Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2012-02/CFI and company names

Rationale

I object to removal of the rationale that I have provided. I believe that votes should be better equipped with a rationale of the creator of the vote. Some people seem to agree; a vote that contained longer rationale is the recent Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2011-12/Merging_proper_nouns_into_nouns, whose rationale has 412 words, while my rationale for this vote has 217 words. I have made the rationale even shorter, resulting in 143 words. --Dan Polansky 20:09, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Your "rationale" for removing the company-name CFI amounts to your saying that you disagree with it. If the rationale is non-obvious — for example, if there are subtle problems with a current rule, and those problems are what motivated the vote — then by all means, that should be explained. But if the rationale for removing a rule is simply "I don't like this rule", then I don't think it's necessary to go into details about the various ways that you dislike it. (By the way, I think Krun's rationale at Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2011-12/Merging proper nouns into nouns went overboard, too. A few sentences' worth of main points would have served the purpose much better. The main reason I didn't touch the rationale is that Krun kept promising to fix the vote before starting it. But, that said — I think that that vote naturally warranted a longer a rationale than this one, because it was motivated by various linguistic facts that bore explanation.)
But I'll make you a deal: find someone who wants to keep this section, such as DCDuring, and ask him/her to add a "Rationale for keeping the rule" alongside your "Rationale for removing the rule". If you do that, I'll withdraw my objection (though of course I can't promise that no one else will object). As you're so fond of pointing out, the rule seems never to have been directly voted on, so it would be valuable to have a rationale for it in any case.
—Ruakh_TALK 20:44, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't believe my rationale amounts to "I don't like this rule". My rationale refers to the ability of a term to carry non-compositional (not sum of parts) lexicographical information.

I think the rule should first be removed from CFI. Then DCDuring can create a vote for reinsertion of the rule, in which he, as the creator of the vote, can state his rationale. Of course, DCDuring is free to explain his rationale for wanting the rule in CFI on this talk page, and also in the section of Beer parlour linked to from this vote. Furthermore, DCDuring can explain his reasons for opposing as part of his cast vote. If DCDuring asks me to add a section to this vote in which he explains why the rule is a good thing, I am likely to do him a favor and add such a section, but I cannot overtake any responsibility for that section.

I support the right of creators of votes to supply any rationale as they see fit. The voters are not obliged to read the rationale. The voters are entitled to the best rationale the creator was able to come up with. The voters are free to read the rationale, deem it wrong, and yet vote in support, for their having a different rationale that they find convincing. --Dan Polansky 21:14, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Regarding your first paragraph: Yeah, that amounts to not liking the rule. It's not as though the rule had been introduced by people who thought that all company names were sums of parts, and you've now discovered otherwise. You're just stating that the rule covers what it covers, and adding that you don't like that it covers that.

Regarding your second and third paragraphs: I take it that you feel that the creator "owns" the vote page? I don't share that feeling; I think that, like any page on the wiki, it should have the form that best serves the project. I support giving vote-creators some leeway in orchestrating the vote, because ultimately we should vote on a proposal that has an actual proponent (otherwise we risk votes being sabotaged — intentionally or otherwise — by being edited into a form that no one supports, thereby disenfranchising the person who put the vote together), but that leeway should be finite.

—Ruakh_TALK 21:45, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, I take it that the creator of a vote should something like own the vote page, by taking responsibility over its final version. Of course, anyone can make proposal edits to a vote, but the creator should judge whether they will be accepted. Otherwise, you would need a vote on the final version of the vote, which is needlessly complex. Furthermore, the creator would have no guarantee that the vote won't turn into something quite different from what he intended. If an editor cannot create a vote that he can then prevent from further change, then the editor in effect does not have the right to present a proposal to be voted on. Votes are not like other wiki pages: they contain mostly non-factual information of the form "A should be done". --Dan Polansky 21:58, 13 February 2012 (UTC)