User talk:Connel MacKenzie/archive-2007-10

back to http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Special:Prefixindex/User_talk:Connel_MacKenzie/archive

foreign entries

There is (further) talk at Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup#glatt concerning how to include Latin-alphabet spellings of words meant as foreign but often published using Latin letters. Your thoughts are sought (there).—msh210℠ 18:21, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Watching CheatBot

undoubtableest, undoubtableer (and plural forms? comparatives, surely ;-) ... Robert Ullmann 06:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Because TheCheatBot first expands out templates, then looks at the headings within "undoubtable" it finds (because of the new syntax not handled correctly) both "undoubtable"+"er" and +"est". The regular syntax for {{en-adj}} to mark something uncountable is "{{en-adj|-|-}}" (so that's one error,) and the fact that it is intentionally the wrong template entirely leaves the expanded forms to be interpreted as "plural of." (The error upon error, that TCB merely propagates.)

I usually do a better job of scanning the list (this one at 2007-09-29,) but then, even when some errors creep in, are not hard to correct. The less feedback I get, the harder it is to stay on top of. So, thank you. --Connel MacKenzie 12:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Delete button

Connel, I would happily accept that responsibility. It would be a help to others, as well. sewnmouthsecret 15:16, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

son of a...

How would I avoid losing translations/formatting when undoing edits in the future? sewnmouthsecret 20:06, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

You did nothing wrong; when I use the (undo) feature, (as opposed to [rollback],) the edit in question is not marked as patrolled, and the the (undo) function itself acts only as a regular edit. This causes my "reformat.js" to take a pass at editing the page, correcting minor (but common) errors, much like AutoFormat now does. --Connel MacKenzie 20:14, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: Welcome

Hey. I know about wikimarkup (I'm a Wikipedian) but the rest will be helpful, although I plan on doing mainly anti-vandalism (you do have that here, don't you?). That was a pretty fast welcome. —Ignatzmice^talk_contribs 18:15, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

:-) Well, we don't normally welcome newcomers until they made a couple edits...but as part of the "introduction to Wiktionary" discussion we're having in IRC, it made sense. --Connel MacKenzie 18:16, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

how to merge

Hi Connel, I've got a little group or articles cleaned up from Transwiki that are ready to be merged.[1] Usually I just want to merge the etymology or a better written definition. I can do it if just told how. I understand we have to preserve all the authors, somehow? Note I am not an admin. Goldenrowley 16:58, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, I just did the history merge of Appendix:English prefixes. You'll now merge the actual content together, right? Before I do the rest, please confirm that this is what you want me to do.

I think we need a place to list the completed history merges, so the content merges can be done. Any suggestions for where there should be listed? (Perhaps in Category:Articles to be merged itself?)

I mentioned early this year that the first few people I saw doing 50 or a hundred Wiktionary-side Transwiki cleanups would automatically get a sysop nomination from me. Do you mind if I nominate you for your own sysop buttons at this point? --Connel MacKenzie 17:32, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks MacKenzie, I dont know I am too new to be an admin. I dont want to have too much power to mess up with. So only admins can do merges? Goldenrowley 23:37, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll tell you what, you can nominate me I may be ready in a few more weeks of practice. Goldenrowley 15:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I guess I have more confidence in your abilities to use sysop buttons responsibly, than you do.  :-) Wiktionary formatting is different - no doubt - but after cutting your teeth on a hundred or two Transwikis, you now know what to look out for, I think. I don't think there is any implied mastery of the ever-changing format requirements! I'll put the nomination up tonight; please remember to check your e-mail settings and stuff, then indicate your acceptance on WT:VOTE. --Connel MacKenzie 18:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Whoops, just checked again, Special:Emailuser/Goldenrowley still doesn't work. --Connel MacKenzie 17:23, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Emotion: bogus and copyvio

I tried hard to produce a definition of the term emotion that way it is used in psychology, that did not ape APA and did not accidentally duplicate MW3's definitions.

• What do I have to do to convince you it is not a copyvio?
• What do I have to do to convince you it is not bogus?

One thing I can assure you is that I will NEVER do a mere one-word switch from an APA definition. If theirs is three words, mine would be seven with at most one of their words included. I make sure that whatever I come up with does NOT accidentally duplicate anything of theirs, but yet roughly agrees. If this doesn't work for you, I don't know how I can contribute.

As to the emotion entry, I would be inclined the challenge the sole meaning that remains, which makes it quite possible that, say, the feel of fur is an emotion, referring as it does to the senses. If that is the only meaning, then it is impossible for me to justify including a WP reference to the Wiktionary definition in the WP article on "emotion", against my normal practice of inserting Wiktionary whenever I remember. Please help me. DCDuring 23:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I've restored your definitions there. I don't see any specific matches in any dictionaries, so I'm not sure why I was so distressed originally. OTOH, I don't see how the single definition doesn't really cover the others..."an internal state..." I don't see how you arrived at your interpretation of that definition, but I can't invest further time in it right now. Does that meet your needs for the entry 'emotion'? --Connel MacKenzie 00:41, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, yes, that's great. If you need to check up on me, the issue is going to be with the APA Dictionary, which I use a lot. Perhaps you have a trusted compatriot who owns it. But I have taken the recent copyvio unpleasantness to heart and am trying to make sure that I do not ever closely paraphrase that source or any other that I use. But I would like to make sure that Wiktionary includes senses consistent with that source. Obviously I can't prevent my accidental "reinvention" of a definition, as apparently happened with "form factor" and some O'Reilly book.

• I HAVE cleaned up all the copyvios that I was responsible for due to my poor understanding of the issue.
• I am also trying to get some clarity about valid use in Wikipedia of quoted and cited material from the APA dictionary, which I now hopefully assume is different from valid use in Wiktionary (basically, none).
• I would like you to feel that you can trust me not to make the same mistakes again.
• I would be happy to check psych definitions for copyvio with the APA Dictionary if you have suspicions and redefine or delete. DCDuring 01:29, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

out of a paper bag

Hi. Re: I'm not sure what you mean by "categories" above, but I agree that out of a paper bag would be a good "main entry" that the other forms hard-redirect to.

