User talk:Ncik

Hi from HiFlyer

Ncik, I'm not sure what you were User talk:HiFlyer|telling me in your post. We all go back in and play with our definitions. You had a a lot of great contributions. I saw a few things to 'clean up' as I'm sure you will find on my words--and everybody elses words. We don't own the words we enter, as you know. I do not change any translations, since I don't know them.

pleasurable

I moved your typo and deleted the typo redirect for you. --Connel MacKenzie 01:15, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I suppose there was an E too many?! Thanks, no matter what was wrong. Ncik 11 Mar 2005

You had the entry correct, but the article you stored it in was pleasuralbe (L & B swapped.) --Connel MacKenzie 06:23, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Gerunds

Thank you for the invitation. I have entered my opinion. --HiFlyer 00:49, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Gerunds etc

Hi there.

1. You added your message to the top of my talk page instead of adding a new section at the end.
2. You didn't sign it with ~~~~
3. I have corrected supposed and added the idiom supposed to
4. expected looks fine to me - but I have given it a better example sentence

SemperBlotto 09:47, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about messing up your talk page. Wont happen again. — Ncik 15 Mar 2005

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IPA symbols

I've replied to your question about IPA symbols in the beer parlour. — Paul G 10:01, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Financé

I noticed you just added Financé and Financée. Is there any difference between these terms and Fiancé and Fiancée? Not that I'm looking for a French lesson, but I was wondering if you'd seen the existing articles first. - dcljr 21:42, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Financé and financée were created by copying and pasting my own, misspelled version of fiancé from the article betroth. Ncik 03 Apr 2005

Heh... Okay, but financé and financée are actually words (Google returns hundreds of thousands of results for each). Maybe you should resurrect the entries and give them the proper definitions (Babel Fish says they both mean financed -- I wouldn't know). - dcljr 16:38, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

They do mean that in French but have they been imported into English. Eclecticology 18:56, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

IPA stress symbols

Hi Ncik, the IPA secondary stress mark is already there - see my replies to your question on my user page. — Paul G 16:37, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Bold language names

I agree that there are limits to the effectiveness of bold face if it is used too much. For me in the usage in question it makes the language name stand out from the content. Maybe the discussion that is needed is a broader one about the use of bold or italic face throughout the article.

Damage to dice

Hi Ncik. I think you were a bit too bold when you deleted a large amount of information from the dice article. Like it or not, millions of people use "dice" in the singular. Wiktionary has for a long time had a number of articles on plurals and other inflected forms of words - especially when those forms coincide with another sense or a word in another language. It is our policy not to remove articles for inflected forms when they already exist. Especially in this case where it's the primary sense and is where many people would expect to find the information.

Just to show I'm not being random, I've looked up "dice" in the closest dictionary. A Collins Pocket French dictionary printed in 2001. I was surprised to find it goes to far the other way. it doesn't list "die" at all in a noun sense, listing "dice" as in invariant noun. In the other direction it does list "die ou dice" under the French word "dé".

We are doing our users a disservice if we do not have entries for both. — Hippietrail 01:43, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Have a look now: dice. I reverted to my version but replaced the "Forms" section with a proper "Noun" section. Although it's pretty much just a link to die (to which I added a comment about the spelling issue), that's the way it should stay since, after, all it is just a spelling (and pronunciation) variant of die (where all the other stuff like antonyms, synonyms, translations, etymological information, etc. belong). Ncik 16 Apr 2005

changing

Hey dude, cheers for beefing up the entry on flip, but in future could u not remove any categories that are there? maybe its cos of all the templates that could be found annoying, but i made them so people (like you) could save time when writing. if u dont like the templates, then maybe the beer parlour can get a consensus on when to u use them. anyway, watch out --Wonderfool 22:44, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Where words belong - my take

While I wasn't aware of an ongoing discussion on the topic, I have generally been including alternate forms of a word if they didn't significantly deviate from the meaning of the root word. Many words have an adverbial form which simply adds '-ly' and means to do something in the manner of the root word, or an adjectival form which simply means root word -like. In these cases I have been adding redirects, which is a convention paper dictionaries use, they dont have a listing for each complacent and complacently, which, as in this example, is more helpful for the user, seeing as there is an article for 'complacent' but 'complacently' helps them not at all. Other words like 'loft' and 'lofty' and 'loftily' obviously deserve three separate pages, they are all distinct words. Thanks for pointing me at the discussion, I'll be sure to keep up with the beer parlour from now on. TheDaveRoss 01:42, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Foreign words

Well, some months back, when I started adding some Italian words, I got my knuckles wrapped for treating them like English. I was told - just a translation. It seems reasonable to me - they can be explained in the Wiktionary of their own language. Perhaps we should raise it in the Beer thingy. SemperBlotto 14:59, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Doesn't make sense. One of the main advantages and purposes of Wiktionary is to provide meanings as precise as possible for words of other languages. Otherwise you could just go to the other language's Wiktionary and look the translation up over there. Ncik 23 Apr 2005

Ncik, I replied briefly to this on my user page, but I'll go into more detail here. Some of the reasons for not giving more than translations are:

1. It is stated on the main page that this is the English Wiktionary and definitions of foreign words are not given here.
2. This is long-established policy.
3. Other Wiktionaries give meanings but in their own languages. The English Wiktionary tells you that rouge is French for "red" (among other things) but you can only determine this from the French dictionary if you understand French.
4. Giving non-English translations of non-English words opens up the way to a slew of inconsistency and inaccuracy. For example, red might list translations for French, Italian and Spanish, while rouge lists translations for English and German, and perhaps gets Italian wrong. This Italian translation is then copied to the German page, which also lists Polish and Russian. How am I to know that to get the Russian translation I have to go to the German page? Further, when a new translation is added, it must be added to (potentially) dozens of other pages. When the Italian translation is discovered to be wrong, dozens of pages have to be checked. This is the single biggest reason for not giving translations other than English ones in non-English entries.
5. By the same token, if definitions are included instead of translations, and a definition is added or amended on an English page, it will need to be added or updated on dozens of other pages too. More scope for inconsistency and inaccuracy, and the whole project becomes a nightmare to maintain.

One of Wiktionary's primary goals must be accuracy and consistency, and the current policy helps work towards this. — Paul G 09:04, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Diacritics and ligatures category

Hi Ncik. I saw you made a minor change to the category and couldn't figure out why it looked so different from what I expected. It turns out that after I added frappé and then realized it already existed that I rolled back my change. I didn't realize that it rolled back my last 4 edits, which had moved things around and added some words. I've reset it back to the pre-frappé version since it was all a stuff-up. Just wanted to explain myself in case you wondered what I was doing (-: — Hippietrail 12:33, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Hi again. Actually I did succeed in getting it back how I thought it should be. All the explanation at the top, the words not in wiki all in one list together, and the words in wiki but not addable to the category due to the fact they are redirects (which I think we should change if only to prevent exactly this type of confusion) together in a 2nd list. The 3rd and final list is the one generated by the category itself.

The reason I merged the two explanations and the two lists was completely separate from my rollback weirdness. Since the category puts all the items together into one list it's pointless trying to classify their reason for being there (borrowing vs. diaeresis). Since it's not possible to classify the category lists, it's quite confusing to classify the list of words waiting to be added to Wiktionary. Unfortunatlely since somebody made redirects for a bunch of the diaeresis cases it made the reason for having two lists confusing: not-yet-existing-list + not-categorizable-due-to-redirects-list versus borrwing-list + diaeresis-list.

Since both those lists will vanish when all their words are created there's no point having one explanation for each list. I hope this makes sense. I'll start replacing those annoying redirects with something more informative... — Hippietrail 01:15, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Category:Clothing

Ncik,

I think the words that are currently in Category:English:Clothing have absoluteley nothing to do with English words. They are types of clothing, much more than they have anything to do specifically with the English language. Would you exclude sari from a category "English clothing"?

Lastly, what I noticed about the category originally was its improper formatting, having the colon between English and Clothing. But that immediately suggested the notion to me that the label "English" was inappropriate there as well.

