I don't archive my page to make it easier for you to post questions here. I archive my page when I get too many requests(/complaints) for me to do so. The majority of conversations on this page (and in my archives) belong on WT:VIP, WT:BP, WT:ID, WT:GP, WT:TR, WT:RFD, WT:RFC or WT:RFV. Please consider redirecting your question, from me personally, to the general discussion pages (even if you think I'm the only one likely to reply there.)

talk:Connel MacKenzie/archive&hideredirects=1&stripprefix=0 Pages starting with “User talk:Connel MacKenzie/archive”.
Older page history: history, 2006, 2007, 2008
Vandalism archive: /vandalism

I have transcluded the following from the new users log: ‎

  1. 22:00, 1 January 2008 EizneKcaM lennoC (Talk | contribs) created account for User:HsibolG (Talk | contribs)
  2. 22:00, 1 January 2008 EizneKcaM lennoC (Talk | contribs) created account for User:OttolB repmeS (Talk | contribs)
  3. 21:59, 1 January 2008 EizneKcaM lennoC (Talk | contribs) created account for User:NnamlluD treboR (Talk | contribs)
  4. 21:59, 1 January 2008 EizneKcaM lennoC (Talk | contribs) New user

EizneKcaM lennoC is attempting to impersonate you, NnamlluD treboR is attempting to impersonate Robert Ullmann, and I think you can figure out the rest by turning them the right way. (The impersonators' user names are backwards.) --MacReporter 02:59, 2 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

SIGH. I imagine I am partly to blame, for User talk:Image egamI.  :-(   Thanks for the heads-up. --Connel MacKenzie 03:26, 2 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Listing WT:PMT at the bottom of WT:CP edit

As per your suggestion on Beer parlour, I would surely add the Project Multilingual Translations to the listing of WT:CP. Thanks for your consideration and suggestions for newly proposed mega-project.

Project Multilingual Translations is only in the stage of being framed; but is a big goal to be achieved. So, firstly we would give enough time to frame all things correctly for everything expected to function in right manner and then only set out with work. kindly do give additional suggestions at Project Multilingual Translations discussions page.

Also, kindly convey some deserving names for PMT group membership from various languages.

Shreehari 08:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

As with any wiki-project, the volunteers for PMT must volunteer themselves. It would not be an act of kindness to suggest names of specific individuals, who very probably are already over-committed themselves! On the group membership page, you may have inadvertently chosen the wording "control language" when you really mean "language proficiency?" That subtle difference isn't so subtle in that context. --Connel MacKenzie 14:05, 2 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

work to be done edit

Hi. If you like, I'll go through these tomorrow. User:Newnoise/Stuff Probably delete a much higher %age than he (WF?) states. - Algrif 18:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. I'm busy now, too. Maybe strikeout the ones kept that have been completely rewritten. --Connel MacKenzie 19:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)Reply


Special:Contributions/129.174.78.5 edit

Can you look at his recent edits and advise him, please? I'm not sure what would be the best way to phrase it, and I have to sign off now anyway. Thanks. - Algrif 19:14, 7 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Funny, I was thinking the same thing - punt. That is, punt and hope that someone other than myself, could handle it more gracefully. We have a long standing prohibition on "word histories" (particularly in etymology sections) that covers the style of the approach. But there are two problems: 1) what s/he is entering clearly isn't a copyvio, 2) what s/he is entering does belong in those entries as ===Usage notes=== (reworded, chopped WAY down.)
I dunno. Suggest floating ideas on "Talk:" pages first, to ask what sections they belong in and/or help rewording? Diplomacy really isn't my strong suit. --Connel MacKenzie 19:26, 7 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

reordering definitions edit

So what is the etymological objection to reordering the two definitions for husbandry? The conservation-of-resources one seems to be broader and encompasses the other one. Fair enough that m-w and dict.org aren't enough justification for wiktionary, but what in the world is "etymological order" and how do you determine that those two definitions are in it now? Eaefremov 23:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

