Voting on: Relaxing CFI for geographic names (in WT:CFI#Place names) by no longer requiring that the requested information has to be there from the start. Thus, changing the text of CFI from
"A place name entry should initially include at least two of the following:"
to
"A place name entry should be able to include at least two of the following:".
Vote starts: 00:01, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
Vote ends: 23.59, 22 March 2011 (UTC) -- 30 days later
SupportǷidsiþ 18:16, 22 February 2011 (UTC), I think, although FWIW I don't think every incarnation of a given place-name should have a separate line. Ƿidsiþ18:16, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This is an improvement in some ways — it's very un–CFI-like, and un–wiki-like, to say that a word only warrants an entry if the person who initially creates the entry does a thorough job of it — but it's problematic in others. The previous vote basically opened the floodgates for all place-names, but did include the restriction that someone has to be willing to put work into them. This vote removes even that requirement, such that the floodgates would now be open for bot-created entries as well. —RuakhTALK14:26, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How can a bot create place name entries? Is this a hypothetical scenario or has anyone already used a bot to create a batch of entries for geographic names? Assuming now that a bot could create entries for geographic names, what is wrong with bot-created entries? --Dan Polansky14:29, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, this vote means that in any language with gender, our only requirement is that the place-name be attested and "idiomatic" (whatever that may mean for a place-name), so I could easily create a bot to go through an es.wiki bot-dump and grab all pages that start with, say, "[pagename] es una ciudad" and create thousands of stub-pages of the form ==Spanish== ===Pronunciation=== {{rfp|lang=es}} ===Proper noun=== {{infl|es|proper noun}}{{g|es}} # A certain city.. Such a bot would require approval, of course, so this vote doesn't inherently make that inevitable; but it does tend to imply that such a bot should be acceptable. —RuakhTALK15:28, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the explanation. The point you have made that such a bot would require a vote should be born in mind, though, when robotic creation of entries is the concern. It seems to show that the concern with robotic creation is not sufficient for opposing this vote. A voter can vote like "I support but I oppose robotic creation of stub entries". --Dan Polansky15:36, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, but I also oppose human creation of such entries. I mention bots not because they're my reason for opposing, but because they highlight what I see as the problem. —RuakhTALK16:46, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know. I don't think of place-names as "words", and I don't think they belong in a monolingual dictionary; but bilingual dictionaries do often contain a few place-names, and obviously many editors do think place-names in general should be included here, so if I saw a coherent proposal that seemed to have a lot of community support, and that I thought would result in high-quality entries, I probably would not oppose. But the answer to your question is probably "no": at most I think I would abstain. (But FWIW, there are certainly some proposals that I dislike less than others.) —RuakhTALK17:56, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OpposeMglovesfun (talk) 14:33, 22 February 2011 (UTC) seems to oppose the principle that this section was initially founded on, that is "place names with linguistic information accepted". The title wasn't "place names that can hypothetically have linguistic information accepted". Oh and Wikipedia has used bots to create place name entries, so it is possible. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:33, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I have read no good reason why distinct rules should apply to place names as opposed to the proper names of other specific entities. I doubt that many could be attested in usage except for mention in gazetteer lists. DCDuringTALK18:06, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Most municipalities' names in many areas (including the United States) are citeable by reference to local periodicals. The same is true even of many neighborhoods' names.—msh210℠ (talk) 18:42, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
True. But the current CFI for place names is that they "are subject to the criteria for inclusion specified in the section 'General rule', extended with" the additional rules. So those not citeably used are out, anyway.—msh210℠ (talk) 19:28, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think folks may take offense when RfV is applied to such definitions. The special language for place names may make some believe that attestation does not apply. In fact attestation should apply to each aspect of every definition of every word, unless we choose to accept external authority (lemmings, standards organizations, legislatures, academies, authors, WP, postal authorities, as the case may be). DCDuringTALK19:49, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain. Eventually may never happen, and then we would never be sure if the criteria could be met. It makes more sense to flag the page giving a month for correction. DAVilla19:13, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It should work the same way as requests for attestation work: attestation can be requested only if the attestability is actually uncertain. A request for lexicographical information on Dutch "Barcelona" would be rejected as a reason for deletion, as Dutch "Barcelona" can have pronunciation and etymology entered, regardless of whether it already has these pieces of information. However, when there is reasonable doubt about the possibility of adding the requested pieces of lexicographical information, the entry in question would be tagged and given one month. --Dan Polansky19:32, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That makes sense, and it counters my arguments which were leaning toward an oppose and are now more decidedly neutral. That's primarily because it would be difficult to guess which entries should be nominated, at least for me. DAVilla10:53, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support, though I think that we should just allow all place names. --Yair rand (talk) 15:56, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Oppose This is an improvement in some ways — it's very un–CFI-like, and un–wiki-like, to say that a word only warrants an entry if the person who initially creates the entry does a thorough job of it — but it's problematic in others. The previous vote basically opened the floodgates for all place-names, but did include the restriction that someone has to be willing to put work into them. This vote removes even that requirement, such that the floodgates would now be open for bot-created entries as well. —RuakhTALK 14:26, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Abstain. Eventually may never happen, and then we would never be sure if the criteria could be met. It makes more sense to flag the page giving a month for correction. DAVilla 19:13, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