--Connel MacKenzie 23:16, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The word "English" in :Category:English:Clothing indicates that the words in this category are English words. If there is another convention, please let me know. Ncik 04 Jun 2005

With the flurry of archiving recently, I am at a loss providing a link for you. But the conversation got to the point where Ec suggested the keyword "English" only for categories that applied to the language. Specifically not for groupings of words in that language, instead only words about language. --Connel MacKenzie 23:29, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There must be a way to indicate that the words in a category belong to a certain language. Hence I suggest sticking to :Category:English:Clothing for now. I shall raise the issue in the Beer Parlour. Ncik 04 Jun 2005

As I recall, their categorization on the English Wiktionary was the way to determine their language - non-English words aren't supposed to be categorized here, only on their own wikt:. I don't think you had promoted your notion that (poorly paraphrased:) "treating English differently on en.wiktionary is POV" when such a decision was discussed. But it certainly makes sense that on the English Wiktionary, where not otherwise noted, things are in English. --Connel MacKenzie 23:47, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ok, fair enough. I have objections, but in this case it's not too serious, and I can't be asked to start a discussion about this. Feel free to recategorize. Ncik 00:11 4 Jun 2005 (UTC) (I'll timestamp from now on)

Ncik, is there some reason you sign your entries without a timestamp? You won't be giving away your timezone, if that's what you fear. --Connel MacKenzie 23:47, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm happy to see the category moved, but I was also hoping to be a little diplomatic about it. Thank you for timestamping. There is a conversation at the very end of WT:BP right now about categories; this might be a good time to ask for clarification. --Connel MacKenzie 00:35, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Forms and Variants

Sould that be singular? Or should it be something more normal like Noun? Cheers. SemperBlotto 11:05, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's supposed to be like that. Eg, consider paints: It is a verb and a noun, and I don't like giving inclined forms or spelling variants their own header and section. Ncik 23 Jun 2005

Anti-consensus changes to WT:ELE

Ncik,

You and I have disagreed about many aspects of WT:ELE, but most of the items of dispute the consensus was for neither of our proposed changes, but rather for the status quo (for individual reasons pertaining to the indvidual changes suggested.)

• Categories have been decreed to be English on the English Wiktionary. Esoteric categories for other languages belong on their Wiktionaries.

Categories like Category:Fi:Animals should be allowed and welcomed. I can tolerate the convention not to insert a language tag like :en in the name of categories intended for English words only.

• Etymologies are not to be flattened (as I suggested) nor nested deeper (as you suggested.)

• Inflected forms need to be wikified.

• Foriegn language entries must not have translations to other languages listed here.

• What about words which exist in several languages but not in English? Spanish has hojarasca and German has Laubsturm but the English leaf storm exists only in the title of a translated book. Other examples are particles which exist in several language other than English, among them את, が, の, は, を, 가, 는, 를, 은, 을, 의, 이, 之, 的, and a in one Spanish sense.

Hippietrail has made another point here. I'm not going to accept the crippling of foreign language entries.

• Entries differing by only capitalization should link each other prominently with See also ...

The entry titanic should link to Titanic and vice versa. In this case the "Related terms" section is probably the appropriate place for this. But linking ba to Ba is unnecessary: The only connection between these two is that they are spelled almost the same. Linking Bison to bison is equally random.

Your uncooperative attitude got you in trouble in the past. I met it head on and my reputation has suffered because of that. Congratulations.

I see once again, even after your cabal supported you last time, you took it upon yourself (again) to simply try slipping out changes to WT:ELE that you don't agree with. You know it is controvercial - it was the last time you brought it up. Should it somehow be less controvertial now?

If you wish to resume an edit war of WT:ELE, particularly without discussing your changes beforehand, well, I don't know.

I still haven't received much feedback from you regarding [[1]]. Please comment. Ncik 17:40, 03 Jul 2005

I think I shall e-mail others to ask what to do about you this time. Perhaps they can think of something appropriate. --Connel MacKenzie 3 July 2005 04:47 (UTC)

---

You are right that I have not commented on your change proposal draft. I see you have also not garnered much interest from anyone else about it either. I will try again to find time to go over it and offer some feedback.

User:Hippietrail's arguments are based on a solid belief that Wiktionary should be able to be used as a foreign language teaching guide, instead of just a dictionary. That however directly conflicts with the opinion of most of the Wiktionary community. To include that same information in a usage note perhaps could work...but the rule is that translations are entered on the foreign language page, not here. Duplicating translations here would guarantee that things get out of sync. To say that being consistent "cripples" the other entries is absurd.

Actually, Hippietrail can speak for himself and he has no such belief. You'll have to define the fuzzy term "foreign language teaching guide" you ascribe to me. In any case, a dictionary, is a tool for language learners - who else needs to look up the meanings of core vocabulary items? Certainly not native speakers. To me a "usage note" is in the realm of a "teaching guide" but translations are in the realm of a multilingual dictionary, and Wiktionary is a multilingual dictionary. — Hippietrail 5 July 2005 03:47 (UTC)

WTF? Please stop changing the subject. I never said there should be no translations, I said, as our guidelines say, as I have been told (repeatedly) in the past, that translations are entered for the English word only, on the English Wiktionary. --Connel MacKenzie 6 July 2005 18:18 (UTC)

When things are out of sync you get additional information: There could exist another translation with slightly different connotations (a benefit), or it could mean that a translation is wrong (so the existence of another translations is equally likely an advantage or disadvantage since any of the translations can be wrong. No disadvantage here in having more translations). I'm going to be stubborn about this. You won't convince me unless you come up with a good reason. Ncik 20:25, 04 Jul 2005

Ncik, I am explaining to you my understanding of why we have the rule. That does not change the fact the the rule is in place. That does not change the fact that the rule has been in place longer than I have been a contributor at en.Wiktionary. This does not change the fact that you are again being only advesarial, when you could have instead started a polite conversation about it on WT:BP. You've already been wildly stubborn to the extent that you have discredited yourself in the past. Why you think that is helpful to your cause is beyond me.

What you list as a possible benefit is not. The implication of the benefit you list is that the English term is not listing all the connotations it should. That leaves several disadvantages to having translations listed in hundreds of separate places:

1. The impossibility of keeping them syncronized.

Not a problem due to different connotations.

Actually, this is an extraordinary problem in practice. See User talk:Ncik#Foreign words. --Connel MacKenzie 06:01, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

2. The impossibility of having all translations listed (that should be) at any given place a person looks for a translation.

I don't quite now what you mean. But if you want to translate a French word to Russian and have to do that via the page of the English translation... Good luck.

On the English Wiktionary...yes, that is the correct approach to take. Even better is if the word exists in the French Wiktionary (where the direct translation belongs.) --Connel MacKenzie 06:01, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

3. The introduction of errors gets less review.

Like for smaller Wiktionaries, rare words, etc. in general. This really isn't an argument. Just one of the things all wikis have to live with. The less polular something is, the less accurate it will be.

Actually, this is an extraordinary problem in practice. See User talk:Ncik#Foreign words. --Connel MacKenzie 06:01, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

4. The statistical probability of typos increases by an order of magnitude. (And the statistical probability that it will be reviewed decreases.)

See above.

Actually, this is an extraordinary problem in practice. See User talk:Ncik#Foreign words. --Connel MacKenzie 06:01, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

5. The English related terms can/would be skipped entirely, leaving a hole in en.wikt:.

I don't get what you mean by this. Would be grateful for further explanation.

User:Hippietrail has informed me of two examples (so far) where words cannot be cleanly translated from one language, to English, to another. (I have learned a little Japanese because of his helpful lesson and examples...but I digress.) I am sure he eventually could come up with zero to three additional examples per language if more examples would help. But in the examples he cited, I felt a usage note would be the better catch-all place to expound on the word's similarities in other languages. In that example, if he were to simply provide a transation from Japanese to Korean, the English "common meaning" could conceivably be blank...that type of "hole" in en.wikt: is possibly worse than not having the entry at all. Do two exceptions to the rule mean the (very beneficial) rule should be eliminated? I think not. --Connel MacKenzie 06:01, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think "untranslatable" words are exceptions, and I'm not sure that Hippietrail thinks so because he created Category:Allegedly untranslatable words. Ncik 17:23, 12 Jul 2005

Now, I suppose you think of yourself as quite a revolutionary to be roiling the en.wiktionary the way have been doing. Again, I do not see how you think that is so special, nor benefical to your cause. There are probably a hundered additional reasons for the rule, besides the ones I listed above off the top of my head. By picking a spat with me particularly, perhaps you hope to discredit me, thereby winning a round of debate? Alas, if you do that, you'll be reverted into oblivion when the next person around here realizes you are up to no good. I am not expressing my view, I am trying to convey our view here at Wiktionary.

