User talk:Visviva/archive/2008

hinder

Happy New Year! When you have a moment, could you please add Korean translations to the entry for hinder (both verb and adjective)? This is to be another model page. Thanks. --EncycloPetey 04:10, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

• Hi EP, thanks for the fixes on the noun section. In re the above, I can find no support for "most hinder" or "more hinder" -- see [1] and [2], which yield only spurious hits. So I would vote to toss these forms out, absent further discoveries... On the other hand, hindermost is well-attested, and hindermore seems to fall just short of CFI. HTH. Cheers, -- Visviva 05:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

  Thanks. Will you do the honors? This entry is slated to be WOTD on the 8th, and I'd like it to be a showcase of what we can really do. Most WOTD pages aren't this fleshed-out, but I like to go all the way with them every once in a while. Any red links that you can fill before then would also be welcome. As a model page, this is an entry I'll point people to for guidance, so having well-formatted foreign language entries off it would be a bonus. --EncycloPetey 05:19, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

BTW (and just for laughs) here is the entry as it looked early this morning, before a crack team of Wiktionarians was goaded into helping with this entry. --EncycloPetey 05:27, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

That's some fine goading there. -- Visviva 05:36, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

떡

The References section was at level five, in the L3 Etymology section; the only way References can appear at L5 is to be in an L4 POS section nested in multiple ety's at L3. Should generally be L4 in the POS, or L3 at the end. ;-) Robert Ullmann 12:10, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, sure... if the References were at L4, they would be before the POS and at the same level, which would seem inappropriate; with the refs at the end, the direct association with the etymology itself (rather than the entire Etymology-Pronounciation-POS complex) is not clear. But I don't guess there's any way around it... and I have to accept that a human copyeditor would probably have found that arrangement just as problematic as AF did. That's a fine bot you've got there. -- Visviva 14:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Home Depot

I've hunted down citations for this one - could you revisit your RfD vote? Cheers! bd2412 T 17:07, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Proper nouns Translingual

Interesting rant. There is something stupid about having "translations" of Krushchev into different languages, especially where there are not even differences in diacritical marks. But the French usually have such marks. Could you direct me to any WT discussions about this? What is the scope of your targets for reform?

Place names seem to have too many issues. Would place names be translingual even if there were distinct etymologies in different languages? (I'm thinking about the various large lakes in North America with different names in different native languages.) And what about the politics of different names?

What about the transliteration issues? This could end up being a Quixotic (Shavian?) effort at spelling reform.

Finally, are there any templates for Translingual proper nouns to accelerate entry of taxonomic names etc.? DCDuring 16:20, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed this one. I would say that the basic three-language rule should apply across the board; a place name isn't necessary translingual, but if it can be attested in at least three contemporary languages it should be considered translingual. That obviously applies to most Roman-alphabet place names that are otherwise eligible for inclusion. I'd even be happy with a stricter rule requiring three unrelated languages (any proper noun that can be cited with the same meaning in Turkish, Indonesian, and French is almost certainly translingual). Otherwise we'll keep getting more absurdities like Chicago#Tatar.

I don't think there have been extensive discussions of the topic. The notion of marking given names as translingual did get shouted down at some point a few months ago (maybe in RFD), with several editors arguing that these should have sections for every language in which they are attested. Which is to say, for the more common given names, virtually identical sections for almost every language (there are certainly people in Germany named "John," so I guess we should have a German section there). I didn't understand the logic then, and I don't understand it now.

As far as I'm aware Translingual remains something of a backwater, with few templates and underdeveloped category structure. Templates for taxonomic names (etymology, inflection line) would be an excellent thing; if they're out there now, they aren't getting much use. -- Visviva 16:21, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

spetchel

Hi. Let's talk. I posted plenty of information about spetchel. I notice that it is not under Wiktionary:Requests_for_verification/archive under failed entries, which makes me wonder why it was deleted by you for "failing verification". The word is currently in use on wikipedia, the Glossary of North Country Words, and 22 other works which should cover the "actual use" qualification. As far as Connel MacKenzie was concerned, it was covered. What exactly is the problem with the word? --Marmoset Marmalade 16:22, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I also note that under the criteria for Requests for verification, "Cite, on the article page, usage of the word in permanently recorded media, conveying meaning, in at least three independent instances spanning at least a year." Wouldn't the word appearing in 23 books count as "usage of the word in permanently recorded media, conveying meaning, in at least three independent instances spanning at least a year."? On top of that, doesn't published books that are searchable by Google Books count as "Cite, on the article page, the word’s usage in a well-known work." and usage of the word in permanently recorded media (since it is listed under such)? --Marmoset Marmalade 16:38, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Definitions do not count; see WT:CFI#Conveying meaning. As far as I can see,all of the genuine Google books hits, as well as the other links you provided, are from dictionaries, glossaries, and journal articles which define the term without using it. Definitions alone are simply not sufficient for verification. If you can find three citations of the word in actual use (i.e. something like "we're putting in a spetchel behind the back garden") then feel free to restore the entry. Thanks for your interest in this word; if you can find evidence that it is or has been in genuine use, you shall have my lifelong respect. Cheers, -- Visviva 23:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I have a goal then. :D I assume that a wikipedia entry that has the word doesn't count as one? --Marmoset Marmalade 13:56, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Afraid not. (actually I think it should, since Wikipedia is at least as durably archived as Usenet, but I'm very far outside the mainstream on this.) Good luck! -- Visviva 14:28, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