• Category "English prepositional phrases" is a very useful grammatical group that takes care of these kind of expressions really well. That is why I set up the category. Glad to see my suggestion was accepted BTW. Algrif 12:42, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for cleaning up this long forgotten entry. A little more context (what "'categories' above?") would be helpful, as I think I missed something, in what you said here. (And yes, Category:English prepositional phrases seems quite helpful.) --Connel MacKenzie 20:33, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Eigentümer

Hi. You combined the two noun sections in this entry. Please note that the two words have a different gender: Eigentümer(m)=owner; Eigentum(n), plural Eigentümer=properties. After your edits it looks like both of them are (m). I don't know how to handle this case correctly and unfortunately the help pages are not helpful either. --Zeitlupe 14:31, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The thing is, it can either be done this way or by repeating the Noun header. Proposing either one gets objections saying either (1) there shouldn't be additional inflection lines in the defs section, or (2) the POS header should only appear once. (In no case does the person objecting offer a coherent solution, just you can't do it that way ;-) Robert Ullmann 14:40, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Heh. --Connel MacKenzie 19:54, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

While I understand your frustration and appreciate you notifying me of my slight oversight, I too, am left wondering what would work better, in your opinion. Something like this?

==German==

===Noun===
{{de-noun-m|genitive=Eigentümers|plural=Eigentümer}}

# [[owner]], [[proprietor]]
# {{i|neuter}} {{plural of|lang=German|Eigentum}}

I think, offhand, that would match the general format our readers are accustomed to, better. --Connel MacKenzie 19:54, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a particular opinion on that myself, because I am not too familiar with the customs here. In general, I find it difficult too find out what the customs are, because the pages are not structured consistently, and different people use different conventions and templates. It would be much easier for newcomers, if the help pages were up-to-date, and included more special cases. I am also missing links to reference entries for English and non-English pages containing all the possible sections. It is much faster to follow an example than to read help pages. --Zeitlupe 20:27, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

This particular formatting error has only recently (relatively) surfaced as having some legitimate excuse for being tried. If you were to ask Stephen or Ruakh, they'd agree that the issue is far from settled. that doesn't mean the formatting error is correct; just that others haven't recognized that our current formats do allow for this sort of situation (as I demonstrated above, here.)

As for the Help: namespace, it would be really cool if someone stepped up to filling it out. It probably should have four to ten times as much information as it currently does. But writing that material is not something that I find interesting, personally. (I'm not particularly gifted at that style of writing, anyhow.) --Connel MacKenzie 20:39, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Emailing me

Connel, I updated my preferences to allow for emailing but also changed my email address; I don't have access to it at work so i will need to get everything fixed when I get home, if that's alright. sewnmouthsecret 19:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Yup! Just a friendly reminder, was all. --Connel MacKenzie 19:50, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

It should be good to go.. let me know if you still have issues. sewnmouthsecret 03:46, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

\o/   --Connel MacKenzie 04:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Common Categories

If you're gonna undo my work please drop me a note with some sort of explanation, thanx
L
— This unsigned comment was added by Language Lover (talk • contribs) at 04:55, 11 October 2007 (UTC).

header: personal pronoun

Hi, Connel. When you cleanup ===Personal pronoun=== in an entry with just the emboldened headword on the headword line (e.g.: ===Pronoun===\n'''he'''), could you append "(personal)" to the headword line (e.g.: ===Pronoun===\n'''he''' (''personal'') or alternatively convert it to use {{infl}} (e.g.: ===Pronoun===\n{{infl|xx|pronoun|personal}})? Otherwise, it seems like the "personal" aspect of the pronoun is lost. If the headword line already has any grammar details, it probably already covers the "personal" nature of the pronoun, so there should be no need for any such indicator. Rod (A. Smith) 17:18, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

That is generally what I've been doing. Did you spot any specific mistakes? Sometimes it is not relevant (especially in English.) Other times, it is in a manual category. In any and every case, the heading ===Personal pronoun=== is wrong. --Connel MacKenzie 17:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I have only seen one [2] that lost a "personal" indicator. The vast majority of those edits have been perfect. (Thanks for the usually thankless cleanup effort.) Rod (A. Smith) 18:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

embourgeoisement

Non-standard, how so? Widsith 09:59, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the gap of the pond is growing. http://news.google.com/news?q=%22embourgeoisement%22 Such a construction is a little beyond silly, no? --Connel MacKenzie 10:47, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

That certainly suggests rarity, but doesn't make it "non-standard", a term which implies that there is some other "standard" word for the same idea. But there isn't. This word is in the OED and Chambers and has been cited by a broadsheet newspaper and an eminent historian, which makes it pretty standard in my book. Widsith 15:30, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

More than rarity, it suggests it is British - hence, unheard of, over here. I don't know why England has abandoned all rules for word formation, but that unnatural utterance wouldn't/couldn't be said here. Likewise, its appearance in British references, but not American unabridged sources reinforces that notion. For coherency and clarity, that concept would only be phrased as something like "became more bourgeoisie" if intended for serious publication. The use of the playful prefix and silly suffix and using the French spelling instead of including the second "i" makes it a "Simpsons-like" jocular or nonsense formation, albeit, one that doesn't yet exist as such.

All that said, I thought you were asking why I tagged it, rather than asking if it is OK to correct the tag from "nonstandard" to "UK". I'll make that adjustment now.

Thank you for that unexpected pleasure; I've become rather accustomed to the newer more militant/disruptive contributor's tactic of "flip-the-bird, change first, then discuss." The civility you demonstrated (that at one time was the rule here) is so rare these days, I didn't even suspect you were being kind and rational, by simply asking the question.

--Connel MacKenzie 17:45, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Please see this revision. I don’t think this word warrants a {{chiefly UK}} tag; however, perhaps a {{chiefly sociology}} tag would be apt. What do you say? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 22:38, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I find that fascinating...you found a quote of someone named "MacKenzie" (capitalized "M" and "K" if one is to believe the b.g.c. link provided) yet found a passage were it is erroneously in lowercase? Or is that some kind of slight?

The one "American sociology" quotation given uses it in quotation marks. Doesn't that make you wonder why? The Puerto Rican citation likewise is discussing other (British?) Caribbean islands. The rest, do seem to be more directly British. Indeed, I'm more inclined to assert the "Chiefly British" or perhaps even "Only British English" now. --Connel MacKenzie 22:52, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

The “mackenzie” quotation was an extra one given on the hits screen itself — it seems GBS only shows a maximum of three of those snippet view boxes. Not a slight — search for it yourself and Ctrl+F (or whatever your shortcut key is) Contemporary Sociology if you don’t believe me. That American sociology quotation uses it with quotation marks only for what I assume to be the first occurrence of the term. IMO, this is a largely unanglicised academic term whose use is chiefly restricted to sociology; I don’t find any evidence of specifically UK usage. However, if you still think that there is, that’s fine — I have no desire to argue. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 23:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Interesting that I can't find that quote, even using your ".co.uk" link. Interesting too, that following the original link and searching for "Affluent Worker" yields only one hit (also on page 44) that matches the citation, not at all. Very strange and a bit discomfiting, despite your reassurances.