The figurative extension of the original literal meaning encompasses the original? I disagree. But your assertion that Wiktionary should be made to comply with dictionary.com (in the edit summary) is suggestive of a larger conceptual error. While Wikipedia is only a tertiary source, Wiktionary cannot be and is not. --Connel MacKenzie 07:23, 9 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Apparent cheatbot error edit

As recently as Dec 07 Cheatbot declared a past form to be a present participle. (arced was the one.) I have so far found three instances of this error. I hope we can come up with ways of standardizing more of our entries so that it easier to get bots to behave. DCDuring 14:25, 9 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Wow, that is a very strange bug. Thank you for pointing it out. And timely, too, since I was preparing to upload the batch from 1/2/2008. I'll add another check to ensure that particular problem doesn't resurface, then regenerate the upload. --Connel MacKenzie 16:05, 9 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
I looked at a few of the errors. Another aspect is that 3rd p singular entries were missed, a pres. participles were labelled as 3rd p singulars. I'm really glad it was timely. I caught about 8 errors through the middle of the b's so fewer than 100 in total probably for English. DCDuring 16:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
I hope the logs at the bottom of the userpage User:TheCheatBot are helpful, in finding them. I am inclined to think this is a relatively recent bug, as the inflection template has changed so very much, over the years. --Connel MacKenzie 16:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
It may be connected with cases where en-verb with four explicit verb inflections. DCDuring 17:49, 9 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Or maybe just the number of separator bars. verge has no entry after last sep bar and had the problem. DCDuring 18:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thanks again - tracking a problem down is typically the hard part. Hopefully I'll remember to correct this and regenerate, before uploading any of these. (This is on the longer list of things I want to rewrite for a different platform, to get more up-to-date checks in place, but I guess that is neither here nor there. Traversing the entire XML dump is still the first pass, either way.) --Connel MacKenzie 05:59, 13 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Thanks edit

Is was going through to check that there were no references to the shortcuts, as oppposed to to the pages they linked. But it really wasn't worth it. Thanks a lot. Conrad.Irwin 20:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

cast not a clout edit

Hi. Some advice please. Having seen your modifications to this proverb; am I to understand that we no longer use/need the "context" tag? - Algrif 20:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

It is still sometimes used for very rare context tags that don't have their own "wrappers" yet. When I find such templates, I try to clean them up (so they match, e.g. {{slang}}) and update the AutoFormat tables about them. "Context" itself is getting phased out gradually. There were a few discussions about it on WT:GP in 2007... --Connel MacKenzie 20:12, 10 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
While you're here though...should I have sent that to RFV? Where is that phrase from? [1] gives no clues. --Connel MacKenzie 20:14, 10 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
The proverb entry might need to be modified. [2] My mum always used it as per my entry. But the saying is quite old, so perhaps it should be "ne'er". - Algrif 14:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
(Later edit) This [3] seems to seal it for "ne'er cast a clout.." although alternatives do show up (including my entry) they are definitely in the minority. - Algrif 15:45, 11 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Weird that about.com says it is used (only?) in British English. Well, I've never heard it here, so a {{UK}} tag seems reasonable, based on their say-so. Moving it to "Ne'er ..." seems reasonable. --Connel MacKenzie 16:13, 11 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Japanese demonstratives edit

Hey, I don't remember whether you knew Japanese or not; but I finally made a table of the Japanese demonstratives (just check out the page kono or sono). However, demonstratives aren't accepted as headers; how should I categorise it then? --BiT 08:14, 11 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

I'm sorry, but my efforts to investigate this have proved fruitless. Perhaps User:EncycloPetey could give better guidance? WT:AJ does not yet mention them; its talk page is another good place to ask. --Connel MacKenzie 21:23, 12 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Hm too bad, thanks for the effort though. :) Why can't they just be categorized as "demonstratives" though? That's what they bloody are! --BiT 12:40, 13 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
I'm sorry I misread your question! Yes, Category:Japanese demonstratives is fine - I thought you were asking about the heading. --Connel MacKenzie 18:44, 13 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Yea both actually, why can't you make the header be "demonstrative" (like this ===Demonstrative===)? --BiT 20:29, 13 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Ticket "2008011210003289" edit