It looks like I will have to look through newspaper articles and the like. To clarify, if I find things like web pages or the like where the word is in use, that is fine? --Marmoset Marmalade 15:54, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

No, it needs to be in print or a medium of comparable durability; the problem with websites is that they tend to disappear and even the Internet Archive is less reliable than one would like. We do make an exception for Usenet; regular websites, however, are out. -- Visviva 16:04, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

It appears that I will have to do a search of various local newspapers then. I have found a similar word, spetchell, which I have plenty of references for (or at least I hope I do). --Marmoset Marmalade 16:13, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Archiving - finer points

Hello,

I see you've been one of the few people actively archiving sections. I'd like to note that, at least in the past, the archiving (e.g. to a talk page) meant that no soft-link is left behind...the conversation's new "home" is the relevant talk page. In particular, {{rfvpassed|text="all lines of entire section from RFV"}} and {{rfdpassed|text="same"}} used to be the "standard" wrappers.

To help you out, I'd like to point out the benefits of allowing some automation to do the grunt work for you. By simply striking out the section title, the section can be moved out (if there have been no comments in the last 14 days.) For deletions, it is intended to be even easier: if the section title is a redlink to a valid page name, they are archived after fourteen days.

The point of the automation is not particularly to reduce the amount of work you need to do on a particular item, but rather, to consistently cross-reference these things. Each person involved seems to do it slightly differently, causing lots of broken links and hard feelings. (For example, most of RFD from 2007 was hijacked directly to new, inappropriate archive pages, with the items were still being discussed actively. Many may have been deleted or kept inappropriately, as most people - such as myself - had no way of accessing the hidden archives. Had they been discussed before someone was being bold, the shortcomings of such an approach could have been pointed out.)

There is currently some active conversation in WT:GP regarding my new "KillBot" archiver. So far, I have RFDO and RFD closing out redlink sections and stricken bluelink sections. The idea is that once you have a disposition for an item, you can either delete the target page, or strike out the section title. Two weeks later (if you signed the item at the same time) it will get archived to wherever it needs to go. I plan on expanding it to RFV shortly. Feedback is appreciated.

--Connel MacKenzie 03:14, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Well this seems like a good step. BTW, that's certainly not true about RFD, unless by "active" you mean "not discussed for more than 60 days"; perhaps you meant instead to refer to the recent and very sloppy "archiving" of RFV. -- Visviva 05:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I think you are right - the RFV was the more egregious mangling. But mid 2007 saw massive disruption to both. --Connel MacKenzie 06:13, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

• I've heard subtle complaint from you about the de.wikt-style links to static revisions. That type of link was harder to do and was specifically requested. It was also presented in a discussion (Jan 2007 WT:GP) as a simply superior arrangement. I've come to accept those arguments, now that I've seen it in action. The links to the specific revision provide a much greater context (like when someone says, "see the '#blahBlahBlah' conversation above.") They also are 'much kinder on the database (especially in the long run.) They also have the advantage of taking wayward comments out of the limelight - so that, for example, Ruakh won't easily be embarrassed some day by some of his more vitriolic comments. (I guess we could ask him a few years from now.) Specific entries are still easy to link to. The alphabetic index makes looking up similar spellings much easier. There is much to be said for actual elimination of old conversations; policy itself changes...comments made under one regime would seem completely absurd under another. (For example, the WT:RFD discussions from the era before we even had WT:RFV.) The disadvantage is that searches of the verbose text are more difficult. But, as I just described, that traditionally has been considered a benefit, not a disadvantage (at least by User:Eclecticology et al.)

