Wiktionary talk:Entry layout

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• 2002
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• 2005 plus Wiktionary:Beer parlour (WP:BP) discussions of that year relating to entry layout
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• 2012–2018

Indentation of examples

Current guidance is to use "#:" to indent examples. This abuses description list markup for a use (indentation) that it is not intended for, and also results in invalid HTML (description list definitions must be preceded by at least one term). It is additionally an accessibility error: see w:MOS:INDENTGAP. We should use something like w:Template:Block indent instead. Hairy Dude (talk) 14:04, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree, but do you have an example of a working alternative? —Rua (mew) 14:12, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Presumably the HTML problem could be addressed by wiki software. We like the definitions in a given PoS section to be numbered consecutively. Wouldn't the block indent template disrupt that? DCDuring (talk) 17:52, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

This would seem to be a WT:GP problem. DCDuring (talk) 17:57, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

proposed addition

Can we insert the little detail that Wiktionary:Entry layout#Quotations in their own different section are level four as per WT:QUOTE#Under a Quotations header? Sobreira ►〓 (parlez) 10:26, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

update Synonyms

After the crushing victory in this vote, changes to this page need to be made to the List of headings section. --I learned some phrases (talk) 21:44, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

This page's introduction

Could someone with edit rights to the page (which is protected), correct the following error in the page's introduction?: "what editors think as best" should read "what editors think is best" (as > is), I think. Or it could just say, "what editors consider best". --Rogerhc (talk) 20:00, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Numeral

It should be clarified "Numeral" is not for all numbers; ordinal numbers like first are classified as adjectives but put in Category:English ordinal numbers by a template. Fractions like seven eighths are nouns, and are added to Category:English fractional numbers by a template. -- Beland (talk) 00:31, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

@Beland: Where would this text go? There is only one brief mention of "numeral" as a header. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:57, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

@Koavf: I was just going to add it to the end of the "Part of speech" section. -- Beland (talk) 23:51, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

@Beland: That makes sense. Since this section is very light on text and explanatory notes, I want to be conservative about adding anything that may seem extraneous. Can you show me a discussion on modifying this text? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:40, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

@Koavf: Well, when I was doing some work on numbers I was confused about this until the discussion at Wiktionary:Tea room/2019/April#Categories for numbers. -- Beland (talk) 02:37, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

It's in there now; thanks, Koavf! -- Beland (talk) 02:18, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Hypernyms - Hyponyms - Meronyms - Holonyms - Troponyms

While I have an idea what hypernyms and hyponyms denote, I am not sure many people ordinarily know what Meronyms, Holonyms and Troponyms are.

Shouldn't these terms at least be linked to their respective dictionary entries?

This would make it a lot more convenient to find out about the meaning of these headers.

And isn't there any explanation of the recommended usage in the help pages which could be mentioned and linked to from here?

I tried to link these terms to their dictionary entries and add an explanation but the page is locked.

This talk page seems not to receive much traffic lately. In case the page itself has also not been maintained for several month it should maybe be unlocked so other people can help improving it?

best regards, KaiKemmann (talk) 21:57, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

PS: I would find it useful to mention other terms which are similar in spelling in an entry. I. e. it could be noted that complementary is very similar to complimentary. Is there a standard procedure to do this and should this maybe be explained on this page?

The main documentation is WT:Semantic relations (linked from WT:EL). The templates could link to the glossary, like so: "Meronyms: foo, bar, baz". The template help pages already provide examples, is that not sufficient? – Jberkel 22:11, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Perfect, thank you. "WT:Semantic relations" is exactly what I was looking for.

I did not notice the referral because - when I came across the section "List of headings" - I thought I had already found what I was looking for. I did not expect to find details about the headings (including this link) further down in the section "Contents" and hence never got that far ..

So maybe adding "See below for details" in the "List of headings" (as well as an internal link) would be a good idea.

Also neither WT:Semantic relations nor WT:EL seem to refer to the respective glossary entries OR to the Wiktionary entries OR to the "template help pages" that you mention.