Simply ignoring the different grammatic constructions (left pond vs. right pond) makes it easy to misunderstand this term as being possible in GenAm. I doubt you could use this term in a technical environment (such as a talk on sociology) over here with provoking snickers or outright laughter. That of course, is fine, if that is the desired response. I consider myself honored to have now learned that such a ridiculous-seeming construction is possible elsewhere. --Connel MacKenzie 00:02, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I found the link for you; curiously, “MacKenzie” is properly capitalised therein, whereas the GBS hit that lead me thither still displays erroneous capitalisation (see the top hit of this search). I’m at a loss to explain why.

Simply, this is a borrowing, which I think, if used outside the academic sociological context (at least if spoken outside of such a context), would sound a bit pretentious on either side of the transatlantic divide. It probably wouldn’t sound so pretentious, however, if it were pronounced /ɛmˈbɔːʒwæzmənt/. (BTW, if you don’t understand IPA, I’ll be happy to give you an enPR or SAMPA transcription instead.) Although, in such a register, “bourgeoisification” seems more appropriate. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 01:36, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to copy all this to the Talk Page. Widsith 14:07, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Bel & Dr.

An aprocryphal book of the Bible - see new entry deuterocanonical, I shouldn't have started down this road - it is more ramified than "Matthew, Mark, Luke and John" ! —Saltmarsh^Talk 06:03, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Wild. Who knew? --Connel MacKenzie 06:21, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

obtention

First, feel free to move this discussion to a different place if it's misplaced, I'm no regular here, and I'll try to follow to there to continue if need be. Second, thanks for the move from the upper to lower case, I missed that :)... I'm used to that not working. Third, the word may well be common, I have no idea. But I have (or had? it was measured at one point) a 200K english vocab and I'd not heard of it before. When I saw it on Wikisource in this revision I checked here first, didn't find it, and added it. (I'll watch here and you can reply here if you like) ++Lar: t/c 00:39, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

200k+? Wow - I think you need to spend more time around here!  :-)

I've never heard this one before, either, but checking http://books.google.com/books?q=%22obtention%22, I saw several non-French books that seem to indicate it is used seriously in various scientific contexts. (Admittedly, a very small sample.) Having just seen other weird misspellings minutes before that, I was at first worried that you (or someone) had intended abstention - at least until I saw the contents of the entry. --Connel MacKenzie 03:17, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

10/17

IRC isn't connecting for me (CGI wrap error), so please be forewarned: w:Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 2007. --EncycloPetey 23:42, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Fughedabouwdit. I'm going on strike for that 24 hr period. --Connel MacKenzie 00:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Hrm. I have no idea why chatwikizine.memebot.com is dead. But it is. Have you tried asking what's-his-name over on wikizine.org about it? --Connel MacKenzie 05:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki for templates

Take a look at the proposed solution implemented on Template:User en (the Talk page itself still needs a little tweaking). Is this a good solution? Urhixidur 16:34, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the jobs listed in Special:Statistics, I'm inclined to say no. [3]. Let's have this conversation in WT:GP please, where others can chime in. Perhaps it is time to consider sysop-protecting the entire Template: namespace...any time another method is tried somewhere else (now, even Wikipedia) the "NIH" syndrome kicks in. You are not the first person to think that en.wikt: "does it wrong" and proceeds to make corrections based on your experience elsewhere.

Besides the "not invented here" syndrome, I am not convinced that subsequent changes to the "onlyinclude" section of the talk page won't have exactly the same effect (of flooding the job queue.) With a fresh XML dump occupying my attention, I cannot play with it right now.

--Connel MacKenzie 17:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Urhixidur: Yes, it is just as bad. Look, why are you so determined to force the iwikis into the template? Just put them on the talk page normally. We don't need or want them on the templates; they serve no function whatsoever. On the talk/doc page, which people may actually look at them and use them, yes, they can be useful. (Note where {{User en}} sends you?) Robert Ullmann 10:14, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Sources

Hi, thanks for the welcome message! I know what Requests for verification is, but should I present the source like I said at the Help desk, or should I intergrate it into the text? --Harris Morgan 19:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

The references desired for RFVs are citations showing that word in use (mainly, from published books.) Those references are added to a ===Quotations=== subsection of the entry itself. See Wiktionary:Quotations for formatting guidelines. The References section is used for etymology and usage notes (secondary source listings.) Does that answer your question, or have I misunderstood what you asked? --Connel MacKenzie 19:13, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

No, you have given exactly what I needed. Thank you. Often, modern (especially American) latin cities won't be found in books, website resources from colleges are sometimes the best resources around. Does the source at Sicagum fit in here? --Harris Morgan 19:25, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh my, don't you know Latin is a dead language? (Sorry, couldn't resist joking. You must hear that sort of joke a lot.)

The principle is that we can't go around creating words for things; there has to be some demonstrated use of the term somewhere. For English terms, we very strongly prefer (printed) published books. Offhand, I don't know what Wiktionary:About Latin says about attestation. I'll try to check into it later. --Connel MacKenzie 19:43, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

definite

Thank you for correcting my misspelling "definate". I started catching my mistake a while back, and all my new entries with that disclaimer use the spelling definite. - Gilgamesh 10:14, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

How is gradatim obsolete?

I don’t agree that it is. I would have just removed the {{obsolete}} tag, but since you like being asked first, I thought I’d do just that. So, why do you believe that gradatim is obsolete? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 10:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Because it is. Checking other English dictionaries, it cannot be found. Checking the quotations, found on b.g.c., it is discussed only as a Latin term. Checking the citations in the entry, all citations of use as English are over a hundred years old. But in fact, I should have looked closer, as all the citations given on the page seem to be borrowings, not English use. So, indeed, it seems listing it as ==English== at all, is the error. --Connel MacKenzie 14:03, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

You mean archaic; obsolete is different — though it isn’t that either. I’ve just added another seven citations to the entry, all from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Does this make you reconsider? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 13:22, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