• I'm concerned now about fine-tuning the archiving, to reduce the still-too-large backlog in WT:RFV. Suggestions are welcome. --Connel MacKenzie 06:13, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Huh. Guess I missed that discussion, thanks for the pointer. I tend to have odd and unpopular views on subjects like deletion, so I'll stop grousing about this. As long as the discussions can still be found by those who want to find them, no irreparable harm is done. Searchability is important, but actually it is probably more important that we have some system for closure and archiving that is followed in a reasonably timely and consistent fashion. You are to be commended for undertaking the major effort to put such a system in place. Cheers, -- Visviva 06:23, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

ulterior motive and template:quote-book

Hello Visviva -- In don't think we should reproduce quotation marks that were in the original if we are quoting from entirely within them. We aren't identifying the speaker anyway and it doesn't matter for purposes of illustrating a meaning.

As for the template, I appreciate the work you've put into it. Two thoughts: (1) I believe the URL is overkill, since all that is needed to complete a proper citation are publisher and place of publication, which could easily just be included directly in the template. (2) According to WT:QUOTE all parts of the citation line are separated by commas and the citation line even ends with a comma.

BTW, I am glad to see that links to wikipedia work from within the template (e.g., |author=[[w:Ernest_Hemingway|Ernest Hemingway]]). -- WikiPedant 06:20, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your detailed response. I guess I lean toward including quotation marks that are present in the original since it is potentially relevant that a construction was used a) not in the author's voice, and b) in a representation of speech. ulterior motive is not such a case, though, so I have no objection to their removal (now that I understand the reason why).

Regarding the template, I think I've fixed the periods/commas issue now; there was some gunk left over from when I copied w:Template:cite book to {{reference-book}}. Somehow I never noticed that; what remains of my eyesight must be going. 8-)

Oops! I've always ended the source line with a colon, guess I'd better fix that. A comma does seem awfully unnatural though... See, this is why we need templates... or why I need them, anyway.  :-) I can never keep this stuff straight. -- Visviva 09:54, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

On point (1), I would have to disagree; I think the publisher information is almost useless (since the ISBN is already a unique identifier), whereas without a URL the citation cannot easily be verified and evaluated by other editors. Most of the time that isn't a big deal, but I've seen more than a few cases where I would really have liked to be able to check the original context. -- Visviva 10:00, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

textual harassment

Still has RfV tag. Should RfVd sense go to RfV or is everyone sick of seeing it? I'd be surprised if there would be any print attestation. DCDuring TALK 17:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm kind of sick of seeing it, but there may be some scattered use in Usenet and Google News archives (tho' mostly just jocose mentions or headline-writer cleverness). So it should probably go to RFV. I'll do the honors. -- Visviva 03:55, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

VIP

Is VIP intended for any purpose other than for conveying helpful information from an ordinary user to someone in a position to block a user? There are, I would guess, better sources of information for actual blocks. DCDuring TALK 04:16, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

That's my understanding, yes (that it's only for reports of vandalism, and would normally be used only by non-admins for the purpose of contacting admins). -- Visviva 04:23, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Squiffy/Vietnamese

Does that make it a translation to be checked? Or should I just remove it? Thanks, Harris Morgan 16:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC).

Not a translation to be checked, because in the Wiktionary context that usually means "a translation to be assigned to a specific sense." So I would say it is probably best removed, yes (at least for now). Users who really need a Vietnamese translation can always follow the interwiki. Cheers, -- Visviva 16:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Korean Hanja

Would you be willing to look at User:Robert Ullmann/L2/invalid, at the line "Korean [[hanja"? I just don't trust myself with doing much of anything with these crazy east Asian languages. Atelaes 20:58, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Done now. -- Visviva 04:36, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. You're the shit! (in the colloquial "excellent" sense, not the "feces" sense). -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 04:46, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

German

Thank you, Visviva! I thought it was a plural, but, oh, well. Thank you for saying so.Kitty53 21:33, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

You're welcome. -- Visviva 16:02, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Weird one

WiktionaryZ vs. Talk:WiktionaryZ

When was it (improperly?) re-rfd'd? I'm not sure how I missed it. I do think, if anything, the redirect should be kept. --Connel MacKenzie 23:40, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

It was part of the wjargon bulk nom from last year; see Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion/Archives/2007/07#WiktionaryZ. No strong opinion on my part. -- Visviva 23:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

omnisentience

Well, you got to put in all the good stuff. Sorry. I should have realized that you must have been working on it. I also enjoyed learning the word macaronic from the ety for pansentience. I'm going to speculate that I already know the etymology for that one. DCDuring TALK 15:43, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

No worries. Surprised me a bit. It's not often I have an edit conflict before creating an entry. Cheers, -- Visviva 15:45, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Taxonomic names

Animal and plant names, both taxonomic and common, strike me as a useful area for some documentation. Is there some that I've missed? Is anyone expert or interested? I may check at WP for interest. All of the component elements, at least above cultivar, would seem to have a natural place here. I'm not so sure about whether we should have every two-part species name, especially initially. It's an interesting case of "official" naming, too, where we infer meaning from the norms of the community, as prescribed by an official entity, rather than usage. How important do you think this area is? DCDuring TALK 10:58, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