I feel that the help pages do not make full or even sufficient use of the powerful tool of linking terms to lemmas, articles, glossary entries or whatever is available and appropriate to help readers and users understand the context as well as the details ..

I am not sure I fully understand what you mean by saying: "The templates could link to the glossary, like so: "Meronyms: foo, bar, baz". The template help pages already provide examples, is that not sufficient?"

thanks again for you help,

KaiKemmann (talk) 00:58, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

I was referring to the {{meronyms}}, {{synonyms}} etc. templates, which could generate a link to the glossary (just before the list of referents). About template help pages: on {{meronyms}} there's an example at the top: {{meronyms|en|index finger|middle finger|palm|pinky|ring finger|thumb}}, all meronyms of hand. – Jberkel 10:34, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

@KaiKemmann To address your question about complementary and complimentary: in that particular case, each lists the other as a homophone (in a "Pronunciation" section). More generally, though, I've seen this handled with an {{also}} tag at the top of the entry and (in other cases) with an item in a "See also" section. There are probably other ways I don't recall at the moment. Someone more familiar with the conventions here should comment on this. - dcljr (talk) 23:29, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

One year later and I am running into the very same problem again: Finding the definitions of the terms of "semantic relation".

The help page is still locked so I cannot change it myself.

I would therefore once more like to ask a person with editing privileges to link the terms in the "List of headings" to the respective entries in "WT:Semantic relations". This should be simple enough to do and would make life easier for anyone looking for the definitions. It is rather time consuming to dig around the help pages or read through the whole article in order to find the link to the semantic relations page.

I notice that the "New Entry Creator" helpfully contains a list of these terms of semantic relation. But again, many users will not be familiar with these terms and the "New Entry Creator" neither contains a link to "WT:Semantic relations" nor to the respective templates, which Jberkel mentioned (By the way: When should these templates be used instead of the respective headings and why are they not mentioned on this help page?).

I feel that editing Wiktionary is unecessarily complicated by not making full use of the possibilities of interwiki links to the existing help and documentation pages.

thanks, KaiKemmann (talk) 19:25, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Abbreviations

Minor quibble: The "Abbreviations" section says, "For abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms (such as PC and SNAFU)…". It would probably be better to say, "…(such as SNAFU and PC)…", since SNAFU is an acronym and PC is an initialism (i.e., the examples are in the opposite order of the list of terms). Perhaps for completeness we should also give an example of an abbreviation that is neither an acronym nor an initialism (e.g., apt.)? - dcljr (talk) 23:12, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

PING… This is still an issue 3 months later, so here's some text you can just paste into the right place:

Please replace: For abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms (such as {{m|en|PC}} and {{m|en|SNAFU}})

With: For abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms (such as {{m|en|apt.}}, {{m|en|SNAFU}} and {{m|en|PC}})

In the "Abbreviations" section. - dcljr (talk) 23:20, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

So, this really doesn't bother anyone else (who can edit the page, enough to edit the page)? - dcljr (talk) 01:39, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

"lb"

Just wondering, does it stand for something? (I assume the "l" is for language.) Thanks in advance. --Philologia Sæculārēs (talk) 00:51, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

In case you didn't notice, the name of the template as shown in the "Context labels" section is a clickable link, which takes you to the template's documentation, which reveals that the full name of the template is {{label}}. So "lb" is an abbreviation of "label". (I didn't know, either. :) - dcljr (talk) 01:07, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Dcljr! --Philologia Sæculārēs (talk) 06:58, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Need to document ALL heading levels, including «See also» (and it needs further «Don't use» text)

I just made a mistake when changing ===See also=== in fall off the wagon to the more specific ===Related terms===. I should've changed it to a fourth-level heading: ====Related terms====. I made this mistake in part because WT:EL doesn't specify what level «See also» goes at; WT:EL#See also doesn't say anything about it; it doesn't appear in WT:EL#List of headings (for good reason, I guess, since it most entries shouldn't include it); and though its placement order is defined in WT:EL#Headings after the definitions, that section gives no guidance on heading levels.

