Wiktionary talk:Votes/2015-09/Adding a collocations or phrases namespace or section

Pings

@DCDuring, DTLHS, Algrif, Neitrāls vārds, Smurrayinchester, Panda10 Pinging everyone who participated in the BP discussion (six at a time, because of the cap on how many people can be pinged in one edit): please take a look at this vote and point out or fix any problems that you see, or let me know if you have questions about it. - -sche (discuss) 04:41, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

@CodeCat, Dan Polansky, Andrew Sheedy, Chuck Entz, JohnC5, Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV. - -sche (discuss) 04:46, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

In a hypothetical future vote you can count me as "support". Initially I thought separate namespace might be overkill but on second guess it could actually make it easier searching for them, say, for example, I can't decide between "pet graveyard" and "pet cemetery"...

I presume this is inspired by German wiktionary's "charakteristische Wortkombinationen" and, to be honest, they can be of great help (though this is intended only for English, which is fine), in the meanwhile it's probably possible to just stick them in the usexes, perhaps some provisional, arcane, invisible wrapper template could be created for them to facilitate any hypothetical future need of extracting them? Like, you would wrap "pet cemetery" in that template when listing it as usex, perhaps? Neitrāls vārds (talk) 21:49, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

"See collocations" or other name

I had said I opposed any mainspace section for collocations. I suppose it is necessary to have some kind of link from the entry to the collocation space for the entry along the lines of what we do for citations. This would add to the clutter on the page. I hope we can come up with something less intrusive. DCDuring TALK 09:11, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think we need a dedicated section; Usage notes is just fine, since the information is concerned with how terms are used. But please clarify why a Collocation section adds more clutter than Derived terms, Related terms, and the like. Also, please clarify why placing collocation in a collapsible box like we sometimes do for Derived terms would not be decluttering enough. And please clarify why you want to move that sort of information to a separate namespace, available from a separate tab. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:20, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

@DCDuring: links to the Phrases/Collocations namepace wouldn't have to take up any entry-space by default. The tab next to the citations tab would just fill a little bit of the horizontal space which is currently blank in between "entty"+"discussion"+"citations" tabs and the "read"+"edit"+"history" tabs, and the "see citations" links could in most cases be collapsed under a sense like {{seeCites}}:

1. Definition.
   • {{seeCites}}
   • {{seePhrases}}

@Dan: I think the point is that Derived terms, Related terms, etc already take up too much space, and DCDuring doesn't want to further increase the amount of clutter in the entry. I tend to agree, because (as shown on e.g. Talk:goods), collocations could easily take up a lot of vertical space. - -sche (discuss) 20:55, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I only reluctantly accept the need for something like Template:seePhrases and that without a section header. DCDuring TALK 17:19, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Namespace more flexible

The proposed vote scheme looks fine to me. I would just like to say that I think a Namespace tab would be more flexible, as a word with several common collocations might well need to have room to explain the meaning of the more obscure collocation. Or it will be necessary to show which specific sense of the keyword is being used. Take for example "stiff" which has collocations where the meaning of stiff is in fact modified to mean potent or strong (stiff drink). I know this example is in fact mentioned within the current entry at "stiff", but the principle will be found true for many words as this progresses. - ALGRIF talk 10:16, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Why should the meanings of collocatins need to be explained? If the meaning is worth explaining, why not have the collocation as its own entry?

And then, why would a section collapsed not do? What makes a separate namespace more flexible?

I wonder whether this whole proposal (I mean this whole vote) is anything more than a deletionist dream. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:23, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Just because a meaning is obscure doesn't make it any less SoP. Off the top of my head, here are a couple of examples that might need a word or two of explanation, but that do not deserve an entry for SoP: "flat battery", "bare essentials / necessities", "blissfully ignorant", "painfully thin", "enter a plea - (ones innocence) (guilty) (etc)".

We are also thinking about the preferred way of saying things. So, IMO, we need adequate space to put info such as "strong tea" (not powerful, or anything else) and "powerful computer" (not strong or anything else) These things are collocations.

To copy from 'Pedia - "Collocations are partly or fully fixed expressions that become established through repeated context-dependent use. Such terms as 'crystal clear', 'middle management', 'nuclear family', and 'cosmetic surgery' are examples of collocated pairs of words." and "Knowledge of collocations is vital for the competent use of a language: a grammatically correct sentence will stand out as awkward if collocational preferences are violated." -- Many dictionaries include this information. I think we should, too. -- ALGRIF talk 11:21, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Wait, nuclear family, “nuclear family”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.? And crystal clear, “crystal clear”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.? See my point? --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:31, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

And again, why is a collapsed section Collocations not good enough for your purposes? --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:32, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Maybe a collapsed section is good enough. I'm just not sure how it would be better. - As for the entries, your point is also my point. nuclear family, flat battery, crystal clear, painfully thin. Collocations are right on the borderline, where so many hours are wasted on (what I consider to be) needless discussions. A well constructed area would be a boon. How about we get it right - from the get-go. -- ALGRIF talk 12:01, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