It's pretty important, but not an area that has seen much systematic activity or focused discussion as yet. EncycloPetey and SemperBlotto would be your best contacts for more information & feedback. In general I think it is accepted that all taxonomic names (that are attested in the literature) merit inclusion. This includes binomial names, of which we have a few; however, as you say, they aren't the first priority. Points of reference: Appendix:Taxonomic names, Category:Taxonomic names, and some old discussions: April 2005, March 2005. HTH, -- Visviva 11:46, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

whisper in the wind

Thanks. Did you use WP to get context to inform your attestation search? I think I'll have to make a habit of that in cases where I am so ignorant. DCDuring TALK 11:06, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Not exactly, though that's a good idea... My imperfect and ad hoc process went something like this: I noticed that the Google News results for "whisper in the wind" + "wrestling" mostly referred either to some guy named "Jeff" or some other guy named "Hardy." So I thought, 'hm, I wonder if those are different people or not' and typed "Jeff Hardy" into a web search; w:Jeff Hardy was the top result. To double check, I went back to Google News Archives and searched for '"whisper in the wind" + wrestling -Jeff -Hardy' ... which came up virtually empty. Of course this isn't absolutely probative, but it seemed like enough to go on. -- Visviva 11:25, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, mostly I just get lucky in the course of the searches. It's getting to be just of question of how many tabs I keep open. Trying to process/improve entries quickly does make for lots of misses and incomplete improvements, whether by bot or by hand. DCDuring TALK 20:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Recreating articles

Hello, Visviva. Remember when you allowed me to recreate neugeborenes? I felt silly when allowed to do that, because on Wikipedia, whatever you created youself, if deleted, someone else has to recreate it for you. I had created neugeborenes before, and you allowed me to recreate it, and thanks for revising it. If any wiktionary article gets deleted, does this mean that even the creater of the article can recreate it? Just the thought of it makes me feel a little silly.Kitty53 20:29, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

We're not really very bureaucratic here, so I don't think we have any strict rules for this sort of thing. Entries can be recreated in modified form if they have been previously speedily deleted (this was true on Wikipedia too, the last I checked); however, there is some risk that this will be regarded as bad-faith behavior and lead to re-deletion and blocking. In the case of neugeborenes, the article had most recently been deleted simply as the result of a move (since redirects resulting from a page move are generally deleted), and in cases such as that there would never be any problem with re-creation. Note that recreating entries that have previously failed WT:RFD is very likely to lead to speedy deletion and blocking. In general, if you want to re-create an entry that has previously been deleted, it's a good idea to contact the deleting admin first; that helps to avoid any misunderstandings down the line. -- Visviva 04:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. I forgot to do that.:)Kitty53 20:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

great pic for mares tails --71.254.108.151 05:27, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Of course the real credit should go to Mila Zinkova. -- Visviva 06:34, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry

...about [3] - I had misunderstood what it was about. I thought whitelisted user's stuff was immediately/automatically checked. I missed the part about the prefs having to be turned on... :oops: \Mike 14:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

No worries; I just happened to notice it and think "I know I've seen DP's contribs getting autopatrolled." -- Visviva 14:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Visviva

i have started my own wikidictionary here is the link if your interested. http://wildfireness.wikispaces.com/ --Yukongold 03:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

onset

FYI, regarding your edit summaries at onset: that's how it was in the 1913 edition of Webster's, where this entry was apparently lifted from (see http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?resource=Webster%27s&word=onset&use1913=on). I'm not sure what the story is, but <definition> <italicized surname> with no quotation is a very common pattern in that edition. —Ruakh_TALK 06:16, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks; I cottoned on to that eventually. I still stand by my position that it's "mysterious gunk" for our purposes, though. :-) -- Visviva 06:17, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm a serious guy.

Do you really think I was trying to be funny by adding the jackarse entry? I honestly thought it was called jackarse in England since British English uses Ass instead of Arse, could you please explain? 82.148.70.2 10:16, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh and if my entry was nonsense, I apologize, I just wanted to help, like I said, I thought jackass is jackarse and still think it is in British English since arse is the British version of the word ass. I really would appricate if you could clarify for me. 82.148.70.2 10:24, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

The thing is, the original meaning of "jackass" is "male donkey," and ass in the sense of "donkey" is spelled the same way in all varieties of modern English. The Commonwealth "arse" spelling refers only to the posterior. So "jackarse" would be a very strange coinage. Checking google books:jackarse confirmed my suspicions that this does not have much (if any) usage, and is probably used only in parodies of certain varieties of English. -- Visviva 10:56, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, it was very useful. 82.148.70.2 14:22, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

treant

Does this help?