Have a look at Wiktionary talk:Policy Think Tank - English Wiktionary, Foreign Words & Translations#If present, what foreign word articles should contain. I'm not convinced that your present opinion (which seemed to be less radical at the time) is the community's opinion. Also see Wiktionary:Policy Think Tank - English Wiktionary, Foreign Words & Translations. It might be Richardb's personal opinion, but there only translations to languages other than English seem to be a problem (which, in my opinion, should be changed).

See above. It is not Richardb's individual opinion, nor mine. --Connel MacKenzie 06:01, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Singling me out may get you somewhere in the short run, but nowhere in the long run. --Connel MacKenzie 6 July 2005 18:18 (UTC)

Again I would like to draw attention to Hippietrail's "Laubsturm/hojarasca" example: Hadn't there been this book and the English translation entitled "Leaf storm", which gives this term enough authority to list it on Wiktionary (at least nobody has put up an rfd yet), there wouldn't be a way to find the German translation of "hojarasca" (supposing this word acutally had an entry here on en.wiktionary)

Another argument concerning translations of non-Enlgish words into languages other than English deserving attention, and which comes up frequently in this debate, is that for a translation of a word of language A to language B, where A,B non-English, one should consult the Wiktionary of language A. But this can become a problem if the word has many meanings. Unless one has a good command of language A, one might not be able to find the desired meaning, thus translation to language B. Ncik 21:24, 06 Jul 2005

That is exactly why we list translations by meaning. --Connel MacKenzie 06:01, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

But all that aside, the salient point is that you again changed WT:ELE without having the majority of the community first tell you that they agree with the idea. Again you entered something that is in fact, a direct contradiction of what 95+% of the community currently practices.

The lower-case/upper-case controversy was discussed at the time of the upper-case lower-case vote and a month or two or three afterwards. The Wiktionary community agreed that in the English Wiktionary, upper and lower case entries should cross reference each other. Always. Because this is the English Wiktionary. If you think that is nonsensical, I invite you to continue leaving the links out. I (and many others) will continue adding them in to your entries. I hope that you do instead join us in entering the correct links. The way a word is looked up in the English language is by the first of 26 letters, not the first of 52 letters. Not only would not having the links break the "Go" button, it would also hamper external links (particularly from the past 2.5 years, but probably also future links.)

--Connel MacKenzie 3 July 2005 18:02 (UTC)

MILF

22:24, 12 July 2005 Ncik (part of speech revert)

Erm, why? --Wytukaze 21:26, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Part of speech headers should contain a part of speech, which "Initialism", "Acronym", and "Abbreviation" aren't. Ncik 23:30, 12 Jul 2005

Aye, I agree, but then again this is the practice that has been around on Wiktionary for yonks. Are you proposing to change the entirety of Category:Abbreviations, Acronyms and Initialisms? I think there'd be a hard fight from some of the other Wiktionary regulars, even if you won't see one from me. Besides, I think it looks more elegant, incorrect as it may feel. --Wytukaze 21:37, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I mean, we could stick a note somewhere that things under Acronym, Abbreviation or Initialism actually function as nouns in a sentence, but are labelled as they are for convenience. --Wytukaze 21:45, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Not all abbreviations and idioms are nouns or noun phrases. They can as well be any other part of speech. Ncik 00:05, 12 Jul 2005

Wait a second. I'm about to give a longer reply.

There have been several discussions about this kind of stuff. One of them was concerned with taxonomic terms, where things like "Species" appeared as the part of speech. This has changed (as far as I know, and according to Felis domesticus (now 'domestica') which used to be one of the main examples (Confer Wiktionary:Beer parlour archive/April-June 05#Species appears as part of speech) I think User:SemperBlotto is/used to be active in this area. User:Dvortygirl, one of the main contributors to Category:English idioms, seems to add real parts of speech (had a quick look at her contributions list). Confer Wiktionary:Beer parlour archive/April-June 05#Idioms, categories, parts of speech). But this is only the stuff I was involved in, and things might have changed. Ncik 00:05, 12 Jul 2005

Mm, indeed. Dvorty does try to add real parts of speech; I know this because we (as in, we in IRC) try to help her define what the parts of speech are. Sometimes it can be needlessly difficult. Incidentally, you should come join us sometime :).

Back to the point, however: I would quite like to see these treated as real parts of speech, but I would also like to see a better way of indicating their status as acronyms or what have you. Perhaps something like:

===Noun===
MILF
# (Acronym) ...

Just to make it stand out better.

That said, it conflicts with the (slang, vulgar) we have in there, and just doesn't look that good, really. To put it bluntly, it's only a part of speech header if you call it that. We can afford to have these as exceptions to our general rule; though, as I said before, a note about it would be nice.

Perhaps we should shunt this out to the Beer Parlour? --Wytukaze 22:28, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I generally don't like linking words other than those that appear in the etymology of a word as former forms, important ones in the definitions, and the translations, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, related terms, etc. But other people have other opinions: Uncle G (I think it's him) likes to link languages in the etymology, Connel wants to link all inflections, and almost all '(un)countables' are wikified. We could take the whole thing to the Beer Parlour. Ncik 01:08, 13 Jul 2005

pissed as a newt

I rolled back your changes to pissed as a newt and discussing it on talk:pissed as a newt. --Connel MacKenzie 17:23, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I've rolled back your changes again. The links on the other discussion seem to be invalid; the general comments in favor have not panned out and are in direct conflict with almost all occurrences within Wiktionary. I don't recall seeing any recent conversations about it. And the archived conversations were not acted on - therefore not accepted by the community as a whole. Do you have widespread support for changing the way Wiktionary lists idioms? --Connel MacKenzie 17:44, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I've started a thread about this issue in the Beer Parlour. Ncik 17:56, 15 Jul 2005

"part of speech"

Take it to the beer parlour. 24 17:14, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

boozing

"Boozing" is a silly name for a category. Why would we need to use slang in category names? Eclecticology 22:18, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

eat one's own dog food

Hello Ncik,

I am comforted to see you adapting to some of the general practices around here. In the conversation you started over at WT:BP#Part_of_speech, it pretty clearly (to me) says that "===Idiom===" is a very good way to identify idioms. There are not many exceptions to the PoS rule, but the ones we have (Idiom, Phrase, Proper noun, Acronym, etc.) are quite well established. Idioms, in particular, can fit in as several different PoS; "Idiom" is a better grouping for them.

I'm glad we got to hear from a few others, on the BP, about it.

