User talk:--Stranger

Wednesday, 27 November 2024; 16:59 (UTC)

Links - Users:	Links - Pages:
Connel MacKenzie - Thank You Pages	my message archive
SemperBlotto - The Chemist	my miscellaneous code collection
Eclecticology - a Wiktionary god	template creation
Dvortygirl - Audio, Idiom	help tips
Wytukaze - The David Protector	Dynamic Text Index
Hippietrail	safeplace
Polyglot - The Dutch Expert	venting
	for an admin to delete sometime
	WA - Wiktionarians Anonymous
Wiktionary Page Links - Index and Glossary
Wiktionary Page Links - Administration - exploring dishwashing
Wiktionary Page Links - beer parlour
Wiktionary Page Links - Policy - Abbreviations
Wiktionary Page Links - dynamic text

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Formatting

Would you like to format your contributions along the lines of AMA? Cheers. SemperBlotto 6 July 2005 21:46 (UTC)

• I have formatted some of your contributions. I'm sure that you can do the rest in much the same way - they all seem to be initialisms. SemperBlotto 21:22, 12 July 2005 (UTC) ps My "talk page" is at User talk:SemperBlotto

VSWR

Hi John,

Why'd you dewikify the meaning of the acronym? I thought that was what we were supposed to do, so that complete information about the term can be given on the "real" page, no? --Connel MacKenzie 03:00, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

reply by Stranger:
Re: Voltage Standing Wave Radio
I don't recall exactly what I dewikified for this particular example - I have done quite a few, but I will list three reasons I dewikify when I come across them. (1) Sometimes each, individual word is wikified. I tend to dewikify in this case because, using VSWR as an example, the definition of the word "standing" (i.e. rising up from a seated position) does nothing to clarify the meaning of the acronym. I would not de-wikify a word like "deoxyridonucleic" because the word is not common. Additionally, for "deoxy..." the definition which is likely to be #1 or #2 in the definition list is likely to be the meaning referred to by the initialism - unlike, say, "wave" ("a shake of the hand") in VSWR - which, again, doesn't aid in clarification.

(2) Sometimes the entire phrase is wikified which, in this particular example, would mean that "Voltage Standing Wave Radio" was wikified. This generally results, however, in a red-coloured link, i.e. one that doesn't go anywhere, because there is no corresponding dictionary entry for the entire phrase "Voltage Standing Wave Radio".

(3) Any link, like those in foreign translations for example, that is red-coloured I eliminate.

reply by Connel:

Please do not de-wikify things because they are red.

Things that "should" have an entry should remain red so other casual visitors can *become* newbies!

Also, the basic foundation of Wiktionary I'd estimate at about 70% complete. There is A LOT missing still. Foreign words are more like 1 to 5% complete. They need to remain wikified!

General guidelines:

• Definitions should *NOT* have every word wikified. 3-5 words per meaning, is about right, usually.

• Acronyms should wikify the entire term once per meaning (i.e. once for each "#" line) and all explanation about the term belongs on the expanded page.

• Inflection line terms (that relate to title) should *all* be wikified. So, every word of an idiom should be...e.g. get one's goat.

• For inflections, see the verb templates. The only things bolded are inflected forms of the title...plurals, comparatives, superlatives, third person, participles, past tense each should be bolded and wikified.

• Uncommon or troublesome grammatical terms like Template:compar or Template:superl should be wikified in italics.

I do have a query, for clarification:

Acronyms - wikify entire "definition" once; any explanatory material copy and paste into resulting link.

Abbreviations - what do I do?

Initialisms - wikify nothing

Thanks for your kind assistance -- Stranger, SSL69 16:02, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Stranger in a Strange Land:

I try to wikify the expanded term, whether it is an abbreviation, initialism or acronym. The bulk of the explanation and definition belongs at the main entry, in my opinion. A very brief explanation is OK, but often simply expanding the shortinging to its full form is enough.

Thank you for moving the e-mail to this talk page. --Connel MacKenzie 14:53, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

redirects

John,

Just a quick reminder: do not replace content with a redirect. Especially, when the article you are replacing contains interwiki links!

--Connel MacKenzie 00:36, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

You caught me in time. Again, thank you for the kindness of your correction.

Is it acceptable, for example, to: (1) copy the content of D.C.L., (2) create a DCL, (3) paste the former D.C.L. into DCL, and (4) replace D.C.L. with a redirect to DCL? I would like to do this to keep the index "clean" since now all D periods are alphabetized before DA.

When on the page D.C.L. you can use the "move" tab at the top to accomplish exactly that. --Connel MacKenzie 15:08, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Also note: the general guideline has been to omit periods from abbreviations and initialisms. (Acronyms obviously don't have any.) I'm not sure if that is because we were following the UK conventions or if they were felt to be inappropriate. I think we should ask the question in the Beer Parlour before you get too far with that type of entry. --Connel MacKenzie 15:08, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

-- Stranger, SSL69 15:46, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Another example is -all caps- "RE". This should be just a redirect to -lower case- "re". I didn't look at the history, but I might have created it in the first place and now realise my mistake. This should not be replaced with a redirect?