• 1977 — Gary Gygax, Monster Manual, page 96

  Treants are strangely related to humans and trees, combining features of both species. ...an individual treant can cause only one or two normal trees to move and attack as stipulated.

I still have this book, mostly as a result of not ever getting rid of old books once acquired. --EncycloPetey 14:04, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Wonderful, thanks! (and thanks also for adding the citation to the entry). -- Visviva 05:25, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Template:oko

ISO templates shoud never link to Wikipedia. They exist primarily to be subst'ed, and should link internally. --EncycloPetey 06:02, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Huh, must have confused it with something else, thanks. Although it does seem like the same rationale that applies to linking to WP articles in Etymology sections would also apply elsewhere ... -- Visviva 06:06, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Soviet

There is another sense, not hard to cite, that seems to mean "in a style or manner characteristic of the Soviet era in Russia and elsewhere in the Soviet Union's sphere of inflence (or Evil Empire)" It seems to be used relative to architecture, decor, product design, customer service, art, drama, books, etc. We are probably 40 years behind the times in not having this sense. There are periodic waves of nostalgia for those good old days, even now. I'll get to it tomorrow if you don't. And thanks for citing some of the things I RfV. Some entries just don't motivate me postively enough so that I don't do that good a job for them. DCDuring TALK 02:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, and likewise. Our disinterests seem to mesh fairly well.  :-) I definitely wouldn't question the validity of any of the senses, I'm just not sure whether they are best covered in detail under soviet or Soviet. BTW, interesting use of take out in that last quote you added. -- Visviva 04:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Word of the day/Nominations

Just to let you know that I moved WT:FWC to Wiktionary:Word of the day/Nominations and it is in your User:Visviva/Watchlist.

epistemology

Hello Visviva -- Regarding the edit that you made to "epistemology" here, and your comment expressing doubt about the need for separate senses for both (a) the area of philosophy and (b) the theory of knowledge of a particular philosopher: Like you, I have have sometimes felt that the distinction seems to be overkill, although I have added some of these dual senses myself. The situation does not apply to all philosophical terms, but to the names of areas of philosophy and schools of thought (e.g., one can talk about existentialism or, say, only Sartre's existentialism). What I keep coming back to in my mind, though, is that (a) the two kinds of usage of, say, "epistemology" are not strictly interchangeable (so that the meanings are not strictly identical); (b) good dictionaries are awfully precise (and philosophers are some of the biggest fussbudgets of all when it comes to exacting terminology); and (c) these philosophical terms do tend to behave differently than similar terms in, say, the physical sciences, where we are unlikely to talk about the diverse "chemistries" of different chemists or the "biology" of just one particular biologist (although, admittedly, in rare cases we might) while this kind of talk is routine in philosophy. So I keep coming back around to thinking that it is valid to distinguish the 2 senses, especially in the case of fields of study and schools of thought within philosophy. But I have to admit I still feel a bit unsettled about this question. -- WikiPedant 17:00, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I gave it some more thought after that edit, and yes, I think you're right. The sense in which, for example, someone can be a "Professor of Epistemology" is very different from the sense in which one can talk about a specific epistemology. But one thing that bothers me is something normal dictionaries wouldn't take into consideration: this bifurcation seems to be universal. One can speak of "Hegels Erkenntnistheorie" or "헤겔의 인식론" in German and Korean, just as one can speak of "Hegel's epistemology" in English. That seems to indicate that the distinction is encyclopedic rather than lexical. Nonetheless, as you say, it probably is a distinction we need to make in order to properly inform our readers. Purism will get us nowhere. -- Visviva 03:51, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Reflecting on the above, this seems like a good argument for combining the two senses, something like "the theory of knowledge, either in general or as expounded by a particular philosopher or school of thought." -- Visviva 04:23, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

