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Votes formalize and document the consensus-building process and the decisions that the community makes. This page displays the full contents of recent, current and planned votes. Edit Wiktionary:Votes/Active to add new votes to the “active” list and remove old ones. Finished votes are added to Wiktionary:Votes/Timeline, an organized archive of previous votes and their results, sorted by the vote end date.

Policy and help pages, respectively: Wiktionary:Voting policy (including who is eligible to vote) and Help:Creating a vote.

See also Wiktionary:Votes/ for an automatically generated, less organized list of votes.

Before clicking the “Start a new vote!” button below, change “Title of vote” in the field just above the button to a short descriptive title. Once you have created your vote, add it to the list at Wiktionary:Votes/Active.



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Current and new votes

Planned, running, and recent votes [edit this list]
(see also: timeline, policy)
EndsTitleStatus/Votes
Dec 24Word of the Year11 18 2
Dec 27Updating COALMINE rule9 14 1
Jan 21A few users for debureaucratization3 3 1
(=3)[Wiktionary:Table of votes](=62)

Word of the Year

Voting on: Whether to choose a Word of the Year, a word that was popularised this year. The word of the year would be displayed somewhere on the main page for a few weeks in late December and January, and absolutely no later than 31 January. A lot of dictionaries and publications have their own “word of the year”, and Wiktionary should join in on the fun. The words listed below are separated by various categories; some are somewhat jocular, and others are more formal. These will likely not be displayed on the main page to avoid cluttering it, and this vote is only for deciding upon the word of the year.

There are no limits on votes by category; a user could vote for every single entry in a category if they so wished and render their vote entirely pointless. Additionally, a user may nominate a word if they so wish; but keep in mind that nominating too many words might clog it up.

Schedule:

Discussion(s):

Support

  1. Support Ioaxxere (talk) 03:49, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support In the worst case scenario, Wiktionary can do this once or twice and not do it again. Wiktionary can and should do what other dictionaries do. The word of the year for Merriam Webster in 2023 was 'authentic'-[1]. The word of the year for Dictionary.com in 2024 is 'demure'- [2][3]. Are Merriam Webster and Dictionary.com engaging in a practice that is "not a serious exercise in lexicography"? Perhaps they are! But is it in line with the practices of other dictionaries to have a word of the year? Yes. And the word of the year generates news and commentary (publicity) for dictionaries. Wiktionary always needs to grab the opportunity to attract readers and editors. I believe that Wiktionary will likely make some bad or unusual choices for word of the year, but so have other dictionaries. So I think Wiktionary should assume its rightful place among the dictionaries of the world and have a word of the year, despite the likely problems, which will be ironed out over time. Wiktionary is on the level that it can do a word of the year like other dictionaries do. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 09:25, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support Flame, not lame (Don't talk to me.) 15:43, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Support as nom. I think it would be a fun idea—tons of other dictionaries have a word of the year and I genuinely think it would be interesting to see our take on it. LunaEatsTuna (talk) 23:37, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support. However, we shouldn't promote neologisms popularized by social media as the "word of the year." Imetsia (talk (more)) 22:43, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Support. -saph668 (user—talk—contribs) 01:39, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Support too, but, as others pointed out, we should avoid choosing social media-exclusive neologisms, especially bizarre, brainrot, or cringy slangs, as the word of the year. --Davi6596 (talk) 03:23, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Support, as my concerns below were resolved, and I don’t identify any other negatives. My feelings on this are similar to Davi6596’s above, and my votes for each category will reflect that. ~Gonna vote on multiple. Polomo47 (talk) 22:30, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    There are some more interesting words we could consider... coquette, girlypop, for the plot. Polomo47 (talk) 22:36, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Support Binarystep (talk) 00:56, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Support. It would be good to choose something topical, inoffensive and non-political though (maybe skibidi, Pookie or brainrot). --Overlordnat1 (talk) 01:02, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Support. It'd be fun and it might give us some more outside attention. Huge agree with Overlordnat1 above me too though: let's not pick anything inflammatory. MedK1 (talk) 15:34, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Word of the year
Noun of the year
Verb of the year
Adjective of the year
Title of the year
Abbreviation of the year
Interjection of the year
Phrase of the year
Emoji of the year