I think the example is actually backwards. Abbreviations and acronyms generally are redirected to the UPPER CASE version; lower case versions are reserved for things that are "words" like scuba. So re should be "moved" to RE. --Connel MacKenzie 15:08, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks -- Stranger, SSL69 16:52, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Initialisms of chemical names

Hi,

Can you not capitalise the names of the chemicals for which you are giving the initialisms? The initialisms are in capitals but the names of the chemicals are not. So "DNP" stands for "diisononyl phthalate", not "DiIsoNonyl Phthalate". Thanks. — Paul G 14:53, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Not a problem. I'll try to remember for future reference and for editing. Cheers -- Stranger, SSL69 15:01, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

user talk and requests

Connel-

Just some miscellaneous questions. First, you seem terribly busy and have your fingers in many different pies. If I should talk to someone else in order to lighten your load, please let me know. I don't wish to be a burden, but I sincerely value the fact that you have taken me under your wing. I don't see it said very often: Thank you.

The other day, I put found a nonsense word with an "I wuz here" definition; I put a rfd flag on it; did you see it? I was just wondering if I did it correctly. I didn't read the five or so pages of How to Nominate A Word for Deletion, etc.

Similarly, I was wandering around and thought I saw a copyright violation. I wasn't sure what to do, but posed a query to that effect on the word's discussion page. All the words I see, the discussion page tab is always coloured red. Is this something I'm not supposed to do. Who sees it when I do it?

I also happened to notice that one of my contributions, "App", had been flagged for deletion. But I don't see that listed on the Request for Deletions page. Furthermore I didn't get a "you have new mail" notice about this so I had no knowledge it was done and would never have known about it had I not stumbled across it. Is there any way to subscribe to the Request for Deletions page or the Beer Parlour so that I am informed whenever a new message is posted? I don't want to miss a chance to pontificate! :-)

And these user pages have a significant disadvantage to e-mail. When I read your user page, for example, I only get half the conversation. It's like listening to one end of a telephone conversation. With e-mail, you can follow the discussion thread more easily. Anything that can be done to modify this? Is there a "copy user talk contribution to page _________" or something that I'm missing?

Thanks,

--Stranger, SSL69 18:12, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Re paragraph #1 You're welcome.

Re #2 Adding "{{rfd}}" is all that is needed to give a word some more attention, eventually. But for now, the other sysops and I are in catch-up mode and rarely peruse Category:Requests for deletion. Someone will get around to it - not me just now though.

Re #3 Talk pages start out red, when they are blank/empty. They are colored blue when a discussion is started. For copyvio, you can use google or dictionary.com to verify that it is a word-for-word copyvio. Note that some of dictionary.com's material was also from the public domain Webster's 1913...so you should generally check ARTFL also. If it really is a copyvio, you can blank the whole entry, and replace with {{copyvio}} or {{rndc}}.

Re #4 Your "watchlist" will have all articles you have ever touched. (Top right of this, and every, page.) Keeping an eye on your watchlist will alert you to stuff happening to your favorite articles. (Careful on the pontification - you are the newbie! Most disputes I've been in...)

Re #5 I use cut-n-paste to accomplish that. It is true that it is sometimes difficult. But this is an offline medium - people can be gone for days or weeks. Having Wiktionary relevant stuff only *on* Wiktionary does make a bit of sense, even with the moderate inconveniences. --Connel MacKenzie 19:36, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I use pontificate very loosely but point taken. Did you see my post on the abbreviation treatise? Is there a way to make these posts stand out more - perhaps with a flag that you can delete after you read them? Cheers - Stranger, SSL69 21:55, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

When I get a "new messages" alert, I often head for the "history" of my talk page. Otherwise, I'd lose comments that are dropped into the middle somewhere...so yes, I did glance at your other changes. The Wiktionary:Policy page might be a good place to start, for looking for a home for your Abbreviation book (above) to go to, so others can comment on it. --Connel MacKenzie 22:21, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Misc. resps

Stranger,

Only a Bureaucrat can merge usernames. At least, I think they can do it, but I don't recall ever seeing it being done. Perhaps it really is a developer-only thing? So yes, changing usernames today essentially means abandoning your old account.

Well, I don't want to cause any trouble. But then, what does this "move" button do on the top of my user page? I think I'll create a new "test" account and just try it out and see what happens - unless you think that'll really mess things up somehow.

I'm dissapointed to hear that you (or anyone) is afraid to "step into" the Beer Parlor. To me, the name connotates rowdiness, general mayhem and an occasional brawl. OTOH, being too bold helps some earn a bad reputation; but the BP is exactly the place one should ask. OTOOH, the mantra "be bold" pertains to entering new, undefined words first and foremost.

more on this later

Transwiki actually relates to Wiktionary's raison d'être. Wiktionary was split off from Wikipedia when someone realized that real encyclopedias do not include dictionary words. So, they took all the cruft that they did not *want* in Wikipedia and made a new project called Wiktionary. These days, when someone arrives at Wikipedia (from google) and the light-bulb goes on and they realize they can enter stuff...and enter a dictionary definition, Wikipedians tag it for "Move to Wiktionary" because Wikipedia is not a dictionary (but Wiktionary is.) The article then gets moved to a Wikipedia holding area where it is voted on; then one of several bots makes the Wikipedia entry go from there to here, into the transwiki namespace. (Namespace in this meaning, means that the article name gets "Transwiki:" prepended to it.)

I think I get it. So then we go in and format the article according to Wiktionary style and enter a redirect to it on the old "Transwiki:" prepended page? The reason I ask is that Eclectiology described this as possibly the most thankless task on Wiktionary on the administrator's dishwashing section and Semper signed up for it; I'd like to try to lend a hand.

The edit summary box appears when you edit existing entries. It is labelled "Summary:" and appears below the edit box. (Note that if you use the ["+"] to add a new section, it is not considered an edit, but an add.)