--Connel MacKenzie 21:52, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

What the heck are you talking about? You just reverted my latest, only recent, edit of eat one's own dog food in which I changed the PoS from "Idiom" to "Verb". I oppose headers like "Idiom", "Phrase", "Proper noun", "Abbreviation", "Transitive verb", etc. and shall not use them. Ncik 10:56, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I was talking about some of your other recent edits. "Idiom" is clearly preferred by everyone else here at Wiktionary. --Connel MacKenzie 13:46, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Dvortygirl, one of the main contributors to Category:Idioms, uses proper PoS headers. Ncik 13:52, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't know that we have a firm policy on this matter yet, but I can certainly explain how I catalog idioms. If I can clearly identify the part(s) of speech, I do. I think it is a far more useful piece of information than "Idiom," which usually appears elsewhere in the article, anyway. Occasionally, though, idioms consist of phrases that are not so well-behaved or obvious (to me, at least), in which case I do fall back on {{idiom2}}, which inserts "Idiom" as a heading. In either case, I make a particular effort in idiom articles to compose an example sentence or two for each definition, so that somebody unfamiliar with the expression can see how to use it. --Dvortygirl 17:06, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Topfs and Topfes

Whoops, thanks for that. I managed to refrain from referring to any of the pots as "hot" in Töpfe though, as I have a vague recollection of an Austrian telling me that one way of putting that can mean "gay". -Wytukaze 15:53, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I can't think of any idiomatic expression consisting of "heiß" and "Topf" that means "gay". In fact I can't think of any idiom involving "heiß" and "Topf" at all. Nor can my parents (Who I asked just in case the Austrian was a few decades older than we are, and the expression dated). So it might be an expression restricted to Austria. Ncik 22:43, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Seems plausible. I'll ask my mum (fluent in Austrian dialect - she frequently uses Erdapfeln instead of Kartoffeln and pronounces "na ja" like "nor your"). It wasn't related to "Topf" at all, rather, of the form "Ich bin heiß." (or some such). Of course, they could've just been having me on. :) --Wytukaze 22:52, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Edit war

I have removed the block which Connell has applied to you. Please avoid continuing your edit war with him. I realize that several different points may have been involved, and I would find it premature to engage in a detailed analysis of each one. Suffice it to say that in the case of "endeavor/endeavour" where either form could be correct, priority should be given to the first form used in the article. Eclecticology 23:53:44, 2005-09-04 (UTC)

I have taken it upon me to scrutinize the entries you made, after you managed to get on Connel's nerves so much he went as far as banning you. He was out of line in doing so, but I got interested in his motivation for doing it. I only checked a small sample so far and I don't see malice in what you do, but I have a few remarks already anyway.

For starters we are trying to get away from using numbers in translations. Instead we have started to implement translation tables with a concise version of the definition on top of them, so they can be matched unambiguously to the definitions under the Definitions header.

I don't like this practice. It looks messy, and is more difficult to edit. Maybe we should put translations right after the meanings. Why duplicate the definitions, if only partly, in the translations section? Ncik 09:58, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

The reasons that you raise are perfectly valid, but co-ordinating the hard-numbered references in the translations to the soft-numbered definitions is a bigger problem. Any additional definition would cause all the numbering of the translations to be wrong. The repeated definitions was a compromise solution. There are occasions where I have put translations right after the meanings, but doing that requires a careful watch of indentation levels. If you add translations with numbers, and someone like Connell is willing to do the repetitios additional work of changing them don't worry about it. I think that the way that we treat these translations will need to be reviewed again anyway if and when the UW proponents ever get their software together. Eclecticology 19:19, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

This Definitions header was previously called POS header because it mostly contains the part of speech being defined and for lack of a better term. What it can contain is not exclusively parts of speeches though. So from now on, I propose to call it the DEFs header and allow it to contain other things than parts of speeches, like idiom, etc.

I don't see why people want to put other things in those headers. Would be user-friendly to indicate what part of speech a word is in always the same place. It concerns me that nobody putting things like "Idiom" (A particularly useless piece of information since anything included here consisting of more than one word is automatically an idiom (Well, at least in a liberal sense. There were discussion about this elsewhere, can't remember where though.), "Initialism", etc. in those headers, has ever (as far as I know) come up with an alternative place where to mention what POS a word or phrase is. People don't seem to acknowledge that the POS is an important information. Ncik 09:58, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Polyglot 16:33, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

If in the early days I had forseen that the heading "Part of Speech" would have caused this kind of problem I would have tried harder to find a heading name that covered a wider range of possibilities. If you don't like the term "idiom" that's fine; how would you replace it? If you want something more specific go ahead. If something is an initialism what would you do with part of speech? I really can't see the reason for the edit war in all this. Eclecticology 19:19, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Tell me if I'm wrong, Eclecticology, but you (and many other people here) seem to think that abbreviations (also phrases) don't have a part of speech. This is not the case. And then, why not indicate the POS of an abbreviation or phrase where it's done for a word? Ncik 17:05, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

ROC initialism

Ncik - thanks for moving ROC from roc, in future as a newby I shall spend it bit more time looking for advice in such cases. Saltmarsh 14:45, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

You're welcome. Ncik 14:49, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

résumé

I've had a complaint from Connel about your revert to this article. Is there any room for finding common ground? A simple revert does not seem appropriate since it does nothing to move the article along.

I find much of the debate difficult to understand.

1. Why would there be such a dispute over "From French" and the corresponding derivation template. I do tend to avoid templates myself, but I respect that others think differently. I accept either alternative as correct.

2. I can't understand why the German translation for the older meaning of the word would be rejected. There is an issue with the numbering of the translations, but that can be easily adjusted to fall into place when the principal argument has been settled.

3. The bigger question seems to be over the use of accents in American vocabulary. The fact that they are more likely to use "CV" in Britain does not help us because the article is not about "CV". If one term is used more often it does not imply that the other is not used at all. Any kind of categorical statement about American usage of accents is bound to be misleading. The 1913 Webster lists the word with a single accent, but uses a quotation from Charles Kingsley, a British novelist, with two accents to illustrate it. U. S. Style books are evasive about the whole situation. The "Random House Handbook" makes no mention of the problem at all. The latest edition of the "Chicago Manual of Style" merely says that the unaccented version of a word is "acceptable", but says nothing at all about whether using the accented version is right or wrong.

It was tempting to enter an edit on this, but I think that the only effect of that would have been to alienate one, or the other, or both of you. It is not time for me to become a part of the problem. Eclecticology 21:15, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Lie

I like what you did with the second meaning. Thx. 194.159.73.69 12:55, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

wed

I suggest you discuss it on WT:RFV#wedded.

As for your ilicit templates, no. Your templates duplicate existing, accepted templates. They also needlessly complicate the layout, very much against the look and feel of the rest of Wiktionary. Asthetically, your layouts are unpleasant when rendered. Lastly, using the table mechanism you do, they are not extensible. (The accepted template can be "subst:"'d easily, if the form you supplied passes RFV.) --Connel MacKenzie T + C # 00:17, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Template:blend

Hi Ncik,

I've rolled back your changes to this template. "Blend" is wikified because it has a particular meaning that users might not be familiar with (it does not simply mean "mix"). The words combined are emboldened because they are headwords (a policy used in print dictionaries), whereas I prefer to reserve italics for foreign words (as used in etymologies). — Paul G 10:05, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

It is a stylistic faux pas to wikify words which are not page specific. Other templates affected are Template:transitive, Template:intransitive, as well as the whole range of language templates of the kind commonly found in etymologies: {{L.}}, {{OE.}}, {{F.}}, {{MHG.}}. Attitudes seem to have changed with respect to language names in the 'Translations' sections: People have started removing the double square brackets enclosing them. I'm happy with having headwords emboldened, although my policy has been to embolden only inflected forms. Ncik 00:39, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Why do you say it is a faux pas to wikify words that are not page-specific? Do you mean words that are not part of definitions? I agree that words in headers should not be wikified, but we already wikify things other linguistic labels such as "uncountable", so why not "blend"? — Paul G 10:20, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Currently Template:uncountable and Template:countable don't wikify the words '(un)countable'. I know that some people do so manually, but (in my opinion, and for the same reason as above) they shouldn't. By 'page specific' I mean words that are essential for the actual definition of a word, translations, related terms, derived terms, words that are etymologically related in the etymology section(s),... you get the concept. You don't want to wikify any general grammatical terms; these should be explained elsewhere on one central page for the whole of the English Wiktionary (I don't know if such a page exists yet. I should be different from WT:ELE which is intended for those contributing to Wiktionary, and not just use it as a reference work). This page should define words like (in/di)transitive, (un)countable, reflexive, (the different types of) part(s) of speech (noun, (auxiliary) (modal) verb, conjunction, interjection, etc.), blend, portmanteau, initialism, acronym, (the different) aspect(s), (the several) mood(s) (as indicative, subjunctive), IPA, SAMPA, AHD (links to pages that explain how to read these), homophone, anagram,... as well as information on how the entries are structured, what categories are, what the etymology of a word is, etc. Ncik 21:41, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

This is a worthy aim, but users seeing "uncountable" unwikified on a page would not, in general, know where to find this information. By all means, let's create such a page (would you like to start one up?) and link from the templates for "uncountable", etc, to this page rather than to the page for the word "uncountable" or leaving the user wondering what these terms mean and not knowing where to find out. — Paul G 10:07, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

sting

What do you have against stang? --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:56, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Didn't notice that, sorry. Ncik 22:35, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

MILF

The fact is that both uses happen to be promarily abbreviations, though it is interesting that one is read as an acronym and the other as an initialism. They clearly both symbolize "noun phrases" rather than being nouns themselves.