It is very hard not to be argumentative, when presented with citations like those. Do you honestly want me to pick apart each one? I honestly do not understand your objection to marking obsolete terms as obsolete. Looking at those citations, I am more convinced it is used only as a Latin borrowing, (usually erroneously or redundantly, if those citations are accurate reflections of use,) not as an English term. --Connel MacKenzie 19:16, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I intentionally chose two works by Chinese academics (who, I reasoned, would be very unlikely to be well-versed in Latin), to try to convince you that this is not just a Latin word. (Sure, it’s more commonly found in Latin — but so what? –I bet that happens all the time with Anglo–French homographs.) Your it’s-a-Latin-borrowing-occasionally-used-in-English-to-convey- erudition argument holds some water with highly unnaturalised foreign phrasal nouns and adjectives, but it does not for gradatim; it might have been once (as, I daresay, was the case with all Latin borrowings at some stage), but it is not now. Please, reconsider (in light of the fifteen citations spanning 350 years, and the existence of the other -atim-terminal adverbs literatim, seriatim, and especially verbatim). † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 19:30, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

You obviously feel very strongly about this, so I'll choose my wording carefully. I do not strongly object to changing {{obsolete}} to {{archaic}} for this term, but I do not understand the motivation/desire to do so. To my ear it sounds positively wrong - doing minimal research on the term confirms my suspicions. You have responded not by researching what the distinction is, rather instead, only spent time (apparently an extraordinary amount of time) finding counter-examples. Granted, they are not all dubious. But they certainly are not reflective of English use - in English the term is considered Latin...which is exactly why the Latin spelling is retained in contrast with gradually. Your examples literatim and seriatim have not entered English to even the slightest degree that the word verbatim has. If those are listed as English, not Latin, then that too, seems erroneous. Perhaps even intentionally misleading. The point isn't to list things incorrectly, then find supporting evidence for the errors! --Connel MacKenzie 19:58, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Inside baseball

I am curious as to why it is that "inside baseball", a common expression among pundits in the U.S., is outlawed. It's been used for 30 years or so and hasn't been defined when used for at least 20 of those years. It certainly doesn't seem SoP. Is the discussion of its exclusion documented? How can said documentation be found? DCDuring 15:08, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea. Wait, no, I do have some guesses. To clarify for lurkers: An "inside ball" is one that whizzes too close to the batter (i.e. between home plate and the batter) - that is, a type of "ball" (ball being the antonym of strike, not just any hardball used in baseball, nor any softball used in softball, but rather the umpire's "call" of the "pitch.") That said, let me enumerate some theoretic factors: (which is to say, I think we probably should have an entry for inside ball / inside baseball)

1. Such a wild pitch will first of all, have other modifiers. "A wild inside pitch...", "...a nasty inside curve...", "...he was nailed by an inside beaner."
2. The object/noun isn't always just "ball" (and only very rarely "baseball.") Sometimes it is a "pitch," "curveball," "slowball," "fastball," "spitball" etc.
3. Precedence/order isn't well defined...it can be "an inside foul ball" or "a foul inside ball" - both are perfectly valid in a baseball context (and quite common.)
4. In its most figurative use, it is still a literal/physical description.
5. Baseball jargon has been inexplicably ignored by stuffy, pretentious linguists.  :-)

I've never seen a linguistic discussion of this term, before now. To repeat, I agree with you, that it does (erm, they do) seem to merit an entry(s) here. Particularly when considering the fact that most sports jargon is reused figuratively in business contexts, it seems inexcusable to omit these terms. There couldn't be more than two thousand baseball-specific jargon terms - I think we should include them all. --Connel MacKenzie 15:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

• Egads, did I get your question wrong? Did you mean "inside baseball" meaning locker-room discussions or baseball-privy information? (Confer: w:Inside Hollywood or w:Inside Edition, etc.) --Connel MacKenzie 15:38, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

"the term "inside baseball" to describe an issue of concern only to professionals" (New York Times, 7 February 1982, p. EM). DCDuring 16:54, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

• Yikes and yowza, did I still get it wrong? Did you mean the decryption of bull-pen hand signals? --Connel MacKenzie 15:39, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Connel, what you're describing may or may not be inside ball, but it is definitely inside pitch, would would describe any pitch thrown "inside". sewnmouthsecret 15:41, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

• Kazzam! OK, strike "two thousand." I still maintain this is a finite list - probably fewer than 20,000 common, unambiguous baseball terms that should be defined here. w:List of baseball jargon. We certainly should have entries for all of them. --Connel MacKenzie 15:44, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

How much use do we need in a non-sports context to include a sports term? "Inside baseball" is not even used much as a sports term, but is common on talking heads television here in US. It is used by journalists talking about journalism stories or political pundits talking about inside the Beltway Washington politics. I wouldn't be offended if sports terms without attested non-sports usage were excluded (three-step drop comes to mind.) DCDuring 16:47, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't know - as long as they are all tagged with {{baseball}}, (erm, or {{football}}, when the POV-pushers finally concede to rename the "wrong" template back to {{soccer}},) they'll be able to be excluded from regular searches as the software here improves. A three-step drop is obviously important in football; it can't be an odd-step drop as one is way too close and five is far too far, nor for balance could it be any even number of steps. (e.g. "He is now in the hospital with three broken ribs, after trying to do a three-step drop in two steps.") To reiterate: I don't think any figurative attestation is required to include a properly-labeled sports term...as long as it is attested as a genuine sports term, it should be OK. --Connel MacKenzie 17:00, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Gah! OK, someone "fixed" it so that {{fb}} is "football", but {{football}} is "soccer". I suppose that partially works. Pretty ridiculously a UK non-NPOV, though. --Connel MacKenzie 17:04, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't even aware that "inside baseball" had ever been a baseball term. It is in the WP:Baseball Jargon list. I don't really remember having heard it in the baseball sense. Looking over the baseball jargon list, perhaps 30 terms might have common non-sports usage. Perhaps lesser numbers from sports that are not "America's pastime". Probably 100-200 terms in all if only non-sports usage is included.

I put the original question on your page because your name appeared as author of the message that I got when I was prevented from adding an entry. Why is it blocked? Is there any reason for it? DCDuring 17:31, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh wow, I misunderstood your question. I've restored the original - offhand, I don't now know why I deleted it on sight, rather than research it, reword it, format it and reference it. Seems likely to have been entered during a flurry of nonsense, mistakenly zapped at that time. --Connel MacKenzie 17:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I can understand the impulse to delete - with prejudice - some of the entries and proposed entries. I only wish I had that power. DCDuring 18:05, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Formatting question

For languorously, should there be no comparative/superlative? I'm unsure when to use that. For hydrogen vehicle, would one normally add a plural sense? sewnmouthsecret 16:17, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

You can't remove the headings, (just to add the templates?) I'm completely unsure about languorously...I'm still not comfortable with {{en-adv}} defaulting in compar/superl. Adjective - yes, adverbs - not really. (I haven't dug into that...and I'm prepared to be corrected on that point.)