So it was, perhaps, the name that threw me off. It's the "Summary" box, not the "Edit Summary" box. (1) But sometimes, like now when I'm editting this on my userpage, I notice it's already filled in with "/* Misc. resps */". (2) I was looking through the tutorial again to see where it said "edit summary box" and the tutorial is in even worse shape now than what it was when I first looked at it - clinking on all those suggested helpful links which happened to be red in color that brought up edit screens really confused me as a new newbie. I didn't know what the different colors meant right away. Surely the Tutorial would be correct, wouldn't it? - I assumed as a new newbie. Now I know a little more about how things don't work around here. Maybe I should go through it and . . . but that's not really a newbie job either, is it?

Thanks again. --Connel MacKenzie 16:41, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for sticking in there with me. Your support is always welcomed. Cheers, --Stranger (SSL69 17:12, 24 August 2005 (UTC))

e/c: your user-page

black and white

Noun or noun phrase? Actually, yesterday afternoon I was browsing "The Oxford Dictionary of New Words" in my local library. They show entries such as pink pound as noun, and only longer phrases as "noun phrase". I shall investigate further sometime. SemperBlotto 07:07, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Trying to get off-duty

Yes, apparently I am it for sysops at the moment, though a few of our European sysops should start waking shortly. I really did have other plans for part of my evening.

Anyway, I zapped SORE. You're quite right that it was rubbish. I rfd'd dinglehopper rather than delete it directly because I want to let the community decide on that one. I have seen the movie, and I recall the scene, but without a bit of usage outside the movie, it's just a nonsense word. Track down a citation or two, and I'll gladly let it stand. Otherwise, please don't take it personally.

Yes, Polyglot knows Dutch. Gerard does, too.

Oh, and you can usually find a sysop or four on IRC, should you need one of us. We would also enjoy your company even if you don't have an emergency to report--indeed, especially if you don't have an emergency to report. It's a small community, but a remarkably bright and diverse one. Come say hi someday. --Dvortygirl 05:38, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi Stranger,

Thanks for noticing what an anon did to fun, thinking he was taking care of vandalism. Vandalism isn't usually coming from users who are here almost since the beginning of times... :-) Reverted it right back. I wouldn't say I'm an expert on Dutch, but since it's my mother language I tend to know a bit more about it than the other contributors around here. Polyglot 07:53, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks again for the vigilance. I'm coding on the bot that is supposed to become able to parse Wiktionary pages. Not an easy endeavour, I can assure you! There are so many possibilities. Anyway, you can read more about it on the user page for PolyBot if you'd like. I fixed lol, once more. It's a different anon IP and the term is mostly used in Holland, not so much in Flanders, but that's no reason to take it out. If we hear it here in Flanders, we understand what's meant. Polyglot 23:52, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Again, thank you. Yes, I'll be "on-duty" for a couple of hours here. If you'd like to know which sysops are about, come on IRC now and then. You'll also see on the IRC page (listed just above, there) that there is a Recent Changes feed, which has helped several of us sysops to nab vandalism and various other rubbish in a timely manner.

As for deleting a user account, I don't think sysops can do that. I can delete a user page if it is possible to confirm that the request is legitimate. That said, Eclecticology or Paul G, our bureaucrats, may be able to delete an account, but I am guessing that they will hesitate to do so. That said, I doubt it is necessary to delete that account simply because your email address is attached. The wiki does not give out email addresses, and you may choose to whom to reply if you receive something. My email address has been attached to my account for over two years now, and I have yet to receive anything unwanted, just the very occasional missive from a trusted contributor who wants to talk privately or avoid cluttering up a user page with something off-topic. --Dvortygirl 15:27, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

The David Protector

Since it appears you have nothing better to do than protecting against-voting-strangers from The David :-) , where do you find wiki code such as that you use on your user page? And thanks for the smiley - but am I right in thinking that its use is frowned upon? Cheers, --Stranger (SSL69 16:34, 24 August 2005 (UTC))
>>>

Hah, what an interesting reason for asking me that. For the record, I had no intention of protecting him, I just thought it was high time for some more humour, even if it sucked a bit :). And the use of the smiley isn't excessively frowned upon; take Connel, for example, who was the one to start using it and uses it once in every three comments, near enough :). As for my user page, the layout is based on your good ol' WikiTables, and the colour and border are created through a <div> tag with CSS styles, so it's not really wikicode at all. That help? --Wytukaze 19:42, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

MY humour was lame - I thought yours was great. Thanks for the wiki-semi-code pointers. Cheers. --Stranger, SSL69 20:58, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Geen probleem, mon ami. --Wytukaze 21:51, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Is that my official title now? --Wytukaze 13:31, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I think that this is your name, yeah. I am horrible with names and faces in The Real World, so I thought I would attach something to help me remember people here.
And, for the record, "The David Protector" means that you are the one protecting me from a cult-brainwashed David - not protecting The David. :-)
Do you mind terribly? Cheers, --Stranger 13:48, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Oh no, I don't mind terribly at all. I just like to know when I've been hired for bodyguard work. When do I get my first paycheck? --Wytukaze 14:55, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Don't give me that. You enjoy it! :-) --Stranger 15:01, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Fine, fine. I'll do it because I'm the only one prepared to protect the community from crazed cultists, especially scout leaders. I better get a biscuit at the end of it, though. --Wytukaze 15:05, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Numbers

Wytukase's dispute was on July 6, and we have seen nothing of the other disputant since, so it would be pointless to go into details about that.