Oppose

  1. Oppose. I'm reading most of these words for the first time. I just don't like any of these words. Maybe it's because I only rarely use social media, but the overwhelming majority of these terms feel like they see use almost exclusively on websites like TikTok and X and wouldn't represent 2024 for the people who don't use those websites. If we do nominate one of these neologisms, what's the chance it's still in use a year from now? Five years? Ten years? My guess is less than 50%. Gelasin (talk) 00:00, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Gelasin that was an error on my part – these are supposed to be words coined/popularised this year. Some of your point still stands. LunaEatsTuna (talk) 02:48, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @LunaEatsTuna In that case, I should mention that it seems like many of these words were coined/popularised in 2023 or earlier. Gelasin (talk) 03:41, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not a black and white thing. A word might have been coined or popularized earlier but then significantly increased in usage throughout 2024. We have a quote for brain rot from 1854! Ioaxxere (talk) 03:55, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Gelasin: "The overwhelming majority of these terms feel like they see use almost exclusively on websites like TikTok and X" is completely wrong, although I guess no one likes to be told that they're not with it anymore :) (you're free to add your own choices, of course) Ioaxxere (talk) 03:46, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ioaxxere Here are some quotes from the nomination page you created:
    "short-lived TikTok meme around late 2023."
    "popularized on TikTok in January 2024"
    "popularized on TikTok around late 2023"
    "regularly discussed on Twitter (X)'"
    "another snore TikTok trend"
    "lots of real usage examples on X."
    It goes on and on. There are 39 results for the string "TikTok" on that page alone. I think "completely wrong" is a bit of an overstatement. Gelasin (talk) 03:57, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    39 instances of the word "TikTok" (not a very scientific measure) on a list with well over 200 words? That seems pretty far from an overwhelming majority. Also, the page you linked is not part of this vote. Ioaxxere (talk) 04:26, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Your page is part of the vote so much as it is the source of literally all of the entries on this vote. Scientific or not, these options are Zoomer/Generation Alpha slang terms that most Wiktionary visitors haven't heard of. Gelasin (talk) 05:05, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, what is TikTok? :) Tollef Salemann (talk) 07:57, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with @Gelasin. The words listed appear to mostly be internet/youth slang not tied to any events of 2024 - these could have been coined at any time. I prefer when WOTYs are tied to the events of the year. If there simply weren't any such words in 2024, then that's totally fine - a slang word will have to do. My reservation being that internet slang usually soon feels dated/cringy, which is something one might not want in a WOTY. I probably agree with having a WOTY though, but I'll hold off casting a vote for now. Vuccala (talk) 02:31, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Oppose. The idea of declaring a 'Word of the Year' may seem like a good idea at first, but in practice it is basically a fad that more often than not ends up boiling down to advocacy ("look, we like this word!") and not a serious exercise in lexicography. Here you can already see signs of that in the page linked (WT:WOTY/2024). If we want to take this idea seriously, we should instead perhaps allow a small list of words that became popular around this year, perhaps restricted to words popularized this year and not really used in earlier years, and make sure we treat each entry from a purely lexicographical standpoint, without trying to impart our own personal biases on them. I personally believe that is not possible and so I cannot support it. — SURJECTION / T / C / L / 05:13, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Weak oppose, because of the entries that the nominator proposed for Word of the Year — changed my vote; see Support. My initial thought was that these brainrot terms really irk me, and I started to wonder why. As it turns out, most of the words on this list don’t even meet the criteria for Word of the Day, because, well, they’re offensive. Even beyond the proposed Insult of the year, which should be all but ruled out based on policy, there are undeniably vulgar words in the proposal such as (but not limited to) edge, raw dog, and hawk tuah.

    That’s not all: let’s take a more literal (i.e., less lenient) reading of our WotD policy, “A nominated word should not [...] be something you would be embarrassed to use in front of your boss or your grandmother.”. Consider that the entire point of using brainrot words, at least in the senses we list them as, is for their shock value; you would not use any of them (beyond, perhaps, the descriptor brainrot itself) when near polite company. “Note also that many parents and schools automatically filter out pages that include certain offensive words.” I’ve heard rumor of schools banning words such as skibidi — have you all not?