quarrelsome

Dyslexia, vision problem, brain fart, never read a word ending in "-some" before? How did that happen? Does that tell us something about our users? DCDuring TALK 11:01, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I think this user is a VI editor, and so not a native speaker of English. Of course, given the global nature of the internet (and English) that is something we should keep in mind about our users -- most are not native speakers. -- Visviva 15:44, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I guess many languages don't use punctuation the way I'm used to. I'd never realized the kind of error that could lead to. Thanks. DCDuring TALK 16:06, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure about Vietnamese punctuation rules, but in general (except for the fluentest of the fluent) reading/writing a foreign language leaves fewer cognitive resources available than are present when using the L1. It's sort of like having water in your ears. This makes complex or dispersed structures like "a quarrelsome, bad-tempered manner" more difficult to parse -- your brain has a hard time stretching all the way to the end of the phrase, and tries to chunk the expression prematurely. That's my experience, anyway. Arguably an important element of usability for us is ensuring that we provide simple, short definitions and example sentences. -- Visviva 16:58, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been reading dictionaries a bit more carefully lately and have come to appreciate much more what they do. Longman's Dictionary of Contemporary English is an outstanding example of a learning-user-oriented dictionary. They are a great model for all the most common words (first 5-10-20K ?). We have so many, umm, improvement opportunities (MW 1913 legacy entries, excessive reliance on synonyms, no basic defining vocabulary). I firmly believe that we are writing too much for each other, our friends, and people a lot like us and not for the audience that needs us. The volunteer-wiki model gives a strong bias in that direction, I suppose. DCDuring TALK 18:19, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

-head nesting

Yes, the nesting is not necessary as the entry stands. It was an experiment motivated by by thought of separating all derivatives of -head and separating them by sense of head they were derived from. I no longer have much confidence in that being desirable. So, thanks for cleaning up the mess I'd forgotten about. DCDuring TALK 11:13, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, double-nesting is one of those things that seems a lot better in theory than in practice. Glad to be of service. -- Visviva 03:18, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

bunny chow

Speaking of the book citation template, I assume the page named above is not using it correctly, and needs cleanup. --EncycloPetey 03:09, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Done, thanks. -- Visviva 03:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Dutch gender

I only saw your request today and have tried to write a piece on this rather heikel subject. Jcwf 00:10, 20 April 2008 (UTC) See: Wiktionary:About Dutch

Thanks. I'm still somewhat in the dark as to what is considered correct or incorrect for Dutch entries here, but I guess that's because we don't yet have a clear standard? -- Visviva 06:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

My hope was to get to a better consensus. I think this wikti should adopt the Taalunie's practice. I have proposed that at the nl: wikti and got no comments [so it's law ;-) ] But then we are much smaller bunch there. Here are some people here who would not like the Taalunie's compromise, but imho they should compromise too. (In fact the Taalunie has the legal right to impose such things). I have no idea how to get a consensus here., though. Kind of hoped you could help there.

Jcwf 21:33, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I'm aware of some of the problems, from having studied Dutch formally for a semester in college and (on my own) studying medieval Dutch. If a clear proposal can be made, I would support it, but it would have to account for the inclusion of entries for older forms. --EncycloPetey 21:38, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the historical dimension you worry about and yes I think what we are now doing at nl: takes care of that. All it needs is to write f/m for words that were historically feminine but may be regarded as masculine (as they are in the North)

Jcwf 21:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Intruding

Hi, glancing through your monobook.js (it was in RecentChanges so I had too ;) - I love the idea of using the data: schema for adding CSS rules - however there is a site-wide function that will work in IE (which doesn't support data: - resist the strangle temptation)too. Obviously if you are just coding it for yourself, then there's no need to use it - and you can just ignore me as an irritating meddler. Conrad.Irwin 09:12, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

// function addCSSRule(selector,cssText) is in [[MediaWiki:Common.js#CSS]]

addCSSRule('.cited-source,.cited-passage','display:none')

That is truly excellent, thanks! -- Visviva 09:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Fan mail!

Red roses

To a couple folks who've been especially helpful/nice to me during my first few weeks at en.wikt: Thanks! :-)

Snakesteuben 13:47, 29 April 2008 (UTC) (Oh, right. Anonymous greeting cards don't work with edit logs, not to mention Sinebots floating around.)

epicaricacy

I see four vaild cites, and four references, which is more than bootylicious.Evrik 19:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

References and mentions do not count in establishing the validity of an English word. Looking at User:Evrik/epicaricacy, I see two Usenet cites (of dubious merit), two non-durably archived cites (not generally accepted), and one constructed example (not generally accepted). Even by the most liberal reading of CFI you are still one cite short.

What really bothers me, personally, is that the Usenet cites are so bizarrely constructed I find it difficult to regard them as real use. Also, the fact that so many people have wanted this to be a word doesn't really argue in its favor, as it calls any apparent use into doubt (we ran into this same problem with santorum).

But in any case, you should certainly feel free to continue building Citations:epicaricacy. -- Visviva 00:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

false information

What false info are you talking about? You havent' specified. 70.51.9.170 05:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I was referring in particular to the addition of PROC and PRoC as valid abbreviations for the PRC, and PRK as a common misspelling for DPRK, both of which I have removed as they did not seem to have any basis in actual usage.

You may have access to sources which I do not; however, searching Google Books for "proc"+"china" returned only references to various volumes of proceedings published in or about China; searching for "prk"+"korea" returned numerous works on Cambodia which mentioned Korea indirectly, but no apparent use of this abbreviation.