I suppose that you're really alluding to my moving the page hundred and one to one hundred and one. The form that I preferred is more formal, and I would argue that the other forms are variations of it. Adding usage notes to distinguish these would be perfectly appropriate. It is conceivable that further elaboration of these variations may be suitable for the talk page. It would be excessive to give detailed usage notes for every number; the issues for 102 are the same as those for 101. What the best place is for an explanation of these variations remains an open question.

As for 666, the issues that distinguish it from the others are probably more encyclopedic than lexicographical. Eclecticology 17:20:38, 2005-09-01 (UTC)

Connotations can be difficult to deal with since they will not always be apparent to everyone, but I suppose that they can be covered in the usage notes where you could describe the underlyung literary allusion. Of course for some 101 might evoke images of spotted dogs, and for others it typifies entry level courses in university. There can be no single rule that covers all the possibilities. Eclecticology 00:50:36, 2005-09-02 (UTC)

IRC Windows client

mirc or xchat port

seem to be the preferred windows IRC client programs. Most times of the day, there is an admin lurking there. --Connel MacKenzie 23:38, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Whoa cowboy!

Please slow down a second, on your archiving activities. Being bold is a good thing, but...

WT:BP always used to retain three months worth of conversations.

WT:VIP does not get archived (until the Bureaucrats start renaming those dead/blocked usernames into one.)

Wiktionary: Glossary is supposed to have words that pertain to Wiktionary, whether they are duplicated as regular entries in the main namespace or not.

Wiktionary: namespaced articles should not be deleted.

--Connel MacKenzie 03:31, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

It looks like you did the right thing with WT:BP, actually. It was overweight, to be sure. Thank you.

It looks like you exercised the correct caution with WT:VIP. Thank you.

I'd personally like to see Wiktionary: Glossary expanded, not trimmed or eliminated.

All in all, it looks like you are doing much more good, than anything else. Thank you.

--Connel MacKenzie 03:42, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

exceeding remit

Not everything in BP is a policy issue. The apostrophe issue was a matter of someone having a peculiar idea, and the whole community feeling that this idea would not work. It is unlikely that anyone will try to promote that one again. All that a policy can do is keep the idea visible when it is best forgotten. It is better placed in the archives.

The issue of the telephone calls is at the other end of the scale. An anonymous contributor phoned an administrator in the middle of the night to complain. This is very poor netiquette. That individual seems to have very poor social skills, and we are not likely to leave any impression on his type. If he goes so far as to read policy he probably doesn't need it. I think that Kevin was casually commenting on a current incident; the report probably doesn't even need to be kept in the archives. Eclecticology 23:34:27, 2005-09-05 (UTC)

embarrassed

I originally wrote it as a noun, but as an afterthought I checked hyperdictionary.com which listed it as a adjective. I didn't think such obvious mistake would be in that dictionary so I just corrected it without thinking. Obviously, it's incorrect (and might I admit I'm a bit "embarrassed" over it too!) Thanks for the heads-up. --Shoehorn 22:49, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Now I'm even more confused and embarrassed. I feel like this should be something obvious but it seems to be causing some confusion. I think I have to renege on what I said earlier, because I think "embarrassed" might actually be a adjective in the same way ashamed or depressed can be adjectives (at least according to Oxford). I have no idea where I came with the idea of it being a noun, so forget that. What are your thoughts? --Shoehorn 04:02, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I understand that it's an open question. Every present participle (embarassing) can be used as a noun (I enjoyed the embarassing of the teacher), and every past particple an adjective (I felt embarassed). But since this is a universal rule, opinion is divided about whether these sub-articles deserve to be included. Allan 20:12, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I have to disagree. I don't think "I enjoyed the embarrassing of the teacher" is correct. It should be: I enjoyed the embarrassment of the teacher or I enjoyed the teacher's embarrassment. I would say your other example is part of the verb, isn't it? I felt embarrassed or I felt embarrassment. I was embarrassed. Allan, Shoehorn, it's been a long time and I neither of you should rely on my grammar skills. I recommended Polyglot to Shoehorn - I can't remember why at the moment. I'll ask him to stop by and share his wisdom with us. (inside joke) :-)

Cheers, --Stranger 00:00, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

A better example: "Emberrassing the teacher was fun." Davilla 01:21, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Bosnian

Hi, yes, Cyrillic and Latin are always capitalized. That entry, along with some other old entries, needs some fixing and I'm going to get to it as soon as I can. I'll fix the Cyrillic and Latin thing right now. Thank for pointing that out!  :) --Dijan 05:52, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

Reaching us

I don't know if many IRC-ers use Trillian, or not. Many of us do use Skype, however. I don't recall seeing you in IRC. Please try again sometime. It's not always very busy, so sometimes it's just a matter of wandering in at the right time. --Dvortygirl 07:26, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Oops

I just put half-a-dozen entries into WT:GL before I saw your note asking not to. It's not the end of the world if my changes vanish at some point. Allan 20:01, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

vote for making upload of images sysop approved

Hi --Stranger,

I didn't interpret the discussion as concluded, just stranded on some sort of status quo. It's item number 12 in the BP. I added a comment to ask for some kind of vote on the matter today. I hope people will see it, as it kind of drowns in the other beer parlour topics. As for the AP vandal moving to other things. He'll do that anyway at a certain point. Maybe he'll even move to doing something more useful. Who knows? One can always hope. Or maybe he'll move out of here if he starts realizing that what he does, makes us react in a way that his pranks have a useful effect on our project, since we tighten up security. Who knows how the psychology of vandals works? He finds holes in our security and we stop gap them. That way he kinds of contributes and maybe he can't stand the idea of having done something positive. The problem we have now is that vigilance is constantly necessary in order to protect the public from having to see an obnoxious image, when visiting something that should be safe to view, like a dictionary. Just imagine you want to look up a word in the presence of your child and such an image appears? It's disgusting when we see it, but one kind of gets used to it, but a child who sees something like that for the first time will have a very bad experience, which is what we want to avoid.