    In conclusion, I heavily oppose the proposal as it is because of the words chosen to back it, which don’t even qualify for Word of the Day. Nevertheless, I marked my vote as “weak” because it might not be hard to fix this, especially since the vote proposal itself does not make mention of the specific words. I would change my vote to support if the proposed words were filtered to take into account Wiktionary:Word of the day/Nominations#What not to nominate. Polomo47 (talk) 23:09, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Polomo47 Thank you for your comment; I really appreciate the length you went to in order to help me improve this proposal! Your point regarding WOTD is perfectly valid and I will remove all entries which we mark as vulgar as well as § Insult of the year. I cannot comment on the “brainrot” terms more generally, like skibidi, which are bizarre rather than vulgar; they are certainly strange but seem okay to me to list here as they are unlikely to offend, and they seem outnumbered by most of the other nominees we have. LunaEatsTuna (talk) 00:34, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Weak oppose because of not only the reasons Polomo47 said but also the excess of categories, which'd defeat the purpose of Wiktionary "join[ing] in on the fun" of "[a] lot of dictionaries and publications" and make the voting process hard or complicated.
    However, I'll change my vote if the shortcomings are addressed.     --Davi6596 (talk) 15:10, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Davi6596 Thank you for commenting! I believe I have addressed Polomo47's concerns. Regarding yours: only the chosen word of the year would actually appear on the main page. The rest are more for fun and will not be featured anywhere (outside of mayB the project mainspace somewhere) given that most editors here seem to be against the idea. Voting on them is optional. Feel free to ask any further questions, LunaEatsTuna (talk) 00:40, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @LunaEatsTuna: Thanks for your answer, I'm gonna change my vote. Davi6596 (talk) 03:15, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose I've always found it a cringy grasping-at-relevancy when Oxford does it, and Wiktionary doesn't even have a stodgy reputation to shed. If the candidates seemed a selection of fascinating linguistic developments I might be on board but they all seem like either bald fad-chasing or "eat your pussy". Out of all these words I'd choose lock in, but even that doesn't fill me with any enthusiasm, just damage control. — This unsigned comment was added by Simplificationalizer (talk • contribs) at 03:47, 1 December 2024 (UTC).[reply]
    @Simplificationalizer That is an interesting idea! The closest I can think of to a linguistic development this year might be “brain rot spam” itself; it started in late 2023 but became much more prevalent this year. I could be wrong but I cannot recall 2016 (for instance) having a trend wherein people spammed new slang words or used them excessively in an ironic fashion similar to how one might today say “skibidi Ohio rizz”. Albeit not that fascinating per se, it indeed seems like a new linguistic development. “Miami English” also started to get coverage in the media this year but it actually started much earlier. Other recent trends from the past decade would include stuff like tone indicators, keysmashing, neopronouns, code-switching on Twitter and new dialects like MLE, MTE and Antarctic English. Thank you for taking the time to comment—I appreciate it. Your opinion regarding WOTY is valid and I cannot change your view, but it would be cool to somehow tackle or document linguistic trends more generally instead. LunaEatsTuna (talk) 00:04, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Oppose per Surjection. Thadh (talk) 10:45, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Oppose: Terminally online brainrot, and many of these entries don't even hint that they were "popularised this year": freaky explains nothing; Pookie explains nothing; lock in explains nothing; lobotomy explains nothing; unserious explains nothing; down bad explains nothing…. —Fish bowl (talk) 23:31, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Simplificationalizer @Fish bowl: You guys can support this idea and suggest non-brainrot terms. The word of the year doesn't have to be one. Davi6596 (talk) 02:33, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Oppose. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 16:44, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Oppose per Surjection. PUC – 16:53, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Oppose. The idea of promoting an already popular word even further, instead of promoting something on the basis on being interesting (like Word of the day and Foreign word of the day) runs counter to the spirit of the Wikimedia movement. This is supposed to be a dictionary, not yet another vapid circlejerk obsessed with popular culture. You can go to any social media platform to find a community like that. --Veikk0.ma (talk) 15:20, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Oppose per Surjection and Veikk0.ma. – Svārtava (tɕ) 20:14, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Oppose per Surjection. Vininn126 (talk) 11:05, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Oppose all of the options are cringe and I don't believe we can achieve a consensus on what the WOTY should be. —AryamanA (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान) 16:49, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    A lot of these entries are very common and used earnestly, so IMO there is no need to call youth slang “cringe”. Also, for those who voted they seem very keen on brain rot, so a consensus for a WOTY is reasonable. LunaEatsTuna (talk) 23:38, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Oppose per Surjection and AryamanA. MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 02:24, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Oppose. This really feels like coming late to the party. I don't think it adds "fun" to Wiktionary, and I don't think a popular vote of Wiktionary editors would elucidate much about the language or culture of the past year. Cnilep (talk) 07:56, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That is actually a really good point; the only reason I made it a vote was in the spirit of the collaborative nature of Wiktionary, but the flaw is admittedly clear. Thanks for the feedback, LunaEatsTuna (talk) 23:38, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Oppose Brainrot and arbitrary. And consumes attention of editors more than it attracts new ones. Fay Freak (talk) 17:05, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    All of these entries were carefully chosen based on their usage on social media and search volume on Google Trends, and were all popularised or coined this year. Also, a lot of these are not “brainrot” (obviously some of them are used ironically or for shock value) and are actually used earnestly by a lot of young people, like unc, glaze, yap, lock in, cooked, Pookie, slop etc. There is no need to dismiss their language no matter how odd it seems to those who do not use these words. As a dictionary, their language choices are totally valid. LunaEatsTuna (talk) 23:29, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I respect your opinion, but dismiss the perspective. I know not what earnest is nowadays. Little recommends to pick on this their language, and to task editors therewith. If I vote for a fidget then I have to consider what happens if LunaEatsTuna grows out of it and suddenly delves into classical studies or law or whatever sustainably challenging. Abandonware, one won’t be good-humoured enough for, since we also maintain our positions and the project with all earnest. Fay Freak (talk) 05:41, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Oppose per Surjection. Also, wasn't this idea already rejected last year? tbm (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 13:28, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, it is linked above in the Discussion(s) section. But most who voted against it said the vote was too last-minute as there were no options given from the start. LunaEatsTuna (talk) 19:09, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Oppose I could perhaps support something that had specific criteria, such as use in multiple media (including three uses in durably archived media, esp. print) as well as widespread use in some media. Expressions specific to one or two "generations" or a single social-media platform are undesirable for a wiki like us that attempts to reach a wide audience. DCDuring (talk) 14:16, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @DCDuring Thank you for commenting! Would you support the proposal if the entries were checked for the things you are concerned about? I did purposefully avoid numerous terms specific to just a single (as well as just two) social media platforms, and many might be used by up to three hypothetical “generations” (like lock in, yap and I heard my parents use glaze); some have also already appeared in print and journalistic publications. Additionally, I believe even if our audience has not heard of some of these words they may find them interesting/educational, especially if we make sure to pick the most “lexically interesting” or unique ones! LunaEatsTuna (talk) 15:44, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @User:LunaEatsTuna I would oppose all of the terms advanced above to be WiktWord of the Year ("WWOTY"). Perhaps a persuasive rationale might change my mind. Is our WWOTY supposed to compete with the others on topicality coupled with popularity? Or is it supposed to fill some kind of gap in what the others cover? Can we cover ourselves with glory either way? DCDuring (talk) 16:23, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Oppose for basically the same reason as last year. No popularity contest please. Nardog (talk) 08:45, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The idea was that it be the most popular/used new word of 2024.. which basically makes it a popularity contest. LunaEatsTuna (talk) 13:13, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    There's a huge difference between a popularity contest among all users of English (or at least the documented portion of it) and a popularity contest among Wiktionary editors. I'm not opposed to adding some editorial voice, but the starting point must be empirically based. Nardog (talk) 14:19, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Weak oppose. This really needs a better process. Right now it doesn't even seem like a popularity contest, rather, it seems like random people add things to Wiktionary:WOTY/2024 and then the handful of editors who happen to be here choose something at random. Could this be more data-driven? Or could users nominate an individual word and explain WHY it's a good candidate for WOTY? Apocheir (talk) 23:42, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain

  1. Abstain. I really like the idea of WOTY, but maybe it would've been better to vote on the idea (and how to choose a word) before getting to this point. More importantly though, I have noticed a strong divide growing in the Wiktionary community between some newer folks who are more focused on documenting newer English slang & emphasizing page views with online presence vs. the older Wiktionary editors who are more focused on niche lexicography. Neither group is necessarily wrong (and I tend to fall into the latter group), but the conflict has come into play before, and this vote is its prime example. I believe that there needs to be a better consensus as to what the purpose of Wiktionary is (if there is one) and how to reconcile the two competing schools of thought, otherwise we'll keep running into votes & clashes like these. AG202 (talk) 05:12, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @AG202: Your division doesn't make any sense. Documenting English slang is niche lexicography, unless by "lexicography" you mean "not slang". Documenting slang and brainrot terms with the same amount of respect we would give any other entry is, as I see it, descriptivism taken to its logical conclusion. The conflict between descriptivism and prescriptivism is much older than Wiktionary itself, although I'm not sure whether that's relevant to this vote in particular. Ioaxxere (talk) 04:08, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    But the people who add English "brainrot" and the people who don't act different, with the brainrotters focusing more on internet fame and the nicheites focusing on adding terms that they want to. That's what AG is pointing out, not that English slang isn't lexicography. CitationsFreak (talk) 07:12, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, "niche lexicography" wasn't the right term, sorry @Ioaxxere. I more so meant the folks that are focusing on things like plant terms in an endangered language or modules for niche conjugation patterns, things that will maybe get 5 views max in a 30-day period. It's not an issue of prescriptivism vs. descriptivism, as many folks working on endangered languages are descriptivist as well, but more so the differences in priorities, such as documenting & showing current online trends in English vs. improving coverage in smaller languages (albeit with much fewer views). The two can coexist, but I think there needs to be a way to reconcile them, because clearly votes like these show a stark and immediate difference. AG202 (talk) 04:14, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Abstain. I don't mind if we have a WOTY or not, but if people aren't keen, and the proposal is going to be voted down anyway, may I suggest instead a most annoying word of the year, which may be more eye-catching and generate more attention. And can I nominate "obviously", which many people now apparently cannot help inserting as a totally meaningless filler word into almost every sentence that they utter. Mihia (talk) 22:24, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Decision

Updating COALMINE rule

Voting on:

  • Changing the following at WT:CFI:

Unidiomatic terms made up of multiple words are included if they are significantly more common than single-word spellings that meet criteria for inclusion;

to

Unidiomatic terms made up of multiple words may be included if they are significantly more common than single-word spellings that meet criteria for inclusion;

Effect:

  • The vote seeks to reduce the authority of the COALMINE rule by revoking its status as a voted-upon policy.
  • The COALMINE criterion would, however, remain at WT:IDIOM along with all the other tests.
  • Thus, the COALMINE rule would no longer be able to grant the power of overriding any decision for deletion of an entry reached by WT:RFD, but it may still be used as a point for consideration in the RFD discussions.