Hydrogen vehicles do exist - but the rollback was just for the removal of the heading. {{en-noun|sg=[[hydrogen]] [[vehicle]]}} should be fine on the line after the heading. --Connel MacKenzie 16:22, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

CheckUser concerns

Hi. I'm UninvitedCompany, a member of the Checkuser Ombudspersion commission that reports to the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Please be aware that the m:CheckUser policy does not permit the use of the CheckUser tool to apply pressure to editors during content disputes. Accordingly, I would urge you to utilize caution in proposing a check, or suggesting that a check might be called for, on individuals with whom you are engaged in a content dispute. Your status as the only individual with CU permissions on enwiktionary other than Dmcdevit (who is also involved in many other projects) should lead you to be conservative in your use of the tool, especially in those cases where the evidence of sock puppetry may not be particularly compelling.

Kindest regards,

UninvitedCompany 15:48, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for that reminder. Please note the situation carefully; I specifically requested a CU-check rather than simply doing it, because the anon-IP slandered me dozens of times, giving the false perception of my involvement. Note too, that there is no "content" dispute at all; the anon-IP hasn't any clue how Wiktionary functions yet makes extraordinary (false) claims of process missteps, only. Finally, note the block request likewise is undue politeness on my part. --Connel MacKenzie 20:08, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Second that: there is/was no content dispute, only process disruption. Robert Ullmann 11:59, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

High five.

Sometimes I pop into recent changes and see you at the end of deleting a long string of nonsense articles, and I just wish I could high-five you, man. bd2412 T 00:57, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

"Mr. Monolingual"

I'll miss him.  ;-) Rod (A. Smith) 05:38, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Gosh - first someone points out that *I* don't have Babel templates listed, then I add them wrong. Some days, I can do nothing right!  :-)   --Connel MacKenzie 06:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't respond quickly enough in chat.

I was spending time trying to format a new entry correctly, when you asked me to create a legitmate entry for kekeke. When I finally figured out the correct formats and submitted the entry, I was going to go back to the chat and say, "Hi, I'm back. I did what you asked. Look at kekeke now." However, you were already gone, so I thought I would let you know here. I was also going to say that I suggested using a bot on Freerice.com so it can really speed the process along to avert hunger to many more starving people. --Takamatsu 08:21, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm very confused now. Our entry for ha-ha lists it as a Korean translation, which I think is also a mistake. Also, you entered ==Romaji== as a language, which can't be right. Right? No wonder that entry was a perennial vandalism target. Which ones have entries on ja.wikt: or ko.wikt:, I wonder?

Sorry if I seemed callous in my response about freerice.com. Those advertisers could just donate the money they should, rather than threaten starvation. But the food will go where it is needed anyway; it is just a question of funding. And as I jokingly said, I do think the goal of increasing people's vocabulary is more important than running a bot to randomly (or even correctly) click those buttons, to try and hurt those advertiser's budgets. (Oh wait - hurting advertisers is a Good Thing...one more @#$%ing Viagra spam...)

Anyhow, I can't even tell if there are entries at some of these targets: ja:kekeke, ko:kekeke, zh:kekeke, vi:kekeke, ja:ha-ha, ko:ha-ha, zh:ha-ha, vi:ha-ha, etc. Do you think they might have spelled it keke? The spelling kekeke is more than 100 times as common, right?

--Connel MacKenzie 09:17, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Most other foreign Wiktionaries are not popular enough to be as comprehensive as ours. This significantly explains why the foreign wikis do not have the entries yet. Since "Keke" is a nickname and generally a name many casually go by, "kekeke" is what the onomatopoeia is called; it helps to eliminate any confusion between the nickname and the sound. --Takamatsu 09:55, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I formatted kekeke as Japanese ... Robert Ullmann 11:56, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: "Anyhow, I can't even tell if there are entries at some of these targets": If you can't tell from the body, you can always look at the number and colors of the tabs; existent entries have histories, which non-existent ones don't, and existent entries have a bluelink to the article, while at non-existent ones it's a redlink to the edit-page. —Ruakh_TALK 15:24, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

This sounds like it's from the Internet meme "zerg rush kekeke" [4], which is supposedly Korean, originating from w:StarCraft (though for all I know it's entirely English by now). At least this would be why the entry draws vandalism. Cynewulf 15:39, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow! Thank you all.

I don't think kekeke is even remotely absorbed into English yet, not even in Internet contexts. The Starcraft thing makes a lot of sense though. Hopefully, having a "real" entry there will minimize the nonsense. (Some words that helps - other words just get worse; hard to guess which this will be.)

I should have logged in on zh, ja, vi, and ko so I could see the localized tabs. Which reminds me, I really should fix my other boxen.

One last series of questions (here on the outdoor patio of WT:BP) for anyone to comment on: the English terms ha-ha, ha ha generally stop (in published writing) after two, but in movies/TV are often "ha, Ha HA!" with very expressive intonation. But sometimes, is just a dismissive ha! With Internet morphology, heh is very common in English (probably the most onomatopoeic of them all, indicating a cross between a grunt and a chuckle.) To be entirely pedantic, I'm not convinced that heh and hehe (in English) are related by anything other than similar spelling. Also, hehe can be written as hehehe, hehehehe... but heh doesn't repeat (evar.) So my question is, which of these translate (and to what) in CJKV? And for comparison, does ho ho ho [5] translate similarly? What ho! I think I'd better have a cup of coffee now...I seem to be dream-typing. (Or maybe this topic is simply too open-ended. Ho, ho, ho!)

--Connel MacKenzie 19:42, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something, you don't need to log in to see the tabs? And I think that heh and hehe are indeed related, in that ha(h):haha::heh:hehe. The only difference is that heh can't be spelled he (for fairly obviously reasons). —Ruakh_TALK 21:58, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I said, to see the localized messages (i.e. in English, as per my user prefs.) Trying to decipher the pages when logged out is quite difficult.