If he decides that he wants to start changing the text by adding nonsense or near nonsense, we can defend ourselves far better against that. Although it is true that it may take more time on our part. It's something we have to do anyway, since even good meaning contributors will sometimes add content that is incorrect or not appropriate.

Anyway, I think I was the first person who was confronted with this kind of images around Christmas 2004 and I still remember I was genuinely disgusted. So he didn't miss the effect he was after. He has been keeping this up for over 9 months now. It's time to start doing something about it. One would think he would go away when he gets bored, but apparently he is one who is not easily bored. Polyglot 21:59, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Please don't change my nickname. I don't feel wise at all. I just expressed how I feel about the matter. Cheers, Polyglot 22:22, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

2 replies

Firstly, I think TheDave is our resident Latin speaker. And as for the template, I put up Template:Nosing. --Expurgator t(c) 22:41, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Rather, Dave Ross is among our resident Spanish-speakers, sort of. If you're looking for Latin, consult Muke. --Dvortygirl 03:59, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks!

Better?

I, Dvortygirl, hereby award --Stranger the Exceptional Newcomer Award for conscientious contributions and assistance keeping the place tidy and free from vandalism and other rubbish. Thank you very much.

Don't worry --Stranger, you got this Award because of the totality of what you already accomplished and I fully agree with Dvortygirl that you deserve it. Polyglot 09:48, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Self-promotion on List of Protologisms page

Hello,

Although I understand your conern about self-promotion, I think there may be 3 reasons why this is not:

1. This is for another GNU license wiki (no particular "self" benefit--I don't try to identify myself there either)
2. This was on a talk page (though I wonder whether even the main page would be ok, as others put related references on such pages)
3. I thought it was relevant for the protologisms page, in that it would be relevant to those who felt constrained to expand upon their ideas at Wiktionary (since we are not supposed to start individual pages, etc. for protologisms)

Thanks... Brettz9 17:10, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I think that you acted correctly in this case. His words "which I just started" in his notice were bound to attract attention of the kind that you provided.

I do think that his intentions were honorable. Protologisms have been a perennial problem for Wiktionary, and if he is able to provide a solution to this kind of problem I would certainly be open to some kind of Mutually beneficial arrangement.

As requested, I will approach him on this. Eclecticology 18:40:13, 2005-09-09 (UTC)

The issue is no big deal. When this sort of thing comes up, it's better do deal with it head on before any serious misunderstanding has a chance to develop. Eclecticology 05:51:31, 2005-09-10 (UTC)

Discussion on deleted articles

You previously raised the issue of saving the discussions for deleted articles. There is the page Wiktionary:Deletion archive, which has been linked from the first paragraph in the "notes" section of the RfD page. I admit that I have failed to use that to tha extent that I would have wished. Perhaps you may wish to use that as a stepping stone for saving those discussions that you feel are worth saving.

Fundamentally, there are two ways in which this might be done. That page could house all the discussions, but I'm afraid that it could rapidly become too big. The other way would be to use the article talk pages. The archive page could then become a sort of index to those talk pages which, in the absence of their corresponding article could be more difficult to find.

I usually wait at least a week after deletion before removing material from the RfD page. You can decide how much of a discussion is worth keeping, and how much is completely off topic or repetitious. I can avoid deleting existing talk pages when they include deletion discussion materials.

I hope that there is enough in this for a working agreement. Eclecticology 05:12:02, 2005-09-11 (UTC)

I don't think the Deletion Archive Page would work, because of the amount of maintenance it would require. In order to find anything, those discussions would have to be listed alphabetically - and I also think it would rapidly become far too big.

I like the Talk Page solution. Can we agree to save all Talk Pages, except those marked RFD. (I do RFD talk pages sometimes when they contain absolute rubbish.) Occassionally (as what might happen with marriage, though I'm not involved in that discussion) a Talk Page might need a spin off Archive page if it becomes too big.

Instead of doing anything manually, though, is there a flag we can put on a talk page which will make it automatically list on the Deletion Archive page? For example, whenever we put {rfd} on a page, it automatically lists itself in the category Requests for Deletion. We have to manually put it on the Request for Deletion Page. I've never done templates, but can you make a similar {flag} to make it appear on a talk page category. Just an alphabetical listing in a category I think would be sufficient.

Did I explain myself clearly enough? Cheers, --Stranger 18:13, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Gee thanks for mentioning marriage :-P Archiving that page will be based on different issue. Nobody is suggesting that the marriage page should be deleted, even if that would be one way of stopping the current argument there.

I think we agree that continuing the Deletion archive page is not practical because it would get too long too fast.

I can't say that I would agree to save all the talk pages, just most of them. Many include material that may not be relevant to keeping the article. I do confess, however, that in the course of deleting articles I often forget to check to see if there is a talk page or if I am causing dead redirects.