Schedule:

Previous votes:

Discussions:

Support

  1. Support as proposer. – Svārtava (tɕ) 12:00, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support because the COALMINE rule is currently a loophole that allows some SoP entries. --Davi6596 (talk) 22:59, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support — A miner but important change: this will make it easier for borderline/possible SOP terms to be discussed on a case-by-case basis by our editors at RfD as this policy will no longer automatically guarantee their inclusion. LunaEatsTuna (talk) 08:43, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Support. I find Svartva’s proposed alternatives to COALMINE very convincing. Further, I’d like to see Wiktionary either completely include prefixed terms (e.g., words with non-, even if there isn’t a corresponding closed form) or completely exclude them (even if there is a closed form) — I’d support the former. Polomo47 (talk) 00:48, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I’d like to add something: yes, rescinding COALMINE as a policy will lead to more word-by-word discussion. However, the scenario isn’t clear-cut enough for us to determine all words of the type should be included, and this fact is evident precisely because there are people against doing so. Even if you dislike having to discuss, you should dislike the alternative more. Polomo47 (talk) 01:05, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It may not be clear-cut enough as it is, but it's still more clear-cut than it would be if COALMINE was removed as a policy, and, thus, the alternative (keeping COALMINE a policy) is more likeable than demoting COALMINE from policyhood is. Whoop whoop pull up ♀️ Bitching Betty 🏳️‍⚧️ Averted crashes ⚧️ 02:45, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I mean that it shouldn't be clear-cut. There's a reason people are supporting this overruling, and it's because COALMINE singlehandedly supports words that people don't want to include in the dictionary: voting support is allowing people to express their opinion on a word-by-word basis. There is nothing inherently positive about “consistency”. Polomo47 (talk) 22:39, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support It would not, unlike oppose vote 4 feared, and has already been overly dogmatically assumed an entailment of the postcoronavirus internet word inclusion, require word-by-word discussion, but idiomaticity, though it could be believed to provoke word-by-word discussions: which we already have in spite of it, to no conclusion, as linked in the deletion discussion. The reflexibilization reduces complexity and increases rule convincingness by removing an exception to the rule, inviting people to consider the actual worth of an inclusion, which depends on substantial reasons beyond hyphenation: anti-Hamas and un-English have their camel-Kebab-Case spelling styles because of representing identities, the former even more so in the former case because speakers have an internalized preference against or there is no standard about Greek-Arabic hybridisms, and I don’t see why anticatholic or postcommunist are worthier of inclusion, or why the well-known designation ex-Muslim isn’t. Some people are exWiktionarians because of extensive interpretation of the present rule in foreign languages which don’t uses spaces or any delimiters in compounds that much. The rule, in accordance with current knowledge, is cum grano salis. It also makes people preoccupied with attempts to single out unhyphenated and unspaced spellings from corpora. Fay Freak (talk) 02:03, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Support. I would like a more robust solution in the future that abandons the COALMINE standard. Until then, this is a good step forward. Imetsia (talk (more)) 22:53, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Support. Not much of a change, but automatic inclusion upon finding three professional editors incompetent/underpaid/drunk enough to write “tall tree” without a space is, indeed, too strong. MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 02:28, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Lol! Love your reasoning, made me grin slightly :) Polomo47 (talk) 02:51, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Support. Some flexibility is probably a good thing, and I imagine that the small amount of extra discussion the change may require will be worthwhile. Cnilep (talk) 08:02, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Support "Cake, cake, cake, cake, cake! It's a piece of cake, cake, cake, cake, cake!" Flame, not lame (Don't talk to me.) 00:22, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

  1. Oppose since the current policy seems to be working OK so far. While current criteria for inclusion may not be perfect, I think the RFD process is even more imperfect, so I don't think it's beneficial to make it so Wiktionary's CFI rules are less definite and require more word-by-word discussion to resolve questions of inclusion: Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion/English already has a huge backlog.--Urszag (talk) 10:25, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Oppose I feel that one of this project's strengths is that we have relatively concrete criteria for inclusion (CFI's "three uses" principle, etc). These inflexible criteria are sometimes frustrating, because although they lead to good outcomes in a broad majority of cases, one occasionally has to accept that a "good entry" will be deleted or a "bad entry" will be kept. COALMINE is sometimes like this. But, in my view, the benefit of these "hard" rules identified by Urszag - that they reduce the need for "word-by-word discussion to resolve questions of inclusion" - outweighs the disadvantage of the occasional frustrating or perverse outcome. One only needs to look at Wikipedia and endless debates over notability to convince oneself of this.
    Moreover, I find the original motivation for enacting COALMINE still quite convincing:

    If we delete coal mine and a user searches for it and finds coalmine, (s)he will be under the impression that coalmine is the most common spelling of this, which is untrue.