"Heh" is a grunt/sigh thing. "hehe" is a titter or giggle. "haha" is a giggle or laughter. "hah" doesn't really occur in English, does it? *shrug*

--Connel MacKenzie 22:03, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Japanese has lots of different laughs, and they all appear with 2 or more repetitions. The most common are fufufu, a sort of cultured lady's laugh; hohoho, a bit more neutral; hahaha, overt, almost braying. There are less common ones... I've seen "kakaka", which I guess would be a hacking cough sort of laugh. There's probably lots of these sound effects that just show up in a few mangas. Chinese (from what I've seen online) has 哈哈 "haha" and 呵呵 "hehe" (though this pinyin sounds like huh-huh). I don't know anything useful about Korean and Vietnamese. Translating these would be tricky... I'd want to aim for the same sound, but also not mess up subtexts (like "cultured lady"). "hohoho" in English makes me think Santa Claus, which doesn't exactly translate. Maybe a category or appendix of all laugh-noises would be interesting, hmm.. or transcriptions of mouth-noises like hmm. (which would be ふむ or ん in Japanese) Cynewulf 22:34, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

An appendix (or two) sounds like a good idea. One table by comparable sounds, one table by connotation? --Connel MacKenzie 22:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I think I'd run out of horizontal space if we tried to put everything in a table. I threw together a prototype at Appendix:Transcriptions of laughter. Cynewulf 22:49, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you...I guess we'll see where that goes. If it doesn't turn into a vandalism target, it will be useful. --Connel MacKenzie 22:52, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: Administrator

I certainly would not mind. It's time I take a little more responsibility on fighting vandalism and such. --Jyril 08:22, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Rat patrol

I've taken your suggestion to read hidepatrolled=1 for 500 or so, and let it "drift backwards", did need to make sure a couple of details worked correctly in the code. We have now drifted back to 4 October ;-)

I set up the white list and pages at WT:WL/U and WT:WL/P, rather than reading patrolled.js (although the code still does that). What do you think of this? At least for the present, names will have to be added to both. Robert Ullmann 16:31, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Hrm. I've been watching the job queue going rather nuts today, haven't looked at that yet.

I dunno about the separate pages. While it is the right direction to go eventually, I'm not sure it is such a great idea, without #1) a consistent sync method, #2) the AJAX stuff added to patrolled.js. On the other hand, no one besides me seems to be looking at WT:WL anymore (???) so maybe it is a non-issue.

--Connel MacKenzie 16:41, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Can you have RP just read all three then merge into two lists? --Connel MacKenzie 16:45, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

It can easily do that; the question is when someone adds a new one, it ought to be added to both places? The job queue was partly me, improving {context}. (But that was one 86K hit). Robert Ullmann 16:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: Job queue...the bug that has the different svr's out of sync (sometimes ~80,000, sometimes ~300) makes it extra annoying. OK, as long as it was a WT:GP thing, I suppose I shouldn't worry. --Connel MacKenzie 16:56, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Oddly, I'm less convinced that WT:WL/T is such a good idea, now. The main reason, I think, is that it seems to be discouraging "regular" WL nominations, which are still just as relevant as ever. --Connel MacKenzie 17:00, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

off the cuff

Why did you revert my split-into-two-articles request for off the cuff?—msh210℠ 17:13, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I didn't "revert" you (or anyone specifically.) I removed (what I thought) was a spurious tag added a long time ago - as it wasn't actually listed on WT:RFC#off the cuff. FWIW, I usually will add only a {{rfc-split}} rather than list it on WT:RFC. --Connel MacKenzie 17:35, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

WP to WT copy bot?

The Wikipedia "Copy to Wiktionary" bot has not run in 10 days or so, and the candidates are starting to back up. This is mostly an FYI, in case you were not aware that the bot has ceased to function. If you have shut it down for some reason, then that's a different matter, though it would still be nice to know if it is coming back at some point, or if we WP regulars need to look into some other way to handle these dictionary definition articles. - TexasAndroid 13:42, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

The main system I use for doing these crashed ten days ago. I haven't dedicated 4-6 hours to rebuild that system yet - soon, I hope. --Connel MacKenzie 19:29, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation, then. That makes perfect sense. We'll see it return when it returns then. - TexasAndroid 13:59, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

down page

HI Connel, currently the Transwiki log is not working. I know it may not be anything you can do about. I can't even call up the page for the past 24 hours. There seems to be an HTML bug error. Goldenrowley 17:57, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

WT:TW loads for me - does it need to be broken into subpages? --Connel MacKenzie 19:30, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

When I checked again 2 minutes ago its working again. I believe it would be good idea to break it into subpages. Using medium speed DSL, it's slow to pull up and use. Goldenrowley

Someone used to alphabetize it periodically. The alphabetized portions should probably be subpaged. If older resolved items are just removed, then perhaps just regular sub-section editing will work. (You don't use Special:Randompage/Transwiki?) --Connel MacKenzie 19:59, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

• With fits and starts, this has be running again, the past couple days/weeks. I've lost a couple of minor (but possibly significant) updates from mid-year. If you can, please keep an eye out for erratic behavior that looks like it may have escaped notice. (If I don't correct something - it is probably because I was watching something else.)

• As with all hardware failures, this one also was provident. I've converted to a fully FOSS implementation of MUMPS, (GT.M) so I should now be able to move the "Random Page in English" (which is now working again) to Toolserver. If I get another hour or two to debug it, I'll have all the other languages also up to date. And it may spur me on to keeping entries parsed in real-time (replag permitting) which could have lots of secondary benefits, besides "random page in XXX language." Yay! Even WT:STATS could be kept up to date...Wantedpages...all sorts of things. Could be the start of something really good, methinks.

• --Connel MacKenzie 06:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

invitation

Hi Connel, you are cordially invited to discuss the Transwiki merge conversation that I started at Help_talk:Transwiki to bring a consensus on the procedure. Goldenrowley 23:17, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Note: I got lucky seeing the recent response there. Please leave me reminders here, if it seems like I've forgotten about it (and there are more comments there.) --Connel MacKenzie 21:04, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

What is an adjective?

Hi Connel,

Thanks for bringing this issue up. Ruakh is oversimplifying the issue, but I think he is right in the case of "pudding-basin". I've given a detailed explanation, with a reference, on my talk page. — Paul G 09:25, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Bulletting debate

Ruakh and I have reached agreement concerning what to do about the bullets in the dictionary templates; please give your opinion on my talk page. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 19:34, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

man crush

I've now cited man crush. The problem is, people don't always bother to clarify what they mean by it — the clearest cites are generally mentioning the term rather than using it — so I wanted to confirm that you're satisfied with the entry before I marked it RFV passed.