You could put Category:Deletion archive (or something like it) on the talk pages for deleted pages that have deletion discussions on them. I don't see any way to move discussions from the rfd page to the individual talk pages.

I don't think we can get rid of the rfd page. The chronological approach is what I find most valuable about it. With it I impose a discipline on myself to get things done, even if it's the wrong thing. I seldom look at what's in the rfd category. Something that's there, but not on the rfd page often has no initial reason for deletion expressed. Monitoring deletion discussions would be more difficult if it involved having each on a separate page. Eclecticology 21:10:34, 2005-09-11 (UTC)

I've thought of it: {TPO} = Talk Page Only. That can be the template and the category. It's slightly broader than a deletion archive: I envision it encompassing deletion discussions, protos and neos. To answer Davilla on the Beer Parlour, the main page of protos and neos can have the template: {proto} or {neo} with a disclaimer that this word was removed because it was a proto/neo and therefore didn't meet the CFI. The main page of a deleted word would not contain anything at all.

With this, we can have the automatic templates of {TPO} replace the page Deletion Archive; {proto} replace the manual List of Protos; and the {neo} replace the manual neo page (though as I write this, I don't remember if a manual neo page exists or not). I'll go through the current manual pages and move the content to the talk pages and flag them with the new {TPO} template if that is approved.

I also rather like the laser-beam way the community focuses in on a word listed on the RFD page. I think that kind of scrutiny is valuable. But that page is getting big. However, getting rid of some of these other pages ought to give us more time to concentrate on cleaning up RFD.

I want to make your job easier by having a rule to keep all talk pages unless someone flags it with an RFD. But I don't mind you combing through this stuff and removing unneeded stuff. But I would hope you have some better things to do - like trying to sort out marriage :-)

Cheers, --Stranger 23:41, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Re: Welcome template

Thank you for your comments on the welcome template. Your comments, I think, are especially valuable in the sense that you recently encountered that text as a newcomer.

I think the welcome template itself is relatively new. Granted, we don't manage to welcome all newcomers yet, but I agree completely that we should try. Polyglot's welcome, along with his translations of many of my articles, encouraged me to perservere through my first tentative days of editing.

I will incorporate your suggestions into the template. It's a wiki, after all, and people are invited to edit these things. If you'd like to help welcome newcomers, please do. You can either use the template text or create your own message. I don't mind if you volunteer me for questions beyond your knowledge. I know SemperBlotto often welcomes people, too. Perhaps he would volunteer for the odd-numbered days, or simpler yet, we could simply name several active administrators and not worry about the date. --Dvortygirl 05:35, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

PolyBot

Hi --Stranger,

The bot I'm creating is very much a work in progress. Right now it doesn't do a lot yet. When it will become ready it will be able to change the macros to fully written language names. Or the other way around if we ever decide to do that. I still have a lot of beta testing and coding to do though. OTOH, I wouldn't bother changing those templates manually. Just let them be, they don't bite and they don't cause any trouble. Anyway, that's what I do. There are more interesting things to do, than changing things that will have the same outcome/result. The bot will parse an entry, decompose it as far as it can and then recompose everything according to the standards in vogue on a particular Wiktionary. Polyglot 06:27, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Welcoming new users

Hi Stranger,

We are all working for the same cause here. A sysop is nothing more or nothing less than a regular user, just because he/she has a few more possibilities on the wiki. I think a newbie who gets a welcome message from you is a very lucky one. Don't worry about them finding content on your user page. If they're interested they'll look at it, if they aren't they won't. No harm is done. The new user interface shows when users are created. Please don't put a welcome message on those users' talk pages yet. We can wait until they make their first edit. I have never felt constrained by time, so I don't really feel like monitoring when somebody makes their first edit to be able to immediately welcome them. I welcome a user when I feel like it and I don't when I don't feel like it. Just like I only write comments to users when I feel it is necessary. Sometimes to encourage them, sometimes to tell them we do things differently than what they just produced, etc. I do this to save time. The quicker they adapt to the standards we developed, the less time we need to spend to clean up after them. I'm a very practical kind of guy. Anyway, if you feel like welcoming somebody, just go ahead. You are extremely active and are just as entitled to do it as anybody else, maybe even more so. Polyglot 06:11, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Welcome back --Stranger,

Sometimes it's good to take some time off. Don't worry about my remark of the level I suppose a 14 year old ought to have, concerning the knowledge of grammar terms. Just do what you feel able to do and don't worry about the rest. There are going to be things going on that are over your head. Well, relax, there are things that are over my head as well and when it comes to technical stuff there is stuff going on that is over the real linguists heads. We all contribute in the way we can and every little bit is appreciated. You tend to do a lot. That's great, don't overdo it though. If it feels like a job or a chore, you're putting in too much. Do what is fun to you. Also, the dishwashing is not something that needs to be done on a daily basis. Do it once a week or every two weeks. If you don't do it for a month or two, somebody else may pitch in and that's fine too. Polyglot 09:18, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

deleting templates

Your doing a good job - but could you use the normal request method, rather than creating a talk page that then has to be deleted itself. Cheers. SemperBlotto 07:09, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm likely done, but I will do for future reference. I just didn't know if it was "legal" because it was a "template". --Stranger 12:20, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Various replies

The Romanica material was added more than a year ago by a person who is an active supporter of this constructed language. There is clearly no support for maintaining it, but the fact that there were over 700 articles for it makes it a long job to remove it all. There is some mention of constructed languages on Criteria for Inclusion, and a further discussion on RFD at Novial. I don't see the question phrased in terms of what harm it does but what good it does; when you don't take out the trash it just piles up and people start to think it's important.