The word MILF is a noun in both cases because in any sentence it will function as a noun, so are and do, respectively, the noun phrases Moro Islamic Liberation Front and mother I'd like to fuck. Ncik 02:22, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I am hesitant about adding etymology sections to abbreviations. Almost any abbreviation with multiple independent meanings will have a separate etymology for each of them. In this instance the etymology could very well be on the page for the whole expression in the case of the initialism, and that could just as easily be on Wikipedia as on Wiktionary.

I don't like having separate etymology sections either because there are abbreviations with dozens of them, most of them of the boring Moro Islamic Liberation Front type (abbreviations of institutions, organisations, movements, etc. (e.g. RSA, but e.g. itself is more interesting); in these cases the etymology only needs to mention what is being abbreviated and when the institotion, etc. was founded and thus the abbreviation came into use. But I'm willing to accept a flood of etymology sections for for the sake of a standardised entry format.

For the acronym, I believe it was indicated that the origin may have been earlier than in American Pie; if that is the case it is inaccurate to say that it originated with the movie. The movie reference should be restricted to the quotations.

The formulation popularised by is quite an elegant way to avoid the issue of whether the term was used before or invented for the film. I have the feeling that the film indeed had a remarkable impact on the (extend of) use of the word. It will be difficult to show this since one will hardly be able to find printed proof, but there are webpages (unfourtunately I can't remember any of the URLs right now) that take copies of other webpages in reqular intervals and store them. One could try to find out how the frequency of occurrence of MILF on pornographic pages has developed. The word has also come to widespread use in Germany, and that certainly only after the film. Ncik 02:22, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Admittedly, I would not have gone so far with this if it had not been for your ongoing sparring with Connel. When he last raised this with me he specified three issues which I had to look at more thoroughly than usual. My recommendations and actions on the other two were significantly closer to your position than to his. It is really not healthy for the community to keep insisting on an eccentric position. Eclecticology 01:36, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

carry

Ncik, I'm rolling back your change again. There is an astronomical difference between being bold and discussing an issue. General manners dictate that if you are asking someone whether something is advisable or not, one should then wait for a response before taking action.

I'd like you to note carefully that I have not experimented with any of the things I discussed yesterday on the Beer Parlour, as I expect further comments from the community (yourself included.) On matters where some controversy has surfaced, it is unwise to barge forward without community consensus. Your recent reverts of Ec's edits reflect either a breakdown in communication, or a frightening disregard for everyone but yourself.

--Connel MacKenzie T C 20:00, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

javascript doing stuff I hadn't expected

Hi Ncik,

At first I didn't know what you were talking about. I made modifications to some pages, but I didn't recall adding plurals for English words. I'm using some javascript from Connel though which does some stuff automatically, mostly good stuff, but some of it needs manual tweaking and I didn't check it. I guess I would better turn that part of it off. Sorry for the discomfort, Polyglot 19:33, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Verbs

I have reviewed your proposed changes. I don't feel that strongly about the placement of "transitive" and "intransitive", but I do think that it is excessive to have these as categories. In cases where the verb exists only in the one form it is hust as well to keep the term in the heading.

As for the conjugations, it should not be necessary to add the "en-" prefix to these templates. This is, after all, the English Wiktionary. The time saved from reducing five word entries to four is minimal. I expect to continue using the {conj} template plus the {conj2} template as a supplement when there are variations. The appearance of the results of these templates on a page is not significantly different, so I would ask you to please not change those pages where I have used the {conj} template. Eclecticology 08:18, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Uncountable

Hi,

I see that you removed the "uncountable" category from the template of that name - can I ask why, seeing as the category is very much active?

Note that italicisation of text in brackets does not include the brackets themselves (so "(uncountable)" rather than "(uncountable)") - see other labels in Wiktionary and print dictionaries for precedent. — Paul G 09:35, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm just one of those people that think that categories which will contain tens or hundreds of thousands of words are useless. I also put grammatical information ((un)countable, things that need to be mentioned when there are different inflexions, (in/di)transitive, reflexive, (not )comparable, etc.) in italicised parentheses, usage related stuff (area in which a word is used (anatomy, mathematics, etc.), in what social environment it is used ((vulgar) slang, jargon, colloquial, etc.), when it was used (archaic, dated, obsolete, etc.), etc.) in normal ones. Ncik 22:58, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

hello ncik could you edit my? 169.244.143.115 contributions.

en-verb2

I didn't know about en-verb2. I think I got irregverb from aping what I'd seen elsewhere, maybe on give. I'd read Wiktionary:Index to templates several times but wasn't much enlightened by it. I'm sure it can't be only me finding the templates hard yakka.

I just rewrote the Index to templates. Hope it is more useful now. Ncik 02:35, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Is there supposed to be a Category:English regular verb phrases for regular phrases like drop in and yield up the ghost? Is Category:English irregular verb phrases meant to be a subcategory of verb phrases or something? — Kevin Ryde, 24 Dec 05

I created Category:English irregular verb phrases as a subcategory of Category:English irregular verbs. But it is of course a subcategory of the non-existent Category:English verb phrases, which itself would be a subcategory of Category:Idioms (This category only contains English idioms; I lost my fight for using Category:English idioms instead) since we decided to interpret idiom as anything consisting of more than two words and not being self-explanatory. There is also a Category:English phrasal verbs which could be considered as a subcategory of Category:English verb phrases. Ncik 02:35, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Templates for inflections

Ncik,

Why have you edited Wiktionary:Index to templates to make it appear (whether you intended to or not) that the templates you mention for inflections of nouns, adjectives and verbs are the only ones available for giving inflections and are the official Wiktionary standard, when this is not the case?

I do not have any problem with people using the templates that give tables (although I don't myself, preferring the templates that give the more concise inflections) but what I do object to is someone deleting the tables of templates of the other form, giving the impression that they should not be used. I went to a great deal of effort to create these and am disheartened and greatly annoyed to see any reference to the availability of these templates deleted as if they are unimportant or somehow incorrect. Perhaps this isn't what you meant to do, but that is nevertheless the effect that it has had.

It looks to me that you made these changes with no discussion with other users; at least, I don't see anything about it in the Beer Parlour. This makes for bad policy, in my view.

I would like to think that the two formats can co-exist, with it being left up to users which they would prefer to use. By all means leave what you have added, but would you please restore the tables of the templates that I and others created and mention that there are two alternative methods for providing inflections (the tabulated form being an alternative to the more concise form, which came first).

Thank you. — Paul G 21:54, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

There are too many of those templates. How can we ask editors to memorise all these things or to look them up every time they add a word. They are also not flexible enough, hence don't cover sufficiently many cases. The irregular verbs template is completely inadequate as many irregular verbs have more than just one possible conjugation and you are not able to add these additional forms with the template's automatic formatting. The irregular verbs (same for all grammatical categories, actually) category should be added manually, so nobody is required to determine whether a word is irregular or not. The conjugation templates also don't cover for regular doubling verbs which are not doubled in American English (e.g. travel). Despite the huge amount of adjective templates they don't cover all irregularities; eg: old, older, oldest and old, elder, eldest. I also don't like that there is a template for not comparable words: You never know if you know all meanings of a word, there might be one you don't know about which is comparable. Use Template:not comparable at the beginning of each definition instead. Same holds for countability of nouns, etc. The noun templates are unsuitable to be used with words that have more than one plural (you will find many of these in Category:English irregular plurals). A look at the rules for when a word is to be counted as irregular at the beginning of that category shows that your templates would produce the incorrect plural *Germanies. These arguments are not exhaustive, but anyway some thinking of your own should convince you that the templates you prefer should be abolished. Ncik 03:01, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Repeating the comments that I just made in BP.