    I haven't heard anyone propose a way to mitigate this issue. This, that and the other (talk) 11:03, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    In such cases, it could just be put as {{alternative spelling of|en|[[coal]] [[mine]]}}. [For clarification, the coal mine entry is not in particular a target of this proposal.]
    I don't like some SOP entries like non-Canadian being saved by a nonstandard closed form nonCanadian despite being deleted by RFD. If this vote fails, for uniformity/consistency, it may be worth looking into Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2022/September#Including hyphenated prefixed words as single words and include all non-, pro-, anti-, etc. prefixed words, per WT:NOTPAPER. – Svārtava (tɕ) 14:30, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Svartava okay, true. But there is no visual distinction between
    Alternative spelling of coal mine
    and
    Alternative spelling of coal mine
    , which is a really poor user experience. We might need a specific template to do this job along the lines of {{&lit}}, like
    Less common spelling of coal mine: see coal, mine.
    I also want to expand on my rationale. In my view, this vote (weakening COALMINE) is actually worse than repealing COALMINE altogether. Upon inspection, it's become clear to me that many prominent COALMINE'd terms, including coal mine itself, would be keepable as WT:THUBs. Perhaps THUB is now doing the job that COALMINE was intended to do, albeit via a very different route. If users feel that COALMINE allows the inclusion of too many unworthy entries, there may no longer be a need to keep it, provided we can come up with a good way to format the entries of the single-word forms. I'm willing to be persuaded. This, that and the other (talk) 08:29, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @This, that and the other
    • Creating a template {{coalmine}} similar to {{&lit}} is a good idea and a good way to format the entries of the single-word forms in my opinion if this vote passes and we get to see a closed-form entry without the corresponding open-form entry.
    • There have been 2 earlier votes on repealing COALMINE altogether but all failed by huge opposing majority.
    • The job you say sounds similar to what Dan Polansky brought in the last vote: from my experience [COALMINE] often has us keep terms that I would instinctively like to keep for other reasons, which are harder to investigate and articulate and you seem to suggest that THUB could also do this.
    • I actually suspect that THUB is sometimes applied more than it should, for example non-Aryan is supposed to be saved by THUB, but all of the translations are just negative prefix + [translation of Aryan], and WT:THUB says: A translation does not qualify to support the English term if it is: a closed compound that is a word-for-word translation of the English term.
    – Svārtava (tɕ) 09:23, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose per This, that and the other. 0DF (talk) 11:58, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Oppose per everyone above - and the original motivation quoted by This, that and the other is even stronger in certain cases.

    If we delete coal mine and a user searches for it and finds coalmine, they'll be under the mistaken impression that coalmine is the more-common form. But all that might reasonably happen there is that they might start preferentially using a less-common, but still-perfectly-acceptable, form.