Maintaining rfd is not usually that big a deal; it just requires keeping up. I did get distracted over my debate with dmh who seems to want to argue in favor of keeping damn near everything without any evidence. I expect that I'll have it back in order in the next couple days.

Your last paragraph is really two issues. There has never been any agreement to dump the RfC page. I still think that it's an excelllent place for people to find things to do if they only take the time to go there. The biggest problem with limiting these matters to the individual talk pages is they are even less likely to be noticed. What I would really like to find is a way that would inspire people to do the actual cleanups. Simply putting an rfc template on a page accomplishes even less because what needs cleaning up is often not stated.

The issue that you seem to have mixed with it is what to do with the discussion on the RfD page. This is especially a problem with pages that are eventually deleted. I did move one such discussion to the talk page for a deleted, but did not feel all that satisfied with the process. I don't know if the matter is still being talked about; these kinds of discussions have a record of fading away with no decisions ever really being made. To whatever extent you feel that these discussions are worth saving just copy them to wherever you feel they should be kept; I'm sure you're likely to save more of them than I would. I try to make a point of waiting at least a week after the last comment before removing anything (including the obvious ones). Can I assume that within that week you will use your judgement to save whatever needs saving? Having you deal with that would be a much bigger help than removing the no-brainers. Eclecticology 21:06, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Categories

Hi --Stranger,

I've posted an answer to your question about categories in the Beer Parlour. I hope you find it useful. — Paul G 09:56, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Javascript

Hi Stranger,

Don't worry for not understanding the mechanics of those javascripts. The purpose is to have obviously wrong formatting on pages cleaned up or fixed automatically. If you would like, I can set up your account so it also happens for you. If it freaks you out, you simply holler and we set it back to how it is now. If the script makes changes, you can see what it did below the edit box. If you feel like doing a lot of work, without necessarily needing to actually having to type it all yourself, this is very gratifying. Of course you still have to check what the script did and submit it by pressing the save page button. Let me know if you want this. It's fairly simple to do, but you need to give me permission since it changes how your browser reacts when you edit a page. Polyglot 11:42, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi Stranger,

Um, yes. Everything Jo (Polyglot) said above. I'd recommend holding off on becoming a beta alpha tester right now. Jo has two advantages over you: 1) general programming experience and 2) solid Wiki* formatting expertise. Right now, the javascript reflects my editing style. The script currently has quite a few limitations as well. I've tried hard to keep the substitution code very simple so far, but I've taken that about as far as it will go now...next is to column-balance the translation sections (as I do offline) then make the header level corrections more intelligent. Both of those things will quickly devolve into complicated code.

I've been using this to auto-format entries that are *known* to be bad (from my lists at User talk:Connel MacKenzie/todo2 and User talk:Connel MacKenzie/todo3.) It is *very* important to recognize that my automated changes are wrong 10-40% of the time, for such entries. Having written it myself, I do not completely "trust" this code.

--Connel MacKenzie 13:39, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

fibre optics

Hi,

I saw your posting about this on SemperBlotto's talk page. The policy on spelling variations is as he says: whichever one gets in first gets the full treatment with the other(s) mentioned as alternative spellings, and the other(s) is/are redirected to that page.

You mention spelling variants of "World Trade Center", but that phrase is spelled like that in all varieties of English because it is a proper noun, in the same way that we Brits also write "Pearl Harbor" (the place in Hawaii) and not "Pearl Harbour" (although there is a place with this spelling in New Zealand, which Americans spell with a "u" as well). Those are the only spellings of those nouns. (Of course, if these were to feature in Wiktionary, we would probably want redirects from the misspellings in case people search on them and so that people don't create the pages with the wrong titles. This is what Wikipedia does - if you search for "World Trade Centre", you are redirected to a page with the US spelling.) — Paul G 13:53, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Hello, I noticed this post by accident. Paul, that is very much not the consensus. Where is this policy that you allude to? We Are Not Wikipedia and lexically, spelling differences are very important; in general not to be dealt with by redirects. --Connel MacKenzie 20:10, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Requests for Cleanup

Thank you for taking the arduous task of clearing this out. But I'm not sure I like what has happened here. It is not clear where items that still have not been cleaned up were archived to? Am I missing something? Did each of these get addressed before getting removed? --Connel MacKenzie 20:06, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Gosh, what a complex question - or three. On what is it based? Did you review the history of RFC? An answer later. But in the meantime, can you be more specific? --Stranger 03:37, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry; yes that was worded poorly. RFC entries I thought generally stuck around until an entry was cleaned up by someone. I was looking at the cleanup you had been doing there, and saw the thing about [[en: entries that needed to be changed to [[w: and did not see where that got archived to. So, I was just wondering, I guess.

Also, I am very sorry to hear of your declining health. --Connel MacKenzie 15:56, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

That was in the context, if I remember correctly, of the change from "www.wiktionary.org" to "en.wiktionary.org" and it appeared to be corrected. I briefly looked at the recent entry you put on RFC and it looked like some of your entries were interwiki links which I thought we weren't supposed to touch. (At least on one entry I saw a [en:something] at the bottom of the page along with, like, [it:something], etc.)

Generally, if it looked like things were cleansed, they were removed from the list. Most of the time I did NOT do the cleansing myself - someone else had done and just forgot to remove the entry from the RFC list.