I think there should be a master list of all possible headings, giving both their order and levels (using the wiki markup «=»s is the most handy for this). It really isn't necessary to punt with «Nesting is a key principle to the organization of Wiktionary, but the concept suffers from being difficult to describe with verbal economy. If you have problems with this, examine existing entries, or ask questions of a more senior person.». A master heading list would be easy to construct, and very useful.

That, and/or each heading section (e.g. WT:EL#See also) needs to specify its expected level, and ideally, WT:EL#Headings before the definitions and WT:EL#Headings after the definitions should also document the correct nesting, either via the «=» markup, or via indentation.

And one final note is that the documentation of WT:EL#See also should be modified to say that not only should it not be used for external links, but it also should not be used to link to other entries when a more specific heading exists for that purpose, such as ====Antonyms==== or ====Related terms====. --Dan Harkless (talk) 22:01, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Mutation header in unconventional location

@Mahagaja, Rua I've noticed that currently on WT:EL, the mutation header is located between the inflection table and the derived terms, descendants, -nyms, etc. But usually on Celtic language entries it in practice usually goes where "See also" is. Should EL be amended to move "Mutation" between "See also" and "Further reading"? mellohi! (僕の乖離) 21:24, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Given that it's normally a level 3 heading, it should appear after any headings that are specific to a single part of speech. "See also" and "Further reading" are both level 4 headings in the entries I create, and in particular I place "See also" below "Related terms". —Rua (mew) 21:26, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Rua's first sentence above, but in my entries, "See also" and "Further reading" are usually level 3 headings, so I tend to put "Mutations" before them, as the first of the post-POS level 3 headings. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:13, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Page formatting - It's hard to find the definition

I have rarely used Wiktionary. However, today I sought to look up barmy, and I found it difficult to find the definition amidst all the words on the page. I would expect helping users quickly locate definitions would be a primary goal of Wiktionary, so I'd suggest finding ways to format the text on the page in such a way as to make it easier to find the definition(s). Daask (talk) 13:46, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Edit request: Correct level for part of speech headings

Many sections list part of speech headings as being level three headings, e.g., ===Noun===, while Wiktionary:Entry layout#Etymology lists an example of a level four part of speech heading, i.e., ====Noun====. Of note, as recently as 2017 a level three heading was generally promoted with the option for "a lower level for terms that have multiple etymologies or pronunciation". Can someone resolve this apparent discrepancy by re-adding the note or some other change? —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 23:44, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Edit request: hatnote link to WT:FORMS

I would like to suggest adding the following immediately below the 'Alternative forms' heading at WT:ALTER:

Main article: Wiktionary:Forms and spellings

I found the information at Wiktionary:Forms and spellings immensely helpful in answering several points of confusion I had about alternative forms. Unfortunately, it took me a long time to find the page, since it's not really discoverable except by a careful use of the search feature. Colin M (talk) 21:03, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Section Example sentences

Update needed at Section 'Example sentences'. The Template:ux places automatically the transliteration and translation in different rows, so there is no need for writing #:: below the ux example. Thank you. ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ | 08:58, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Need example sentence "#:" in List of Headings

Hi all, in the List of Headings section I noticed the example sentence missing. I think it should be there (?).

Noun

Headword line

1. Meaning 1

   Example sentence

   • Quotations

Facts707 (talk) 08:57, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Request Wikipedia link at section Part of speech

Would be handy to link to Wikipedia at the top of the Part of speech section. E.g. not everyone knows what a circumposition or ideophone is. I.e.

{{Wikipedia|Part of speech}}

Cheers, Facts707 (talk) 04:18, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

copyedit suggestion

Nesting is a key principle to the organization of Wiktionary, but the concept suffers from being difficult to describe with verbal economy. If you have problems with this, examine existing entries, or ask questions of a more senior person.