Ticket created for verification purposes, between the emails and this, hopefully we're set. :)

btw, ever considered archiving your talkpage? o.o It's long! ~Kylu (u|t) 09:08, 12 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

No. Never. No! I mean it! NO! --Connel MacKenzie 09:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
And no snarky comments about irc://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-otrs either! No! NO! --Connel MacKenzie 05:52, 13 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Are you founder of Wiktionary? edit

Thank you for such an interesting project. -68.224.117.152 20:33, 12 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

You are welcome. No, I was not aware of "wikis" at all, when this started. User:Brion VIBBER created this wiki. User:Eclecticology was here on day one, with a few others. I am a contributor here, just like you. --Connel MacKenzie 21:16, 12 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Unicodifying edit

Hi, i just noticed that while you do the Unicodifying and removing the HTML entities, it seems to overlook Ö for Ö. You edited f.e. Ofen and replaced the ß for ß but the Ö stayed (which i have now removed manually). Maybe you can add that to your script. Greets, Mutante 22:46, 13 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Thanks - but I hope I never do this again! I think I got the Ouml's manually during the first pass, but I'll re-add it now just in case. --Connel MacKenzie 22:48, 13 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
(I made sure these are all case-sensitive - since they are - perhaps that was how it slipped through? AWB bug? Argh.) --Connel MacKenzie 22:49, 13 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Spetchel edit

Can you go Visviva's talk page and let this guy know that spetchel passed the criteria for verification since it falls under "Cite, on the article page, usage of the word in permanently recorded media, conveying meaning, in at least three independent instances spanning at least a year" for permanently recorded media with Google Books. --Marmoset Marmalade 16:48, 16 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Well, I'm not sure that these links do show noun use. Visviva's action was correct, in that the citations themselves never were added to the entry...closing out backlogged RFVs is a painful task that I'm not about to second-guess here.
I think the best way to proceed is to create Citations:spetchel with at least three book citations, then request un-deletion from Visviva, based on the "new" citations given.
--Connel MacKenzie 16:58, 16 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
But do they show "use"? They look like "mention" to me (i.e. in dictionaries, not in ordinary text). SemperBlotto 17:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Further down look like possibilities, so I'm not about to say this can never be entered - I'll only say that Visviva's action looks correct. --Connel MacKenzie 17:04, 16 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
At the time, I didn't realize I had to add citations to the entry. I just knew that under the List of searchable archives for the clause of usage of the word in permanently recorded media, conveying meaning, in at least three independent instances spanning at least a year, Google Books pops up as a source for validation under "How does one verify a sense?". Spetchel appears in 23 separate books as a noun, so it should be suitable, correct? --Marmoset Marmalade 19:47, 16 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Citations are needed to prove that it actually is a word - we can't/don't use secondary sources directly for a number of reasons, so we look for the term being used. That's the problem identified to begin with, that searching b.g.c. doesn't really help with...the first entire page of results list only (unusable) secondary sources. --Connel MacKenzie 23:48, 16 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Ah. My misunderstanding then. So I just need to find three sources where the word is used. Now I assume that wikipedia will not be an accepted source? --Marmoset Marmalade 13:51, 18 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
(A username such as "monkey cum" doesn't exactly instill confidence, however.) --Connel MacKenzie 17:10, 16 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
..............ookay. It's not "monkey cum". Great. I didn't really need to think of that. Now my username is going to be tainted by that image. Thanks a lot. --Marmoset Marmalade 19:47, 16 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Well, um, but, well, ahh, erm. Do tell, what is "marmalade" in a simian context supposed to mean then? Surely I can't be blamed for that association...I'm not that creative. --Connel MacKenzie 23:48, 16 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
They are two of my favorite words. Honestly I wasn't feeling very creative so I typed in the first two words that came to mind. It seemed funny to me at the time (just look at him! He's hilarious!), however, I hadn't drawn that particular conclusion. --Marmoset Marmalade 13:51, 18 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