You're missing the point entirely. It's not just about which templates are better, It's about how decisions are made. It's about showing some respect for the work that others have done even when you have found a better way to do things. Until a consensus is reached both systems should be allowed and described. Meanwhile any organized attempt to remove all traces of the other system should henceforth be viewed as POV pushing. Eclecticology 09:34, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I've replied to your points in the beer parlour. Like I say, I am happy for your templates to be used, but take issue with your edits to Wiktionary:Index to templates that suggest that they are the only suitable option simply because you disagree with the other format. — Paul G 12:50, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

EDIT WAR WARNING

Please stop reverting changes to Wiktionary:Entry layout explained. Use the talk page to discuss the issue. You have reverted the page 4 times in the last few hours and are starting an edit war.

Thanks, Gerard Foley 02:49, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about with your mentin of User:Chimerical05. The fact is that you are persisting in making changes to Wiktionary:Entry layout explained without making any effort whatsoever to engage in dialogue. The community works best when it works together, not when some individual insists that his view is the only possible view. I expect that you will stop this behaviour immediately, or face the consequences. Eclecticology 11:34, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I looked at the link that you made to User:Chimerical05's edit. I see no cause for concern there. We do indeed discourage empty headings, but that's not a major issue. I would not go out of my way to delete an empty heading if that's the only problem with an article.

Many BP discussions do not result in any kind of decision. I do not even read the section that you point to as having anything to do with references. True "references" were mentioned in passing, but there is nothing in there to lead to the conclusion that "references" should not be allowed.

I have never even come near to suggesting references should not be allowed. Ncik 23:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

As to the essentality of references, I see that as being increasingly important so I don't see how mentioning the article for the word helps your case. The fact that we have done without references in the past is no argument. If we accept that kind of argument we are stuck with all our past mistakes even when a method of correcting them is available. As far as I am concerned there should be a reference for every word in Wiktionary that has an article. I do not intend to make every article without them retroactively invalid. Still, if we are ever to become a credible dictionary the readers need to be convinced that our material did not come out of thin air. Making the "References" section "essential" is a step in that direction, even if it initially leads to having empty headings. If you want further discussion about whether references should be essential please do so on the ELE talk page.

Reading the above paragraph I get the strong impression the word essential means something different to you than to me. A is essential for B if taking A away from B changes the nature, usually to the point of non-existence, of B. If you had no language section in Wiktionary and wanted to look up an English word, do say, all the definitions of all the languages on that page would be commingled, and the dictionary becomes pretty much useless. Hence language sections are essential. Taking away references will still allow you to use Wiktionary for looking up words. This is what a dictionary is intended for. Hence reference sections are not essential. They are desirable, though.

I actually don't like that this section is mentioned in such a prominent position at all (even if it weren't called essential) on a page which most new editors will visit to learn how to edit a page. It's just not one of the basics you really need to know to get your editing started. More appropriate would be a sentence saying that links to other pages, (bibliographical) references, quotations, citations, etc. should be added whenever possible, rather than narrowing this general rule down to the References section. Ncik 23:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that it accomplishes very much to debate which meaning of essential is applicable. The fundamental difference is in your, "This is what a dictionary is intended for." That opens up the entire descriptivist vs. prescriptivist debate. In a descriptivist vision references are essential. Eclecticology 02:20, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that there is a strong community consensus arount the PoS headings. "Part of speech" should not be a term that's strictly applied. We call that heading "Part of speech", but that term does not appear in the heading. It could just as easily been called something else. I think that the community broadly accepts that "Initialism" and many other terms that are not parts of speech in the strict sense are perfectly acceptable at that point. Eclecticology 18:58, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I know that the so called POS header does not necessarily have to contain a part of speech. I have no objection to (and do in fact support) allowing things like Affix (which has no function in a sentence since it is less than a word) and Proverb (which has no function in a sentence since it is a sentence), but most abbreviations and idioms do have a function in a sentence and this function has to be mentioned somewhere, and the logical place is the POS header (so FiS=Function in Sentence might be more appropriate). Consider for example WYSIWYG: It is an abbreviation of a whole sentence, but functions as a noun (and possibly as an adjective). On the other hand RTFM abbreviates an entire sentence too and is used as such in speech. In this case the PoS header can't contain a part of speech. I'd suggest the POS header Exclamation since this is how this abbreviation is used (functions) in speech (which incidentially abbreviates to FiS as well). Having PoS headers entitled Abbreviation, Idiom, etc. is unsystematic, confusing, and, at its worst, misleading. Ncik 23:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

As long as we have an abbreviation it should be called an abbreviation. The description that you seem to want should be on the page for what the abbreviation(s) stand for. Eclecticology 02:20, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Format question

Hello Ncik, I found you were changing some of the format I applied to entries such as scenes. I prefer

• plural of scene

while you prefer

• plural of scene

Is it a general layout policy? It would be useful not to contradict each other. Cheers. Vildricianus 23:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I actually prefer

• Plural of scene.

I daresay that it is general layout policy to capitalise the first word of a definition and finish it with a full stop. When it comes to italicising I'm less sure whether this has been discussed. I think the few inflected forms that were added usually have the same format as mine, and I actually prefer it this way round since I find a whole italicised sentence (it's admittedly a short sentence, but in general, especially for highly inflected languages, you will get things like "First-person plural pluperfect indicative passive of some verb") always makes a page look busy and less pleasant to read. The asterisk instead of a hash is certainly not standard, and till today I preferred the latter, but now I think the asterisk might be a better solution because you can't refer to it, which will intuitively stop editors from adding synonyms, antonyms, translations, etc, which indeed are not allowed for inflected forms. Ncik 01:11, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Just chipping in, I prefer "Plural of scene" as this shows that "scene" is a headword. I reserve italics for labels and foreign words (especially in etymologies). — Paul G 10:01, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Language consideration

As your question and my response are really about a particular page I have moved your question, and added my response at Wiktionary talk:Language considerations#What should link from here Eclecticology 01:29, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Audio

Ncik, I did get your note about audio for pronunciation keys. It's a good idea, and I'll add it to my (ever-expanding) list of words for my attention. I expect to be busy in real life for the next couple of weeks, so it may be awhile. —Dvortygirl 08:37, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Protection of your user page

Because your user page was a target of page move vandalism today, I've protected it against page moves (only). If you ever wish to rename your user page (which is unlikely), please ask any administrator to unprotect it. Uncle G 04:56, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

(In)transitive verbs

Hi Ncik - I've replied to this on my user page. To summarise, I agree. — Paul G 10:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Read this

You're wrong about the to in infinitives. Read this.

File:Infinitive Article.JPG

You're wrong

--Primetime 23:52, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Links

I agree with Wikipedia's position on the excessive use of links. As it is, you're adding links to my articles that pretty much no one would want to cross-reference. For example, in the entry "ounce metal," there's a link to the entry "ounce," even though an ounces have nothing to do with the metal whatsoever. My belief is that if it wouldn't say q.v., see also, or see in another reference work, then it shouldn't have a link here. --Primetime 23:55, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Why don't you try raising these issues in the WT:BP instead of bugging me with this stuff. I'm particularly looking forward to the world adapting your interpretation of what an infinitive is. Ncik 00:03, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Fine

You are obviously not enough of a man to compromise. So, I will not compromise with you, either. You are obviously not creative enough to give an opinion on my edits, either. I was compromising by keeping some of your edits to my page because I think they're all very low quality. But now, the deal is off.

Sincerely,

Primetime 19:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Perinaeum

OK. Your point about the typography is valid. A site could override this with its own rules, but I'm not going to argue that point for now. After reflection, however, I am inclined to prefer quotation marks to italics. We do already tend to use italics more frequently for a lot of explanatory materials, and for foreign words; using quotation marks for this will avoid some of the ambiguity. (The only reason that I had not changed back the template is that I had not noticed it.) There will be other circumstances where the quotation marks will also apply. Eclecticology 05:21, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

PS. I'm glad that you chose to discuss this rather than turning it into an edit war. Thank you. -- Ec

Current dispute with Connel

In view of Connel's persistent negative attitude toward you I would suggest that you make more than the usual effort to avoid controversial edits in the near future. In contrast to Connel's opinion, I have noted your increased willingness to co-operate with the community. I have no criticism of you at this time, but I would very strongly suggest that you make a special effort to maintain the high ground. Eclecticology 22:11, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

More template screwiness

Ncik,

Can you please explain why you made those evidently harmful edits to Template:acronym and template:initialism that have been one-click rolled back?