Thanks,
—Ruakh_TALK 19:20, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for asking - I've commented there and striken it. --Connel MacKenzie 19:44, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Cool, thanks again. —Ruakh_TALK 20:48, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Logo

I made many color varieties trying to find a good version to avoid the resemblance with Scrabble tiles which you brought out. Do you think you could have a look at http://fr.wiktionary.org where they use this logo, and compare it to the version 12b on Wiktionary:Beer parlour#More logo conversation please? What do you think about it? :) I may take some version(s) to the vote later because I think it's important to find out what English Wiktionary as a whole thinks. Best regards Rhanyeia♥♫ 19:53, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I still hope it'll be possible to create a version which also those who wouldn't like the tiles to resemble Scrabble could support. I guess I'll soon start to mark smaller those versions which won't go to the vote. I tried a grey version 12c too. It would help a lot to hear your opinions. :) Best regards Rhanyeia♥♫ 17:18, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

In the earlier Wikimedia vote there were very few English Wiktionarians who I've met here voting. There was one comment from you that you liked the idea of a magnifying glass, and one comment from DAVilla supporting the favicon of the tile logo. I tried here to combine them. :) You said you thought there had been difficulties with the voting process. Is there some other version you think should have done better? Best regards Rhanyeia♥♫ 17:45, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the German Wiktionary's image of a book - logo thing.

I'm sorry, but I think you have an enormous uphill (mountain) climb ahead of you. Dmcdevit's attempt seemed more reasonable, in that he wasn't addressing the aesthetic issue, only introducing (seemingly) very minor changes. You, on the other hand, are doing what I tried to do when I proposed that whole meta: fiasco in the first place - actually update the logo to something that matches better. I've become very jaded on this topic. Any given person falls into one or more of these categories:

1. People resistant to any change at all.
2. People resistant to major changes.
3. People who "like" one or the other.
4. People who dedicate a few hours devising something they think is appropriate/better/broader/narrower/etc. and are (as can be expected) monstrously insulted when they don't get showered with immediate praise, approval and acceptance.
5. People who want everything changed for the sake of change.
6. People who want only specific items modified.
7. People who get violent about r vs. upside-down-and-backwards r.
8. People who don't like IPA.
9. People who don't agree with premise of WMF projects.
10. People who don't like the color scheme of WMF.
11. People who don't like the grayscale.
12. People who don't like trademarks.
13. People who reject any hint of commercialization.
14. People advocating simpler wording (within the logo.)
15. People who want obtuse wording (within the logo.)

etc.

From what I've seen, polling for opinions can only garner negative opinions. Perhaps constructing an "anti-vote"? I.e. vote against each one you hate. The logo with the fewest people who vehemently hate it, wins?

I just don't know. On one hand, it is healthy to review the logo every year or two (or 5 or 10) if there is some notion of something majorly wrong. (E.g., updating it to be within the new WMF official color scheme or something.) On the other hand, many people identify with the logo itself. For that reason, I think Dmcdevit's approach (of not changing the aesthetic features of the logo AT ALL) is infinitely more likely to succeed. Rocking the boat by going way further than that is guaranteed to piss a lot of people off. You have been very polite all throughout, which I think, has been the only reason your proposals haven't been entirely dismissed out of hand.

File:Logo book.jpg

German Wiktionary's logo thing

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? (No, this is not a dumb question - actually it is of significant importance to this discussion.) --Connel MacKenzie 18:10, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I don't eat ice cream. :) Other projects have logos with good pictures, I'd like to believe it's possible here too. :) What picture is "the German Wiktionary's image of a book - logo"? Best regards Rhanyeia♥♫ 18:37, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Even if you choose not to eat any, you surely must have a favorite of some sort, right? --Connel MacKenzie 18:42, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, when I used to eat ice cream I liked chocolate. :) That's a great picture, is it possible to use it? Maybe some different colors or a minor change and then copyright it with that to Wikimedia so that it could be used as a logo. Best regards Rhanyeia♥♫ 18:59, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

About that image: I have no idea. They (someone at meta:) shut the door, as I started trying to contact the person that put it together. It may have to be started over as a hand-drawn thing or something.

Chocolate. Thank you. Please take a look at Wiktionary:Votes/2007-07/Best ice cream example vote. --Connel MacKenzie 19:03, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Besides the peculiarities of any vote (pretty much guaranteed in these parts,) the relevance of the ice cream question is that of personal taste. A great many people in this community like the "taste" of the current logo. In any thing like this, where it is a love-it/hate-it situation, any replacement has to easily surpass the predecessor. None of the scrabble-things do. That is sad, as the translation to other language Wiktionaries would be easier. But it is just isn't. It would be like trying to force me to "like" eating natural strawberry ice cream - just impossible.

--Connel MacKenzie 19:08, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Logo is like offering a meal, not only eating ice cream yourself. :) Personally I like the tile logo, but I wouldn't see a problem that there was another Wiktionary logo too. The book image is a good idea, and it's licenced free so at least I can experiment with it. What do you think about this picture? :) Best regards Rhanyeia♥♫ 16:41, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

The triangular corner, for me, does not convey "magnifying glass." A handle-looking handle conveys that much better, I think. The lopsidedness of that triangular corner probably won't work in the long run, either.

The ice-cream question wasn't to make you think of a food analogy - it was to demonstrate just how flawed the voting approach is. And more importantly, to convey the notion that what you're trying to do (or seem to be trying to do) is inherently in deep conflict with the aesthetic values that most people here have. That said, having an alternate logo (or two or three) on hand is not such a bad idea. But it is more than silly to think that any might garner immediate widespread approval. And it is decidedly unhelpful to undermine Dmcdevit's non-aesthetic revisions, by beating a dead horse. He even tried re-starting the conversation, only to have it undermined a second (or, if including the previous meta: iterations, a 45th) time. That is not nice; it doesn't gain you any supporters for future logo proposals. --Connel MacKenzie 16:11, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Are you mistaking me with someone else's comments? I haven't talked about a dead horse or that there would be something wrong with what Dmcdevit is doing. I was actually going to say something very nice about his one version, the same than Ruakh liked, but I just didn't get to it yet. Best regards Rhanyeia♥♫ 20:25, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I was referring to someone else. I meant that blue thing at WT:BP#Refocusing the logo discussion. Perhaps I just misunderstood your comments there, from skimming them over. --Connel MacKenzie 20:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not understanding, I don't understand at all. Was there something "not nice" about that idea? How could writing an idea on a page undermine someone else? Best regards Rhanyeia♥♫ 20:38, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