=>

Nesting is a key principle of Wiktionary's entry layout norms, but it is difficult to describe with only a few words. If you have problems with it, look at existing entries or ask a more experienced editor for help. --Espoo (talk) 07:26, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Agreed,  Done, it was unnecessarily wordy. PseudoSkull (talk) 07:48, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Information density and page aesthetics

Does anyone else feel like some pages that present a lot of information are off-putting? For a (very small and not cherrypicked) example of such an entry, for which I can only blame myself, see fluffy bunny. I think the context labels, long definition lines, and (in this case) italics contribute. Sometimes I feel an impulse to add usage examples just to add more blank space and give the reader room to breathe, but I generally refrain from actually doing so (of course, usage examples have more substantial benefits too). 70.172.194.25 04:23, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

Heading level of "References" and "Further reading" doesn't make sense

The heading level of "References" and "Further reading" as described in the section "List of headings" doesn't make sense to me. Here is the section in question with added indentation:

==English==
  ===Alternative forms===
  ===Etymology===
  ===Pronunciation===
  ===Noun===
    ====Usage notes====
    ...
  ===References===
  ===Further reading===
  ===Verb===
    ====Usage notes====
    ...
  ===References===
  ===Further reading===
  ===Anagrams===
  ...

The headings "References" and "Further reading" both occur twice, once for the noun section and once for the verb section. The heading level of them is three =, so they are on the same level as ===Noun=== and ===Verb===. But they are relating to the noun section and to verb section respectively, so I think they should be one level deeper, namely four =.

If you want to have a "References" or "Further reading" section with only three = (because it relates to both the noun and the verb section), you should put it right before ===Anagrams===, and there should be only one such section. Tc14Hd (talk) 22:27, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

I came here to ask precisely the same thing. This is confounded by the fact that "References" and "Further reading" are listed in the Headings after the definitions section, which starts by saying These headings generally derive from knowing the meaning of the word, but then also includes "Anagrams", which clearly does not conform to that definition.

From reading the page, it seems clear to me that "References", "Further reading" are (generally) meant to appear only once per language, just like "Anagrams". This is evidenced by:

• "References" being described explicitly as a level 3 heading in §A very simple example;
• Both "References" and "Further reading" appearing as level 3 headings in the example page layout in §List of headings;
• Both "References" and "Further reading" appearing right before "Anagrams" in §Headings after the definitions (though this one could be said to be circumstantial).

Assuming my reading above is correct, the changes needed in the page to remove the current ambiguity would then be relatively minor (simply removing the first two instances of the "References" and "Further reading" headings in the example page layout in §List of headings). However, it would be good to also resolve the ambiguity of listing "References", "Further reading" and "Anagrams" at the end of §Headings after the definitions, possibly by grouping them under a third list of headings — say, "Headings at the end of the language section", or something to that effect. Here's a diff showcasing what implementing these changes could look like; the rendered page would then look like this.

By the way, while researching this topic to make sure my understanding above didn't contradict existing conventions, I also made slight clarifications in Wiktionary:References (diff) and Help:Footnotes (diff). --Waldyrious (talk) 10:18, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

I didn’t even realize the list of headings stated that. I’ve always placed the “References” and “Further reading” sections at the end of the entry just before “Anagrams”. — Sgconlaw (talk) 13:26, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, the current situation indeed seems to be due to an overlook, rather than a disagreement over where to place these sections. In that light, would you be willing to make the change I propose above (or something along those lines), or do you feel this needs more discussion? --Waldyrious (talk) 13:48, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

@Waldyrious: as this is a policy page, if you want to be really safe you should start a vote at "Wiktionary:Votes". But since this may be an oversight, I suggest you start a discussion in a more prominent place such as "Wiktionary:Beer parlour", and if most people agree that it is not a policy alteration then you can go ahead and change it. — Sgconlaw (talk) 13:59, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Makes sense. I will do that, thanks! --Waldyrious (talk) 15:08, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Shortcuts to ===List of headings===