Please understand that we deal with a steady torrent of people trying to introduce false and misleading information on Wiktionary, for various reasons (or sometimes for no reason at all). In trying to guard against this, we sometimes err too far in the opposite direction. If you have sources supporting PROC, PRK or similar abbreviations, please feel free to re-add the information I removed, with the supporting references. Cheers, -- Visviva 06:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Citations

What would you like to do with citations? I see reasons for placement of citations in-line, in Quotation sections, and in citation space. This does seem like a worthwhile topic for further discussion, probably in BP. I had made some modification to Ucalegon. Feel free to revert or modify. DCDuring TALK 15:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Ucalegon looks good (and thanks for raising the see-also issue). I think that was not the best choice of target for my rant, since those citations are at least arguably pro-forma -- required for verification but not actually contributing substantially to the entry. (I would argue that point, but then it would become a discussion about that entry rather than the general principle.)

I undid the discussion because I've been slipping toward that [RL stress -> overcommit -> get cranky -> stress -> overcommit ... -> burn out] cycle that I've been through more than enough times before (on WP, and on the ODP before that). I figure this is probably not the best time for me to try to start discussions on Everything I Think Is Wrong.  ;-)-- Visviva 11:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Burnout is the great evil. Whatever keeps the great evil away is a Good Thing. DCDuring TALK 12:42, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we just need to revise/update our WT:QUOTE policy and write guidelines on the use & misuse of the Citations tab. --EncycloPetey 15:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

That's a good idea. I just need some time to phrase my thoughts in the form of a non-rant. :-) -- Visviva

Your ephmeral rant seems to have attracted notice ... for my part I think we should make it clear that interesting, illustrative, or otherwise useful quotations should stay on the mainspace page, not be banished to "Citations". Robert Ullmann 15:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

So it does. As above; this seems like a good idea. -- Visviva 11:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

You win

You, my friend, win at defining antemortem. Have one hundred Internets. Macai 08:34, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Woo hoo! I'm rich!  :-) -- Visviva 10:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

vertuus vs vertuuus

The entry is for a 3-u version. One PoS and the cites are for a 2-u version. It will have to be moved. I'm impressed with the cites. The user has gotten a one-day block for no apparent further reason, except possibly for asking for an apology. Sigh. DCDuring TALK 00:24, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Doh, thanks. Better get my eyes checked (again). -- Visviva 00:37, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd already gone off half-cocked about this entry, mistaking scannos for cites. DCDuring TALK 00:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Google books problem

I am having difficulty with using b.g.c. (not scholar, web, news, etc.). I have this bad feeling it has to do with heavy use for citing. Has anyone had a problem like this? DCDuring TALK 02:27, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

No problems here in Korea. Maybe one server is having issues? -- Visviva 02:37, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

고인돌

Would you take a look please? -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 03:12, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Done. I've said my piece, and I've counted to three. I don't seem to be dealing well with histrionics this week, though, so I will probably stay away from the discussion for a while. -- Visviva 04:59, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks. I'll maintain the entry as you put it. While I'm attempting to remain civil with KYPark, I'm losing patience. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 06:49, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

On a rather unrelated note, Stephen expressed some dislike of the bolding of the transliteration in {{ko-noun}}. Looking at the history, I wonder if perhaps it was put there to set it apart from the "revised" bit, which is no longer there. Since you seem to be the primary editor of the template, I figured you should get the final say. Would you have any objections to unbolding it? -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 07:34, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Unbolded, thanks; can't remember exactly what the rationale was, but it does seem unnecessarily noisy. -- Visviva 07:42, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

기린

Would you be willing to take a quick gander at this one? See also this. Many thanks. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 04:38, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikisaurus Project page

I've added Wikisaurus:project/improvements if you want to take a look. Amina (sack36) 06:32, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

stick

So, I just noticed what a beautiful piece of work stick is, and I just thought I'd let you know that I thought so. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 05:06, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Welcome back!

—Ruakh_TALK 13:28, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

We've missed you. You give great citation, as always. Thanks especially for molybdomancy. DCDuring TALK 18:14, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Ditto. Crœso nôl! † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 19:24, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks all. Good to be back, though I will probably not be operating at full capacity for a while. -- Visviva 10:43, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

not guilty

Please take a look at this and the RfD and history. We miss you. DCDuring TALK 00:09, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

superginormous et al.