And when I read that conversation again I don't think Rodasmith meant anything bad either. He just stated an honest opinion. I have a feeling that you read the comments differently than they are meant to be. Even critical comments can be friendly, if the criticism is not against a person but a thing. Best regards Rhanyeia♥♫ 20:53, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The previous discussion was abandoned as it had gone wildly off track. Much like any of the previous two million logo discussions. His goal was to make minor, but long-requested updates to the logo. While some where willing to go along with minor revisions, the reintroduction of other topics spins the entire discussion way off base. The end result of that is to make a new attempt at a complete logo replacement, which still seems likely to fail, rather than what Dmcdevit was attempting; getting the minor (uncontroversial) changes in place. --Connel MacKenzie 20:53, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I mostly agree, but I think that if people wanted to comment on Dmcdevit's proposal, I think they would have done so, with or without Rhanyeia's comments. Dmcdevit hasn't been terribly active recently (because of real-life stuff, I think he said); once he's more fully back, I imagine he'll start a vote based on the relevant feedback that he did receive. (By the way, while I share your general premise, it's a subjective one. You and I feel that a small improvement now is worthwhile, even if it will be superseded by a bigger improvement in the future; but some people feel otherwise, e.g. due to a belief that a small improvement now will decrease the drive for a bigger improvement in the future.) —Ruakh_TALK 21:07, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Wiktionary:About Spanish

Hi Connel. I was about to make some significant changes to Wiktionary:About Spanish, but then noticed that it is no longer a draft, but a fully fledged policy, from this edit of yours. Was that upgrade on purpose? It seems not, since subsequent edits were made to the page without a vote. Should I downgrade the page to draft status, or was it purposely declared official policy? Rod (A. Smith) 18:48, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I thought that had solid consensus (relatively speaking.) Oh I see, other clarifications were added. My involvement with most Spanish entries ended as TheDaveBot got started (and progressed.) I don't remember why precisely this needed to be policy, rather than guideline. (Did we that distinction, back then?)

Well, you can downgrade it, but I have a notion that there was a reason it was explicit (but can't recall the exact circumstances, as so much was going on at that time,) so it may need a vote soon after you open it up. Sorry for being so vague, but it has been quite a while since I've dealt with Spanish issues, directly.

--Connel MacKenzie 19:16, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Intransitive verb tag

Every so often, I come across the {{rfc-trverb|Intransitive verb}} tag (or similar tags), sometimes with a heading of ===Intransitive verb===. I'm guessing we have been phasing this out, but if I were to fix any of them, is there any specific procedure I need to follow? The "rfc" in the tag makes me think there is a list and a procedure somewhere -- or some to-do list from which I need to remove the entry? -- Thisis0 13:25, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Look at the category ... Robert Ullmann 14:50, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Thisis0, there is an informal process for such entries. The ===Intransitive verb=== and ===Transitive verb=== headings are both wrong. They need to be combined into a single ===Verb=== heading, with specific "#" definition lines given {{transitive}} or {{intransitive}} tags, as necessary. Usually, the amount of redundancy in such entries is considerable. Whenever possibly, I recombine definitions that were pointlessly split (t/itr) into a single un-tagged definition line. Merging the translation tables can sometimes be very problematic though - in such cases I often leave them split, with redundant definition lines, tagged as transitive or intransitive.

While RFD, RFV, RFC and TR each have specific discussion pages, many more specific cleanup activities do not. I've always considered such cleanup categories to be self-explanatory, but apparently they are not. (Someone inclined to writing help: pages could really help the project out, by explaining each of the cleanup category things at the bottom of the top section of Wiktionary:Request pages; {{rfc-case}} - {{rfc-cjkv}} - {{rfcc}} - {{rfc-trans}} - {{rfdate}} - {{rfd-redundant}} - {{rfdef}} - {{rfe}} - {{rfex}} - {{rfap}} - {{rfp}} - {{rfphoto}} - {{rfr}}.) It has been a while since I've looked at that list. By now, it could probably use a second line (i.e. {{rfc-header}} - {{wikify}} - ... Each of those should probably also be listed on WT:DW. But these days, more people seem interested in entering bizarre or exotic languages, to show the world how smart they are, instead of taking on grueling, thankless cleanup tasks.

Note also, that Robert Ullmann has been very helpful in automating many cleanup activities (when possible) for such items, when a particular activity has been cleared and specific patterns of mistakes are identified. I can't imagine how much worse it would be, if that were not true.

Note that my "/todo" lists can safely be ignored. If the entry gets cleaned up, it will not be listed once the next XML dump comes out. XML dumps come out once every 12 weeks when the enwiki dump is running (as it is now) or once every three weeks, when it is not. The "/todo" lists are helpful for finding stuff that needs to be addressed. I edit them as I go along, so that I don't repeat sections. If others wish to join that effort, they are ALWAYS welcome to do so...but I appreciate the fact that how to do so, is not always obvious. The only section that seems to have any edit collisions at all, is the language cleanup section, where EncycloPetey often makes corrections magically, right after a new list is posted.

HTH. --Connel MacKenzie 16:00, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, indeed that was extremely helpful -- and appreciated. Honest truth, I consistently find you willing to explain things like this in helpful detail (and take hits at #wikimedia-tech) in the name of technical assistance. I will endeavor to match your extra effort by tackling some of those entries.

One other item I have been interested in pursuing is dropboxes for quotations. I feel it would take away the awkwardness of multiple entrenched book quotes, leaving room for the return of simple example sentences where appropriate, and also avoiding extra "seecites" pages that arouse database redundancy concerns. Has this already been decidedly covered? What is your take? -- Thisis0 18:53, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Helpful banter on e-mail helps, too.  :-)

For quotations: be bold. Experiment with one entry in one format, another entry in another format (with EXPLICIT edit summaries) then bring the examples to WT:GP to ask for opinions. The last time someone mentioned it, everyone said it was a great idea, then no one pursued it. The timing with the Citations: namespace vote may have confounded the issue a little(!). --Connel MacKenzie 18:57, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

editing request

Please do not edit chechia anymore. — This unsigned comment was added by Wordwizard65 (talk • contribs).

Very interesting. Sorry, but I certainly will edit it again...your correction of the content didn't follow formatting conventions. Anyhow, I only reformatted the information that was given there by an anon...other dictionaries indicate it was a hat of some sort; an image.google.com search for "chechia + Catholic" turned up a few hits so it seemed reasonable at first blush.

Incidentally, shouldn't it be spelled chéchia? Should it be described in familiar terms, i.e. "similar to a fez?" --Connel MacKenzie 15:52, 31 October 2007 (UTC)