--Connel MacKenzie T C 08:27, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Presumably because he thought that headers shouldn't have links. While I tend to agree, it really is a matter of policy and as such needs to be discussed first. --Patrik Stridvall 09:13, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

You guessed correctly. We do actually have a policy that headers should not contain templates, but considering the extend to which these two have been used in this way, I decided to do this minor fix for now until somebody decides to work through all of the pages affected. Ncik 09:19, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Then why did you remove the categories? And what policy are you alluding to? The one you dreamt up without discussion? Or the original informal policy that made an exception for abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms? Or did you remove that too? --Connel MacKenzie T C 09:35, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Whoa, I didn't see the colon preceding "Category:". Looks like you did only break the link to the index page. --Connel MacKenzie T C 09:45, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

In any case, perhaps a new template would do the better job. Suggested name en-initialism

'''{{{1|{{PAGENAME}}}}}''' [[Category:Abbreviations, Acronyms and Initialisms]] [[Category:Initialisms]]

with use like on say page DC

==English== ===Initialism=== {{en-initialism}} # [[direct current]]

Note that the en- prefix is needed because there are different initalisms in different languages. They should have separated categories. --Patrik Stridvall 09:50, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps. This belongs in the beer parlour. --Connel MacKenzie T C 10:04, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

OK. See Wiktionary:Beer_parlour#Templates for Abbreviations, Acronyms and Initialisms --Patrik Stridvall 12:57, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Icons

I don't see the point to removing the harmless little pictures on various maintenance templates. Some people have put them there in an attempt to make things look prettier. Could you please point me to where you have explained your rationale for removing them? Eclecticology 20:41, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Hyphenation

I can't find the conversation at the moment, but I thought we were supposed to remove the silly hyphenation section. --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Really? I have never been involved, and as far as I remember not even seen, a discussion about hyphenation. A link to a discussion would be useful, since I don't see what the problem is. It seems to me a perfectly informative and interesting thing to have (in particular for English, where hyphenation is fairly complicated). Ncik 00:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Article names and ELE

Thanks for commenting on my talk page on this topic. I tend to view the ELE page as mostly a page for beginners. Essentially that means, "stick to the basics, and explain the details elsewhere." Too much detail discourages a newcomer who feels overwhelmed by how much he needs to learn to be able to edit. By using "includes proper nouns ..., etc." I don't provide an exhaustive list, but let it be known that there are other possibilities. Whether another page can go into greater detail remains an open question; I haven't looked into it and can't be sure that some existing page might serve the purpose.

The other expression that I found confusing was "For languages with an alphabet" (or something similar). Not all languages with an alphabet have capitals. Eclecticology 21:23, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

It certainly is a page for beginners. But nonetheless it also is the central page with respect to layout and the page through which important and definite discussion results (usually involving a high proportion of frequent editors) are made known to the remainder of the community. I don't see the harm in giving some additional documentation on how things work or why certain things are as they are. Small print seemed to be a good solution to me since it pretty much is self-explaining in terms of it functioning as providing extra, not essential, information. I really think you should give the small print a chance, especially since it is not contesting any established policies, just providing some further reading, and is as such clearly distinguishable from the main body of the text. It would also like to hear other people's opinions about it. Ncik 00:19, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Translations - Black-Velvet

Just a quick message. Sorry about my poor translations, I'll stop now. My German isn't too good, so I guess I really shouldn't be translating anything from that particular language. Best Regards. Black-Velvet 14:05, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

vandal

Yes, it's a vandal. But, I'm not a sysop, therefore I cannot block. Sorry. I will do my best do delete and revert edits for now. --Dijan 02:17, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, not yet. I guess they're still voting and taking time. But, thank you for voting.  :) --Dijan 02:20, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Templates

Concerning the verb templates, would you mind me replacing your layout with mine? See User:Vildricianus/Page8 for a sample. This would be a lot more pleasant to the eye.

Yes, I know short definitions and near translations sections will make it cluttered. There are about 300 instances of this template, which I will check manually whether this happens. — Vildricianus 14:31, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

PS: Would you consider archiving this page? It's getting long.

It's a Wiki, so go for it. Ncik 02:09, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Invitation to contribute

Hi,

You might or might not already be aware that there is now a new system in place for marking translations that need to be checked (those that are suspected of being incorrect or those where it is not clear which sense(s) of a word the translations apply to). (See Wiktionary:Beer_parlour#Translations_to_be_checked_proposal here for the Beer parlour discussion on this topic.)

Translations to be checked are now categorised by language. For example, Category:Translations_to_be_checked_(French) contains a list of all words where French translations need to be checked. This is designed to make the checking of these translations easier to maintain and work with.

I'm contacting everyone who has either expressed an interest in working on translations or has indicated in Wiktionary:Babel that they have a good knowledge of a particular foreign language or languages.

Would you be interested in helping out with the translations to be checked for German? If so, please read the page on how to check translations.

If you want to reply to this message, please do so on my talk page. Thanks for your help you can provide.

— Paul G 10:55, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

---

Hey Nick can you tell me what you want added to wikt i can help! 216.220.231.226 17:19, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Things_to_do. I also recommend following Wiktionary:Beer parlour discussions if you are interested in developing policies. Ncik 17:26, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Help:Starting a new page

I've unblocked the page as requested since the reasons for blocking it had nothing to do with you. Eclecticology 08:04, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

quick question

I have been doing a lot of those pages type pages recently, and I haven't been using the italics format, was that just an asthetic thing or is there a convention that I missed along the way? - TheDaveRoss 02:23, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

It's very recent, see WT:BP#Request_for_bot_status:_TheCheatBot. Ncik 02:28, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Very recent indeed, thanks for pointing it out. - TheDaveRoss 02:33, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Bad move

I find your recent move of the content of Wiktionary:Pronunciation to Wiktionary:English pronunciation key to be lacking merit. As it stands you've created a completely superfluous mini-portal where there was previously just one, quite intuitive page, and there's no simple way of moving it back since you've edited the page already. I would appreciate if you explained yourself on the appropriate talkpage(s).

Peter ^Isotalo 10:20, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Header level of alternative spellings

I'll have a look at that, I've probably done a few in the last few days as part of some minor semi-automatic tidying. No time unfortunatley today, probably the weekend. MGSpiller 20:13, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

rfc

Re: apostrophe, the template itself has said (forever) that the RFC tag can just be removed if it is not clear why the cleanup is requested. Talk page should indicate what section(s) need overhaul, but a wordy edit summary can sometimes do the trick. --Connel MacKenzie T C 02:59, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

analog

How can you suggest that UK vs. US spelling differentces are NPOV? --Connel MacKenzie T C 14:23, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

You know that you are in the minority on this issue and have repeatedly failed to garner support for an unnecessary US/UK spelling split. See Wiktionary:Beer_parlour_archive/January-March_06#Policy_concerning_US_v_Brit_spelling. Ncik 14:29, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

WHAT? No that is not true at all. Even Ec indicated there that a software solution (that Dfeuer proposed) is not feasible at this time. Even Primetime (egahds!) reiterated the obvious problem with combining them. The only person on that one thread that supported a unilateral merge was Paul; yet he has agreed on numerous prior occasions to accommodate the split (to an extent.) Stop rolling it back while you and I are "discussing" it. Do you feel it is time to reopen this on WT:BP? --Connel MacKenzie T C 14:36, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Beer parlour seems appropriate, for the two of us won't get anywhere, I fear. Ncik 14:46, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'll restart that conversation in the next few minutes. --Connel MacKenzie T C 16:51, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Please comment at WT:BP#First quarter 2006 US vs. UK flamewar. --Connel MacKenzie T C 17:11, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

RfC?