What do you think we should do about alternative forms? To me, trivial morphological transformations like adding super-, in-, non-, or un- are low value (not no value), not to say that they aren't worth a full entry, even if not yet attested. Conrad has been creating appendices for things like "unattested plurals". I wonder whether such appendices wouldn't be good homes for many rare forms built on prefixes and suffixes, too. We could perhaps then direct folks' energies to the job of finding citations for some of these. Maybe we could encourage contributors to make their cruder additions on talk pages and citations pages (if they can see them as "crude"). DCDuring TALK 14:45, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Sounds workable. IMO ideally this would have an associated template, something like {{dubious-affix|superfoo}} that would direct to Appendix:Unattested affixations#superfoo or whatever, iff there is no entry for superfoo (or super-foo; I suppose there's no reason the template couldn't take two args and check for the hyphenated form as well). I have no time to work on setting this up ATM, but it seems like the most Hippocratic approach. -- Visviva 06:34, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Beer parlour#The citations pages are stealing all of my examples!

A subject which I know to be close to your heart. Perhaps you might care to comment. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 09:43, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

use Syllable

"Symbol" has strong connotations in English as being something non-word, e.g. # for "dollar". And that is the way we have been using the header here. Syllable is better, (is what it is ;-) and is used for other cases; some of these (including one you already added this to) have Syllable for Han readings, and these fit together better than having two separate POS sections. (Is it a symbol or is it a syllable? ;-).

What sort of thing should we do with the template? (use class="floatright" and so forth, but what did you want to improve?)

(I'm writing here because I am staying away from all the inane POV politics in the BP; I don't even want to look at that section.)

Oh, where does the file come from? Robert Ullmann 17:48, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Re: Syllable instead of Symbol: +1. —Ruakh_TALK 23:51, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

No problem with Syllable, I guess... although my understanding had been that we use Syllable for real word-forming units with real meanings (hanja readings etc.), and Symbol for characters independent of meaning (alphabetic characters, etc.). Of course, a Hangul syllabic block is a symbol that represents a syllable, so it all gets rather fuzzy, but it seemed more plausible to headline the qua-symbol section (where it is dealt with solely as a character) as Symbol, and the qua-syllable section (hanja readings) as Syllable. I mean, a lot of "syllabic" blocks like 뀶 aren't real syllables in any sense -- not only do they not exist in any actual language, but they would be broken up or otherwise modified when spoken... But I can see where this is a bit too involved, and probably reflects my prejudice against these entries in the first place.

Not sure about the template, it just looks kind of wonky to me, and doesn't seem to fit neatly into the layout. Basically it is just a templatified version of KYPark's tables, which always looked a little odd to me.

The file comes from a spreadsheet, wherein one column lists Hangul syllabic blocks from 가 to 힣, the next column lists Unicode numbers (ROW()+44031), and the next three columns have the constituent jamo; that's all the information that is needed for a basic entry like 앆. After a couple of initial bugs, the output appears to be clean, although I will do some more checking before any bulk upload. -- Visviva 02:26, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

See 점: there is no reason for this entry to have two etymologies, or two Syllable sections. The line you are generating can simply by the first line, before specific hanja readings.

I had another comment: the Usage notes section you propose adding is a lot of text for two attributes. You might just put that in the inflection-headword line for the Syllable, much as canjie and 4-corner are in the Han character headword line. (I.e. put them in that template.) Robert Ullmann 13:47, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I can see your point about the usage notes; still, I don't like the idea of loading up the inflection line with so much stuff (particularly since it is already loaded down with transliterations). As you say, it's not actually much text... Maybe I should retool the navbox to include this info?

For an entry like 점, I agree that merging would lead to a more elegant structure. But then we end up with three classes of entries, each needing different treatment: those with no meaning of their own (e.g. 햬), those with meanings bundled under one etymology (e.g. 점), and those with multiple etymologies (e.g. 이). I mean, I don't see any sane way to integrate syllabic information into an entry like 이 without putting it in a parallel Etymology section; while it isn't really an etymology, it has to go somewhere and it would be wrong to put it under any preexisting Etymology. So there is already some added complexity ... And then there is the problem that if another etymology were added to 점 -- e.g. as a variant of the verbal noun 젊, or perhaps a hangulization of "germ" -- the whole structure would need to be rearranged, so that the number of Etymologies would suddenly jump from one to three. (If this wasn't done, then the entry would end up being factually, or at least ontologically, incorrect.) So it seems like merging would just create more work, or bigger messes, down the road... or am I missing something? -- Visviva 15:41, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Category:English words suffixed with -ium

Umm... some of the words you're adding to this category do end in "-ium", but they haven't been suffixed with "-ium". Our suffix categories should contain words based on the suffix added to a root, not merely the ending visible on the word. --EncycloPetey 15:35, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I've looked more carefully and appear to have been mistaken. Never mind. --EncycloPetey 15:40, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

No worries; I agree with your point. -- Visviva 16:03, 30 November 2008 (UTC)