The proposed vote looks fine. I prefer the namespace tab. A collapsed section would be too cumbersome in this case, since each collocation needs its own collapsed translation table, so we would end up with many collapsed sections within one collapsed section. Also, imagine the most complicated cases: long, multi-language lemma pages where each language needs its own collocation section with many items. --Panda10 (talk) 12:33, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Wait, so you want to put translations there as well? Wow. Can someone at least create an example collocation page, as a section of this talk page? --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:01, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

The example page is listed in the vote: Talk:goods. --Panda10 (talk) 13:26, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, must have overlooked that. And now, what is the benefit of this separate namespace for entries constructed like Talk:goods over mainspace entries? And furthermore, why is it useful to provide a translation for every single collocation? That's going to be a huge volume of material with borderline utility. I point out that we have a translation target practice that seems much more useful and functional than that.

Let me place the first two items from Talk:goods for others to see:

returned goods

• German: Rückwaren
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

damaged goods

• German: beschädigte Waren
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

--Dan Polansky (talk) 13:34, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

The benefit of this extra namespace is, as sche said, that we can include SOP terms while at the same time not cluttering up the dictionary with extra definitions. The benefit of having translations is that these are fixed phrases. They are often fixed, SOP phrases in multiple languages, and can't always be derived through literal translations. I would have found my French English dictionary only half as useful if it had excluded collocations, since learning these is an essential part of learning a language well. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 00:10, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

re "deletionist dream": As it is, we have no entries and no translations for "bank deposit", "in its infancy" or "be unsuccessful"="keinen Erfolg haben"; they were deleted as obvious sums of parts, despite in some cases being argued to be translation targets. Under this proposal, they could be included. That sounds like an inclusionist's dream. Actually, I think it's a compromise between inclusion and deletion, since it results in the phrases being included rather than deleted, but/and it includes them in the way most dictionaries include them, namely under the most relevant headword (where I and apparently other dictionaries think people are most likely to look for them) rather than by giving them their own unidiomatic headwords. (For example, Langenscheidt's Standard German dictionary: German-English, English-German doesn't include "dirt road" or "one minute to go" as headwords, but it includes them under "dirt" and "go" and gives translations of them there.) - -sche (discuss) 20:45, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

My mistake. In my initial reading of the vote (when I made the "deletionist dream" remark), I was pitiably careless, and I did not notice that this is not only about collocations but mainly about their translations. While I fear that this proposal is going to be used against translation target rationale, and while I think that this proposal works not so well as translation target mainspace entries, I admin that, per se, the proposal leads to an overinclusion of material rather than excessive deletion. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:49, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Option C: Separate entry in Main namespace categorized as collocation

I'm not sure if this was discussed: What are the arguments against creating a regular Main namespace entry for each collocation using the ===Collocation=== header (instead of Noun, Verb, etc.), categorized as {head|xx|collocation}? It would not be added to the lemma category. It can have a Translations section and Usage notes explaining why this is a collocation. --Panda10 (talk) 22:47, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

That's basically what we already do, isn't it? And it leads to few collocations being included, because there is a sufficiently widespread sentiment that the main namespace is for attested idiomatic constructions — and hence that not many (some people would say not any) unidiomatic phrases should be in the main namespace — that many of the collocations ("translations targets") which are listed at RFD are deleted. I can't speak for anyone else, but I wouldn't find a SOP entry with a "==Collocation==" sticker on it to be any more inclusion-worthy or palatable than the SOP entries without such stickers that we already have and regularly delete. Hence, I wouldn't support an effort to put more unidiomatic entries in the main namespace. Scattering collocations into individual entries would also swamp the search field (if you were looked for idiomatic constructions with a certain word in them) and it would miss the benefit of putting all the collocations and their definitions and translations in one place near or in the entry (like other dictionaries do) so that they can be looked over easily. - -sche (discuss) 02:46, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

• We do something similar with entries kept using the translation target rationale. These include emergency physician, art dealer, foreign country, and Celtic studies; check the talk pages for discussions. However, we do not use a dedicated "Collocation" header. We use the "translation target" rationale which has not yet been made part of the official CFI. Check google:"translation target" site:en.wiktionary.org" to find past discussions. We have Category:English non-idiomatic translation targets, but the category is probably incomplete.

  I and bd2412 have worked together to create a draft of translation target criteria, currently at User talk:Dan Polansky#Let's draft a vote for CFI translation criteria 2. The opposers of translation target have repeatedly picked xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłskʷc̓ as some sort of refuting example of the whole translation target bussiness. It is not a refuting example. Now, one of the opposers proposes to create a dedicated namespace flooded with material of marginal value that could never meet the translation target criteria.

  I do not know the scope of support for translation target, but the number of people who have at least once invoked "translation target" as a reason for keeping seems quite large. The problem would be to bring all those people to vote if there was one. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:12, 10 October 2015 (UTC)