Looks horrible! Why are you trying to fix this? Just go into your browser and set the font size to something you like, and let other users do that too. I have Traditional Chinese set to display in MingLiU, 16 point. If I want it bigger, I can change it, but not if the page over-rides my browser settings. Robert Ullmann 19:13, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, look at lâng now. Hiòng-êng, what do you think? Is this ok?

A-cai 21:34, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Robert Ullmann, what web browser are you using? I am using Internet Explorer and am unable to set Asian font sizes separately from western fonts. If I want to see large Chinese characters (View menu, Text Size), I have to live with large English letters. Is there a way to set these separately?

A-cai 21:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm using Firefox. IE is very limiting. Robert Ullmann 08:48, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What I have in mind is something like ...
==Min Nan==
===Noun===
'''{{PAGENAME}}''' (lang5) [[Chinese]]:[[人]] [[Archaic]]:<font size=4>[[聾]]</font>/<font size=4>[[聋]]</font>
# [[person]], [[man]]
: Bí-kok chiâⁿ-pah-bān lâng sī-ūi khòng-gī gī-lūn tiong ê sin î-bîn-hoat.[1] (POJ)
: 美國成百萬人示威抗議議論中的新移民法。 (Traditional Chinese)
: 美国成百万人示威抗议议论中的新移民法。 (Simplified Chinese)
: In the U.S., millions of people demonstrate; they are protesting a new immigration law that is being discussed. 
===Noun===
'''{{PAGENAME}}''' (lang5) [[Traditional]]:[[聾]] [[Simplified]]:<font size=4>[[聋]]</font>
#[[deaf]]; [[hard of hearing]]
====Derived Terms====
* [[chhàu-hīⁿ-lâng]] ([[臭耳聾]], [[臭耳聋]])
Where the headword line will be a template to accomodate the various combo of possible entry either Traditional or Chinese(both t & s) archaic if any. Is this format permitted?
Hiòng-êng 00:29, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
yes, something like this is very consistant with the Wiktionary style for other languages. The "inflection" lines (the ones that start with the headword) should be templated on this; I've been working on it for a day or two. Then the template can control the presentation, and users can set things in their own .css to modify it. The templates can also do the categorizaiton as desired. More in a couple of hours... Isn't the second definition an adjective? Robert Ullmann 08:48, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Look at lâng now. Is this better? I'm wondering if maybe we don't need the simplified and traditional labels. Thanks for pointing that out about the the second definition. Yes, it should be labelled as an adjective. lâng in the second sense is rarely used as a stand alone word. It is a morpheme that usually is part of another word such as chhàu-hīⁿ-lâng. I'm not sure how to make that clear in the entry. Should I make a ===Notes=== section and state that or is there a standard label for such things. Another option is to use the ===Suffix=== header with the headword being -lâng as follows:

===Suffix===
-lâng (lang5) hanzi: 聾/聋

  1. deaf
    chhàu-hīⁿ-lâng, 臭耳聾/臭耳聋, deaf

A-cai 09:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

we are getting there ... I've templated the entry (keeping the second sense as Adjective for now). The templates are very simple for now, but we can then tweak them as we please, while we can go on entering words without worrying about this at the same time. The entry lâng now looks very consistant with the Wiktionary style. I'm keeping the traditional/simplified tags (in changing to the template I had to look up the characters, Hanzi a/b didn't tell me which was which for sure.) These terms are better than "Hanzi" in the English Wiktionary. I'll write more about this in a few minutes Robert Ullmann 10:05, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I modified 辭典 just slightly. I think this is a workable solution in absense of more feedback from other Chinese speakers. Maybe one day, more bilingual people will get involved with Wiktionary, and we can revisit the issue.

A-cai 10:07, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the look of lâng is more like what it should be. I'm wondering if it would be better to include colons after the label, ex. (lang5, traditional: 人 or 儂, simplified: 人 or 侬). What do you think?

A-cai 10:12, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RhymeBot is active

The RhymeBot is up and running. So far it's automatically added Rhymes: links to the Pronunciation sections of about 3,000 articles. (Only 10,000 to go!)

I've tested the bot thoroughly, but if anyone notices it doing anything it shouldn't (or just that you don't like), do let me know. Also, today I implemented a feature (standard in many other Mediawiki-related bots) such that if you leave a message (any message) on its talk page, it notices, and stops right away.

—scs 19:44, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Neat feature! --Enginear 19:57, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Fantastic, Scs! You're doing an excellent job here - keep it up! — Paul G 09:26, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. The count is now 6,800, plus breadcrumbs. See also note on formatting below. —scs 13:31, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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