Showing WT:ORDER and WT:LOH as shortcuts would be useful. I find I'm often looking for the order of headings and others may benefit from the shortcuts too. Cheers, Facts707 (talk) 05:20, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

 Done This, that and the other (talk) 09:28, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Further reading only for dictionaries and encyclopedias

See Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2022/September § Further reading only for dictionaries and encyclopedias. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:31, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

change the link from "romanization"

At "we have romanization systems", instead of romanization, romanization should be linked. Utonsal (talk) 21:36, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Pronunciation position for Chinese characters

On the pages for Chinese characters, the pronunciation section is many many times longer than it is for most other languages, frequently taking up more than a third or even half the entry. It makes it difficult to find the definitions for the characters when scrolling the page, and it makes it impossible to see both the etymological entry for the character and its definitions on the same page. Is it possible to alter the standard position of the pronunciation section for Chinese character entries to move the definition closer to the top, and to have it nearer to the etymology section? Infocidal (talk) 10:23, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

AutoDooz whitespace changes

the bot AutoDooz recently added blanklines to a lot of the pages I've edited and created. I had not known there was a standard, since the main page here has the headings listed entirely without blanklines, but since I had never seen a page like that I assumed blanklines were optional. Should we edit the main page to show where whitespace should and should not be added? Thanks, —Soap— 17:10, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

WT:NORM has details for treatment of whitespace but states Editors other than bots can treat these norms as guidelines. I don't think editors should worry too much about details that can be fixed by bots. JeffDoozan (talk) 17:25, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Alternative form notes

Hello, to whomever has the privilege to edit this page, may you please add a passage under the "Alternative forms" header to state that, as per Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2016-09/Placement of "Alternative forms" 2 (weaker proposal), editors can choose either to place the "Alternative forms" header above the main content and before etymology, with a L3 header, or before any Synonyms sections, with whatever header the Synonyms section would have (so L4 if single etymology, L5 if multiple etymologies)? Kiril kovachev (talk) 12:39, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

@Mahagaja Kiril kovachev (talk) 12:40, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

I was misled by "Example sentences"

Just want to share my experience with this guide: I was initially confused when reading the "Example sentences" subsection because the words "Example sentences should: be grammatically complete sentences, beginning with a capital letter and ending with a period, question mark, or exclamation point" made an impression that any examples of word usage other than quotations and example sentences (such as collocations) are disallowed in the definition area.

That confusion was resolved only a few days later when I reached the section "Collocations" and read it closely:

Collocations may either be added under the corresponding sense using {{coi}} or {{co}} (after all nyms but before all examples), or under a dedicated ====Collocations==== header

I was on the brink of removing all collocations from the entries where I added them. So I suggest to add some words to "Example sentences" to make sure users understand that adding collocations under definitions is not discouraged. Gradilion (talk) 05:06, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

3 edit requests for the Translations section

Could someone please change "Translations should be given in English entries, and also in Translingual entries for taxonomic names." to "Translations should only be given in English entries, and in Translingual entries for taxonomic names."? I think the second phrasing makes it clearer that translations between non-English languages are not recommended, while preserving the existing meaning.

Additionally, I would appreciate if this sentence and the one from the next list item ("English inflected forms will not have translations.") were made bold, as they indicate content guidelines like the ones preceding them, rather than formatting instructions as is the case with the items after them. I understand that attention is being called to the first three because they can lead to more serious policy violations, but I think their use of ALL CAPS is sufficient to highlight them an extra level above mere bold.

Finally, please fix the typo introduced in edit 12655430 by making the following change: "InIf such entries as have additional meanings, these additional meanings should have translations." (I would further suggest starting the sentence with "Hovewer," or "That said," to make the connection with the previous sentence more evident.)

Thanks in advance! Waldyrious (talk) 14:15, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Cross-reference WT:FORMS

#Alternative forms should have {{main|Wiktionary:Forms and spellings}} at the top, like #Example sentences. Nardog (talk) 13:23, 21 February 2024 (UTC)