    In contrast, if we delete trans woman (which, on a purely technical level, would probably be SoP without COALMINE), and a user searches for it and finds transwoman, they're gonna think transwoman is the more-common form, and probably be encouraged to use it - at which point we've misled a reader into using a form that's not just less common by quite a wide margin, but actively proscribed in common use and widely considered offensive. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes 15:21, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @This, that and the other, @0DF, and @Whoop whoop pull up, I think y'all misunderstood the proposal: it doesn't make COALMINE useless or get rid of it, it just puts the COALMINE and SoP rules at the same level. As Svartava said, "[...] it may still be used as a point for consideration in the RFD discussions."
    So, if there's a good reason, e.g. the case of trans woman and transwoman (and maybe coal mine and coalmine), we should still apply COALMINE. But, in cases like the one of non-Canadian and nonCanadian, we shouldn't apply it. Davi6596 (talk) 18:37, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Davi6596: I maintain my position because, as Urszag wrote, “I don't think it's beneficial to make it so Wiktionary's CFI rules are less definite and require more word-by-word discussion to resolve questions of inclusion”. 0DF (talk) 18:49, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Urszag: Just for curiosity, would you support a proposal to consider words with non-, pro-, anti-, etc. (or any known productive prefix, or just those) SoP? Davi6596 (talk) 18:53, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Davi6596: That'd have to include a proviso allowing for the retention of entries for compounds with those prefixes which're nevertheless idiomatic in their own right, such as non-avian dinosaur, pro-choice, or anti-air. Whoop whoop pull up ♀️ Bitching Betty 🏳️‍⚧️ Averted crashes ⚧️ 02:54, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Since nonaligned, etc. are closed terms without hyphen or space separating the components, I don't think they are affected by the SOP policy. I believe the question was regarding hyphenated formations with those prefixes. – Svārtava (tɕ) 04:43, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, right. Edited. Whoop whoop pull up ♀️ Bitching Betty 🏳️‍⚧️ Averted crashes ⚧️ 07:20, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Whoop whoop pull up: Yeah, I forgot to add "unidiomatic hyphenated". If the word in question is hyphenated but not idiomatic, it's just a combination of the stem's meaning with the prefix's, e.g. pro-Israel = pro- ("supporting") + Israel = "supporting Israel" (which the entry literally gives). As you can see, it's clearly SoP.
    BTW, I just saw that WT:SOP mentions ex-teacher as an example of SoP: "Idiomaticity rules apply to hyphenated compounds in the same way as to spaced phrases. For example, wine-lover, green-haired, harsh-sounding and ex-teacher are all excluded as they mean no more than the sum of their parts", so the vote would just reinforce what's already part of official policy.
    Finally, if it isn't hyphenated, it can't be SoP (e.g. illegal, from il- +‎ legal by surface analysis). Davi6596 (talk) 14:55, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @Davi6596 Presumably the hyphenated forms of terms that also exist in unhyphenated form would still be allowed even under such a policy (as altforms of said unhyphenated forms). Whoop whoop pull up ♀️ Bitching Betty 🏳️‍⚧️ Averted crashes ⚧️ 19:24, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I would also not be in favor of any proposal to have a policy that says words starting with non-, pro-, anti-, etc. "may be included"--this is practically meaningless. A useful policy would define which words should be included and which ones shouldn't.--Urszag (talk) 07:31, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @0DF I agree 100%. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes 22:38, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I believe I fully understand the proposal, and, while it doesn't guarantee the deletion of entries which would be considered SoP but for COALMINE, it still removes the barrier preventing the deletion of such entries... and, thus, leads to the aforementioned dangers regarding terms like [trans woman / transwoman]. Whoop whoop pull up ♀️ Bitching Betty 🏳️‍⚧️ Averted crashes ⚧️ 02:51, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Oppose This seems miswritten. I think what you're trying to do is eliminate entries that you consider SoP but are being kept because our current SoP rules consider closed compounds inherently non-SoP. But this change wouldn't allow for the deletion of more "coalmine" forms, it would allow for the deletion of more "coal mine" forms while keeping their corresponding "coalmine" forms.--Simplificationalizer (talk) 03:12, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    No, that's not what I'm trying to do. I am trying to eliminate entries like non-Canadian which are fully SOP (since non- is a very productive prefix too) but are saved by nonCanadian. There are many entries like this which we can't delete or RFD because COALMINE is a voted policy. – Svārtava (tɕ) 04:41, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Do you think nonCanadian should stay? Because your phrasing makes no provision for the deletion of such entries. Simplificationalizer (talk) 04:18, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It can stay, being marked as non-standard, in the format TTO wrote above. But also, this entry was created specifically to be used as a COALMINE for non-Canadian, so it is likely that the number of such entries would also go down. – Svārtava (tɕ) 05:04, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Oppose. What Svartava fails to realise is closed compounds such as coalmine and railway are sums of parts. Unfortunately most users take it out of context. And non-Canadian is a necessity as Canadian has a capital C; Svartava may also be unaware that the non- prefix in British English is used with a hyphen, such as in non-essential, non-existent etc. Omitting the hyphen is an American trait. DonnanZ (talk) 10:31, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    coalmine, nonessential is definitely SOP - but we don't delete closed SOP compounds in English, that applies to hyphenated and spaced compounds only. – Svārtava (tɕ) 12:04, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    COALMINE is sometimes used as a get out of jail free card, which isn't strictly ethical, but used by some to save a term from deletion. Usually the term shouldn't be deleted anyway. DonnanZ (talk) 12:33, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Oppose. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 16:45, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Oppose i think COALMINE is a bad policy that happens to fix some problems with a different bad policy (SOP). We can't address one without the other, as it's like ripping a bandage off a wound before it's healed. —Soap— 00:23, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Weak oppose: I frankly don't know how this affects other languages outside of English (other than Yorùbá, but we kinda just follow other sources), and so, I'm not sure if I could support this proposal without that knowledge. AG202 (talk) 05:14, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @AG202: This would practically affect only those languages in which COALMINE is frequently used (primarily English I think), because there are many languages for which COALMINE is not relevant, such as languages written without spaces, languages that readily form closed SOP compounds rather than open/hyphenated (like Sanskrit or German), etc. A working community consensus even if unwritten is likely to remain as it is. – Svārtava (tɕ) 08:24, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Oppose I don't have a problem with entries like non-Canadian existing. We aren't a book limited by the number of pages, and I just do not see the big deal over having these types of words. I'd prefer to err on the side of including more words, rather than having a policy that might deter people from adding words because they're unsure/anxious over whether it would just get deleted. Megathonic (talk) 16:54, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Oppose per Whoop whoop pull up and Megathonic. Binarystep (talk) 00:53, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Oppose per Megathonic and the premise of including forms of entries we already have. J3133 (talk) 06:07, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Weak oppose MedK1 (talk) 00:43, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Oppose especially if the proposal could be used to delete non-Canadian, which shouldn't be deleted regardless of whether nonCanadian exists. non- is a bound morpheme, not a free one, and non-Canadian is not a hyphenated compound but a single term with an affix. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:06, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Even if pro-, anti-, non-, etc. don't occur independently, they are clearly very productive and easy to analyse for readers.
    Since this vote is failing, maybe we can look into Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2022/September#Including hyphenated prefixed words as single words and allow all these to end the debate around this. This would improve consistency as along with non-Canadian, many others like non-Spanish (which was recently deleted by RFD) would be allowed inclusion even if COALMINE doesn't save them. The arguments for and against are already well-documented. – Svārtava (tɕ) 10:08, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain

  1. Abstain --Geographyinitiative (talk) 23:14, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Decision

A few users for debureaucratization

Voting on: removal of bureaucrat rights from the following users:

Schedule:

Support

  1. Support as proposer. Svārtava (tɕ) 17:55, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Rationale:
    • According to WT:B, we currently have eight bureaucrats and the four bureaucrats listed above are inactive as bureaucrats and administrators (verifiable by Special:Log) and were given the rights 1.5 decades ago.
    • Bureaucrats only have the extra power to add and remove sysop, interface admin and bot rights from an account.
    • These right changes (usually by passing votes or inactivity policy) are not too many on Wiktionary and are easily well-managed by the more active bureaucrats; most administrator and bot right changes are done by one of the more active bureaucrats only.
    • Thus, having four bureaucrats is more than sufficient for our community, and having more (especially those who are inactive at intervals) increases security risk and is not needed.
    • In a rare case of admin becoming rogue, at present, any admin can block another admin and the blocked admin will be unable to do any admin actions or unblock themselves, thus preventing any damage and reducing the need of a bureaucrat to be present at the moment for instant desysopping.
    So I think that bureaucrat rights from the four bureaucrats mentioned in this vote should be removed as general maintenance, with no offense intended. (For comparison, the bureaucrat/admin ratio currently at Wikipedia is 15/846 which is much lower than our's 8/75.) – Svārtava (tɕ) 17:55, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support Chihunglu83 (talk) 22:16, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support — Fenakhay (حيطي · مساهماتي) 23:36, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

  1. Oppose. More research is needed. Only SemperBlotto in this bunch is no longer active. I fear he may be deceased. DonnanZ (talk) 19:05, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes - though the others are also inactive as bureaucrats and administrators with sporadic activity.
    The vote is about removing their bureaucrat status rather than admin status (for retaining which their activity is sufficient) and I don't think it is a big change that ways. I think 4 bureaucrats is more than enough for us - we don't have too many admin and bot votes. Most bureaucrat actions in Special:Log are done by one of the other four bureaucrats. See also: Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2023/July § Possible vote to strengthen policy removing inactive admins for some good points on this issue. Svārtava (tɕ) 19:31, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Oppose. Among these four users, EncycloPetey (talk • contribs • rights) has the most recent bureaucrat action, having desysopped a user earlier this year. Three of these users (all but SemperBlotto (talk • contribs • rights)) remain active as editors. Together, these four bureaucrats have made more than 1,000 edits this year alone. Now, as far as I know, there haven't been any security issues regarding any of these users, and given that all of these accounts have been around since 2005 or earlier, it seems very low-risk to keep them around as bureaucrats.
    I'm not a fan of how this vote was set up. If this had been four individual votes, I probably would vote for debureaucratizing at least one of them. However, since voters here only have the option to support or oppose debureaucratizing all four, I am obligated to vote oppose. I cannot in good conscience support removing rights from users who have earned the community's trust. Gelasin (talk) 00:41, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose. put the fries in the bag. Flame, not lame (Don't talk to me.) 03:40, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain

  1. Abstain. I agree with Gelasin that this should have been separate votes, or at least EncycloPetey should have been removed based on recent activity. AG202 (talk) 18:58, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Decision

Proposed votes

The following are proposals for new votes, excluding nominations, in cases where the proposer of the vote prefers that the vote is written collaboratively, or where the vote appears to require substantial revision. If you have not created a passing vote yet, it is recommended that you use this section and actively solicit feedback by linking to your proposal in discussion; your vote may have a better chance of passing if it is first reviewed.

Votes may linger here indefinitely. If changes in policy make a proposal irrelevant, the voting page will be requested for deletion. On the other hand, you do not have to be the creator to initiate one of the votes below. Place any votes with a live start date in the section above at least a few days before that start date arrives.

Forthcoming votes:

Wiktionary:Votes/2023-12/Represent the GenAm NURSE and STRUT vowels as schwa
Wiktionary:Votes/2024-06/CFI for mainspace constructed languages
Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2022-06/Streamlining the approval process of online sources
Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2022-07/Stubifying alternative forms
Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2022-11/Should unidiomatic phrases be included if there is consensus for likely utility to readers?

Votes intended to be written collaboratively or substantially revised:

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