Nothing was archived. I did create a temporary archive to "divide and conquer" but I incorporated it back into the main list.

Loosing my train of thought. Gotta go. Cheers, --Stranger 14:42, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

aloha! Hello.

I am not sure whether this will alay your fears at all, but the camp I was at was in central Vermont, little in the way of surf there...although we did have a pond. While your dystopian visions of my return aren't all that far off, my cruelty is only surmounted by my imagination to be sure, the one you should really fear is Dvortygirl, and then only if the words "ass puss" are in your vocaublary. Welcome to Wikt. Peace out brah, ;) ^theDaveRoss 16:51, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

about me

Just a note about me in case anyone is interested. More doctors appointments beginning this morning - some more urgent than others. I don't think I'm at death's door, but Real Life is interfering in my Wiktionary efforts. Hopefully I can come back from time to time to tweak a few things. I really enjoy it. But I have become less and less communicative, as I'm sure you've noticed. One word explanation: drugs. They don't leave me with a very clear head. Some tweaking is pretty mindless and I'm happy I can help out that way even when I'm not at 100%, but talking requires more clarity and concentration than I'm able to give. Starting to loose my train of thought already - thus, it's time to go. Cheers, --Stranger 12:36, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

admin

You wanna go for admin?. You'll get it almost surely. Heck, if I could, so could you. --Wonderfool 09:06, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Romanica Template

Thanks for pointing it out. I've deleted it, along with a lot of links to it. Eclecticology 21:58, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Order and level of "related terms" heading

Hi stranger. I see you've been moving some "related terms" sections and changing their level: [[1]]

This is not right. Most people using a dictionary are only interested in one language (I'm an exception) and for that reason we put all the monolingual sections before the bilingual section "translation" since fewer people are looking for translations. The reason "related" (and "derived") belong higher is because they contain derived words and compounds which most tradition dictionaries include under the primary headword, or at least nearby alphabetically. Since we don't do either we place the links to them in a prominent position. So where a normal dictionary would have "redness" and "redden" in their entry for "red" we have separate articles for each but make links to them easily available. More people want these traditional dictionary features than want features only found in the more specialized translating dictionaries.

Also the heading level should reflect what we know. If we know a derived or related term is related to the noun in an article which also has a verb, then the section should be level-4 and go under noun to reflect this. When we don't know which they related to we can use the more vague level-3 and then put the section below all parts of speech. Some articles have two or even three related terms sections for this reason.

If our formatting guide says otherwise we better start discussing this on the beer parlour. I've been using the derived and related headings consistently this way for at least a year and a half - and probably longer. — Hippietrail 15:16, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for being so kind in your correction of my tweaks. My action from this point on will be to simply leave those sections alone. I haven't been lurking/reading BP or other sections of Wiktionary. I've only been tweaking where I've noticed some errors.

To explain my rationale: I wanted the translation section directly under the "noun" instead of following "derived terms" (for example) because I wanted to avoid the confusion that the translations were for the derived terms instead of the noun itself. It seems more intuitive to me (as a newbie/stranger) that a translation would follow directly what was being transcribed. Therefore, if Translations followed Related Terms, someone could conclude that it was the Related Terms that were being translated, not the foregoing Noun or Verb.

Just my thoughts. Again, thanks for lacing your comments with care and kindness. I get very nervous these days that I'm doing something terribly wrong that's doing more harm than my intended good. Cheers, --Stranger 16:07, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

No problem. You're very welcome. I'm glad you found the care and kindness in my message. Sometimes in my haste I come across less careful and kind to some users so I'm happy not to have been hasty this time.

I know our format isn't perfect and you bring up some good points. Some day hopefully we'll be able to have user preferences which allow each person to put the sections in the order they like and hide sections they don't need. But that seems a way off yet so we do the best we can.

Keep up the good work. I've been noticing your presence. — Hippietrail 15:37, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi Stranger,

I also don't find time to contribute a lot lately. All I ever manage to do is to review the anonymous contributions every once in a while. It's amazing to see how much cruft gets added by anons, which is not noticed by the regulars. Anyway, don't worry about contributing a bit less for a while. Life is a flow. Sometimes the tide is high, other times it's low. I contribute when it makes me feel better and I don't when I already have enough around my head.

Cheers,

Jo

Anagrams

Hi --Stranger,

It's beyond Wiktionary's remit to give anagrams, so I am removing these from the entries where you have added them. You might ask why this is — I would say that it's because people don't use a dictionary to find anagrams of words, whereas they do to find synonyms, translations, etc, which we do provide. There are other websites around that do give anagrams.

— Paul G 09:54, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I see you've added quite a lot, so rather than remove them all, I'm raising this for discussion in the Beer Parlour to see what the general view is. — Paul G 10:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

So far there hasn't been much objection to anagrams going in, so it's only fair that I restore what I have deleted. — Paul G 10:14, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Great, long live the anagrams! --Wonderfool 10:41, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Nomination

--Stranger,

It would have been nice of Wonderfool to ask you first, or at least notify you, but please take a look at Wiktionary:Administrators. You will notice, if you scroll down a bit, that you have been nominated. I planned on giving you a bit more time to settle in, but I have watched you for some time now with thoughts of nominating you myself. At any rate, you certainly have my support.

If you would like a couple extra buttons at the top of your screen, please accept your nomination on the Administrators page. Either way, thank you for your solid, thoughtful contributions, congratulations, and good luck. --Dvortygirl 16:48, 2 December 2005 (UTC)