I've noted your changes to Biblical references, and I have no particular objection to your approach. I've been using commas and Roman numerals but I could change that easily enough. I've also been using a number before the name for those books like Corinthians that are multiple. The one additional change that I have been making is to expand the abbreviations to full names. Thus "Romans" instead of "Rom.", but "Paul's Epistle to the Romans" would be too much the other way. The 1913 Webster does use many Biblical quotes, but it does not identify which translation it employs. I assume the King James version because of the literary status which it has in its own right, but I can't be sure.
Any comments? Eclecticology 01:13 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)
- Based on the language, it would seem that it is indeed the King James Version. Also, yes you are correct not to use abbreviations for the books.
- One thing I've noticed about these references is that they are also links to an article like "Acts 12:1". Surely we're not going to have an article on every single Bible verse? I think it would make the most sense to link to the Wikipedia article on the whole book (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, etc.), or else unwikify the references. Eric119 01:37 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)
I've noticed that about the links, and I've been systematically removing them as I reformat them away from the work of the Webster Bot. The reference to a particular book in Wikipedia is not very helpful, because the quotes are here to serve a different purpose. A person who wants to better understand the usage of a word in a verse from Genesis, for example, would be better served by seeing the actual verse in context. The general discussion that we might find in the w:Genesis article is secondary to this interest. Our more erudite colleagues might be more fascinated by a link to the original Hebrew version.
I've remarked elsewhere that the handling of quotes is someplace where there is an opportunity for greatness. I would like to see the attributions in the quotes expanded to show the source book as well as the author. The Bible quotes are already specific, and Shakespeare is fairly easy to identify, but some of the others present a challenge. Expanding this point is on my to-do list. Eclecticology 02:38 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)
PS: I've been putting the Biblical references in italics; any objection? Eclecticology 02:52 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)
I would like to remark with thanks the dilligence that you have applied to maintaining Wiktionary:List of pages in Wiktionary: namespace for what has now been a long time. That it should happen for so long without any significant disputes certainly shows that is is possible to exercise judgement without being judgemental.
The list has now reached 1272 items. A large part of these would be indexes of one sort or another. I was wondering whether there should be a separate Index: namespace that would allow us to divide the list. Please let me know your opinion on this. Eclecticology 23:02, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Your welcome. I think that the Index: namespace might be a good idea. Indices (especially Chinese) currently dominate most of the pages in the list. I imagine it would be more useful if there were proportionally more pages on Wiktionary policy, software, etc. (Admittedly, there is very little of this now compared with Wikipedia.) I presume there would be something along the lines of a Wiktionary:List of pages in Index: namespace page? On a somewhat related note, should there be a list for "Wiktionary Appendix:" pages? (I suppose Special:Allpages could be used because that namespace isn't recognized by the wiki software. Currently, neither is "Index:".) Eric119 23:20, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Good. Because of your maintenance involvement, I thought I would ask you first. I'll approach Tim Starling next to see if there are any technical problems; after that I'll post it in the Beer Parlour to see the general reaction. If there is agreement, the changes can proceed, but there will be a lot of work to moving the pagms over. Your presumption about a master page for these is correct.
The "Wiktionary Appendix:" pages are mostly the work of one young kid, Pumpie, who also often edits anonymously. I have concerns about the usefulness of those pages which mostly relate to personal names. Pumpie's editing style is strange, but mostly harmless, and he is certainly well-intentioned. I have suspicions, but prefer not to go into details in public about that. For now, I prefer to take a wait and see approach.
I don't object to the small number of policy pages here in comparison with Wikipedia. It reflects the reality that the Wiktionary people are better behaved. :-) Eclecticology 01:22, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Hi Eric.
I notice you have added a lot of the pages of the form <SI_prefix> + "second" (eg, "attosecond"). Do you know whether these are all valid? If you look at the appendix on SI units ([1]) you will see that the subunits from millisecond down to attosecond have been acknolwedged as existing. No multiples are given because scientists use "minute", "hour", etc, or simply "1000 seconds", etc, rather than "kilosecond" and so on. These terms potentially exist, but for their inclusion in Wiktionary it is important that there is evidence that they are actually used rather than just have the potential to be used. Do you have examples that you can quote from?
Thanks for your contributions. -- Paul G 06:45, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC) (Wiktionary sysop)
- Thanks for your comments. I admit that I didn't really have any examples of usages of SI multiples. But, I think even the extreme values are used, though extremely rarely. A Web search for "yottasecond" mostly revealed mere definitions, and one article about "how long a 'yottasecond' is" (which I couldn't seem to be able to view). I guess that doesn't count as real usage of the term.
- This issue also raises the more general problem of defined prefixes and suffixes that can be automatically combined in many ways. In chemistry, for instance, you could have monohydrogen, dihydrogen, trihydrogen, etc. You could go on practically forever with that. Another instance is combining un- with every single English adjective.
- As you said, a word should actually be used to be included in Wiktionary. My rationale for all the prefix-second articles was that there weren't an extremely large number of them (as compared to the chemistry example, where you would have thousands of different prefixes, as admitted by Greek). Also, if someone did see them used, we should have them. (He may may able to guess what kilosecond means, but more exotic forms like exasecond are unlikely to be recognized.) This, combined with the "Wiki is not paper" argument, lead me to include the articles. But, perhaps they should be removed if they are rarely used.
- I'm getting rather long-winded here, so I'll just point out that recently I have also created prefix-gram similar to the prefix-second articles. Please let me know any further comments about the SI prefix matter. Eric119 00:13, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)
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