What do you want at ’m? It looks perfectly alright, if limited. — Vildricianus 18:18, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Thinking it over I come to the conclusion that an RfD is more appropriate. Ncik 18:30, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

While I think it is not, I'll leave that to the people at RfD. — Vildricianus 18:31, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Please voice your concerns at WT:RFD! Ncik 18:33, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

101

Please restore the noun you removed. I'll expand on its cultural significance if needed, but that is not something that should be removed.

Also, remember to move text you delete to the entry's talk page with an explanation; otherwise it looks like vandalism. --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:06, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Language templates

Hi Ncik!

Is there a good reason why not to use language templates?

I think language templates should always be used in Translations section. Then it would be easy to borrow these translations section to other wiktionaries. For instance, see the page for "av" (water) in Kurdish wiktionary: av There are hundreds of translations. Since language templates are used, one could easily borrow this section to the "water" page in the English wiktionary. All the names of the languages would be automatically in English and there would be no need for translating the name of the languages from Kurdish to English. I see this as a great potential that has not been taken advantage of except for the Kurdish and the Dutch wiktionaries, both using widely this method.

Regards

Ferhengvan 17:16, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Categorization

It is admirable that you are taking an interest in words from the time category, but could you please not undo all the categorization work I've been doing for the past few hours? If you object to the time template, then that's fine, but at least put in a Category:Time link if you remove the template, please. I've worked many hours building up that category. --EncycloPetey 14:58, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I've stopped already. But I would appreciate if you ceased using the template until we have come to a conclusion on WT:RFD, and for now only used direct categorziation. Ncik 15:03, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I have not added the template to any new pages since the discussion began. --EncycloPetey 15:10, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Ncik 15:21, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Why have you removed so many categorizations from articles? You have re-created more uncategorized pages that I am going after.--Jusjih 13:14, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Category:Spanish month

It doesn't seem to exist, not sure how to delete it if it never existed :) -- Tawker 07:06, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Template:en-verb3

Can I delete this? — Vildricianus 12:19, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Ncik 13:12, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Reminder: categories

Just a quick reminder: categories are still supposed to go at the end of an entry.

I don't think so. Ncik 04:07, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK, the only exception was for categories within templates. Do you have new information for me on the topic? --Connel MacKenzie T C 04:14, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Also, the {{rank}} should not be moved, as you are (accidentally) making that template a permenant fixture by doing so. The re-ranking is high on my priority list, but I can't remove that older format if you mangle the entries.

Fair enough. I probably haven't moved more than a dozen so far. Ncik 04:07, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Cooperation is appreciated. --Connel MacKenzie T C 04:14, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

--Connel MacKenzie T C 04:00, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

red

Ncik! I just commented on WT:RFC! Why the obsession with removing useful tags? Discuss things for crying out loud! --Connel MacKenzie T C 04:16, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Template:Word of the week

Do you still need this? — Vildricianus 16:08, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

No. It might be worth considering its format for the Word of the Day template, though. Ncik 22:53, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

On python Robots

By random chance, I saw your questions about bots. Take a look here. Download python, download the pywikipedia framework, and use the files in that framework. To automatically import/create new articles onto Wiktionary, you can use pagefromfile.py. You would have to type/generate a text file on your own computer, and the bot will bring the entries on the text file onto Wiktionary. A sample entry could look like(text file on your own computer, I don't know the format here on the English Wiktionary, so I'm following the one on the Chinese Wiktionary):

8585
{{-basc-}}{{latin-script}}__NOEDITSECTION__
{{-de-}}
{{-n-|de}}
:''' ''Versuch'' ''' {{m}}
#[[experiment]]
#[[attempt]]
#[[try]]
#[[trial]]
5858

I hope this helps... --Shibo77 07:09, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Kollege

Greetings! I am looking for someone to confirm Kollege, defined as "the german word for homie." Is this correct? Cheers! bd2412 T 15:41, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

• Ah, never mind - I see you had posted it as a translation of homie (the individual article was posted by an anon). bd2412 T 15:46, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

WT:BP#Vote for User:TheCheatBot format

You showed a particular interest in the former iterations of this project in the past. I'd appreciate it if you'd offer your vote on this round, at WT:BP#Vote for User:TheCheatBot format. --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:13, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Given your recent contributions, I must assume you've seen this notice and chosen to ignore it. You could not have missed this notice, while directing your harsh comments towards me on my talk page. I have tried to imagine good faith reasons for you to have ignored this topic, but have so far drawn a blank. The only reasonable conclusion is that your objections all along have been only to obstruct progress, based on some irrational fear you harbor. I have much less respect for you now, as a contributor, than I did before. --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:46, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

I just couldn't be bothered to continue this endless discussion. But as far as I can see it has been decided to use a template now. I'm happy with that since it allows for future adjustments. Ncik 11:17, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

You do realize, the latest three votes on the topic were exclusively for your personal benefit, right? The community had chosen acceptable, resonable alternates that you opposed each time. You realized you could stall it no longer, so you pretend it doesn't matter? Ncik, comments like yours make it very difficult to give you the benefit of a doubt. --Connel MacKenzie T C 04:51, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Standardized customizable inflection templates

Hi Ncik. I'm hoping you can provide some feedback regarding {{en-infl-noun}}.

We're working on allowing users to choose display preferences through Special:Preferences, but in the meantime, I'd like your feedback on how the output of the new template looks. I gather that you prefer the table style for showing inflections. Do you use the "monobook" skin? If so, and you would like to see how the in-progress {{en-infl-noun}} would look after choosing the table style (when such preferences are eventually exposed through Special:Preferences), you can either modify Special:Mypage/monobook.css as described in {{en-infl-noun}} or ask me to do so for you.

Thanks in advance for helping me improve the template. Rod (A. Smith) 16:58, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't care at all what the thing looks like in the end. I would prefer the boxes since but I'm fine with something simpler. I think it was Vildricianus who suggested a format like

• Infinitive: to incur
• 3rd person: incurs
• present participle: incurring
• etc.

which is probably even better than the boxes. However, my main concern is that these stupid templates many people currently use (en-infl-reg, etc.) have mostly misleading titles and are not flexible enough to handle certain irregularities or further necessary explanations. Furthermore, there are too many of them. As far as I can see, what you propose is one template allowing for input in both ways. I wonder if that makes it any better. However it is pleasing to see that somebody who at least comprehends the arising difficulties is dealing with the matter now. It is surprising that nobody objected to Widsith's remark that two templates, one covering the most common regular inflection and one for everything else, are sufficient. This is the solution I came up with - after having experimented with more as well as less templates. Just do something reasonable and hope Connel doesn't object to it. Ncik 01:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Name change

Just letting you know! bd2412 T 12:36, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Category placement

Hello; categories belong at the bottom of pages. Otherwise, people could spend hours looking for them. — Vildricianus 13:18, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Categories go where they can be unambiguously associated with the objects they categorise. Ncik 13:22, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Sickly

We already have sickly. Would you like to merge them? SemperBlotto 10:22, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Oops, that happens when you start an article from a wikified word at the beginning of a definition. Ncik 10:26, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Done.

I think I've arrived at a non-controversial solution. bd2412 T 16:43, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

IRC invitation

Hello,

I just noticed your message to me, in my logs of the recent changes. I am delighted that you have been able to connect using an irc client. In the future, please try contacting me on irc://irc.freenode.net/wiktionary as I am able (and much more likely) to reply to you there.

--Connel MacKenzie 20:04, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

dunkle vs dunkel

Hi. I don't understand the difference between these two words. is "dunkle" just a weird alternate spelling? Thanks! --Snarius 07:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

template:en-noun and regular possessive forms of modern English nouns

There is currently an active vote at [[2]] regarding whether regular possessive forms of modern English nouns should have their own entries or not. As part of this it has been suggested that the {{en-noun}} template might be modified to show the possessive forms in the inflection line of modern English noun entries (irrespective of the outcome of the vote). Your comments and/or votes are welcome until the end of the vote on 5th August 2007. You are receiving this note as you have edited template:en-noun and/or template talk:en-noun Thryduulf 17:27, 11 July 2007 (UTC)