protected titles edit

I'd like if we always used max 1 year when adding these. That makes it easier to see when they are added as well. Yes, there are a few that may recur, and will never be valid, but in this way we won't have an ever increasing pile of cruft. It would be good if Special:Protectedtitles remained useful to look at. (e.g. do we really care about spra/nkton, or whether it ever reappears?) Robert Ullmann 18:26, 16 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Several things:
  1. spra* No, never. It resurfaced after years, last few times it was unprotected (after a year or more.)
  2. We shouldn't be keeping pages, now that we have two other methods of preventing them. This pile of cruft should be steadily decreasing (as should WT:PT.)
  3. Generally, one year sounds good, but it shouldn't be yourself and myself that decide that.
--Connel MacKenzie 18:39, 16 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Something for you to look at... edit

News, but also c/p of en.wp script

Made you look! - Amgine 05:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I can't tell how that is able to get invoked. Once running, it is just pulling some random web copy of the ILOVEYOU virus (looks like.) We can probably use parts of it for the thing to auto-download random(Firefox|Opera|Netscape|...) whenever a page is opened in IE. But such ridiculous silliness aside, thanks for the link/explanation. --Connel MacKenzie 06:00, 17 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Hi again from Polyglot edit

Hi Connel,

I logged in once more and found I had a new message. It was from you about something that happened in September 2005. I don't even recall the specifics anymore. Anyway, I'm sure you're doing a great job and I wish you all the best for the coming years!

Polyglot

Wow, it seems I caused quite a fuss by trying to do some good uploading my pictures and recordings and then subsequently disappearing from the face of the earth for a while... If I ever upload anything again, I'll do it to commons directly from now on. Recently I picked up a new interest though: openstreetmap.org. It's great fun to go around with a GPS and a camera and try to build a useful map of the world --Polyglot 08:26, 22 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Whoops, you were asking a question back there, but I was so stunned to see your name, I forgot to answer! Yes, that stuff is loooooong since taken care of. Your stuff was irksome, but not nearly as bad as some of the others. openstreetmap sounds like it might be overlapping one of the similar initiatives from GoogleEarth...but if it is anything like it, it must be fun! (And somehow, a bigger time-sink than en.wiktionary!) --Connel MacKenzie 08:31, 22 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Nbarth usertalk deleted? edit

Hi Connel,

I noticed that my user talk page, User talk:Nbarth, was deleted: [4]. I haven't used it afaik (I just noticed a "New messages", which yielded a deleted talk page) and I presume the page had something offensive on it. Could you tell me what happened at my Wikipedia talk page? Thanks!

Nbarth 16:51, 20 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the clarification!
Nbarth 21:10, 20 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

WT:DEL edit

I am sorry for misrepresenting you on the Grease Pit, it was unintentional. Conrad.Irwin 21:32, 20 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Deconversion edit

Hi, Connel. I am thinking of merging Wikipedia's deprogramming and exit counseling articles to Deconversion (at Wikipedia, of course - not here! :-)

Then I'm planning - with help from Jossi, Andries and others (I wouldn't do this by myself) - to rework deprogramming and exit counseling and daughter articles of the new deconversion article.

The rationale behind this is the realization that there is no general article on people leaving their faith with the assistance of (or under pressure from) others. There is also a lot of overlap between deprogramming and exit counseling, in terms of models of manipulation (from the 'cult') and methods of talking the person out of their beliefs/membership. The main difference between the two is the degree of force used: a lot in (forcible) deprogramming, none it all in (voluntary) exit counseling.

The reason I'm involving you is that (1) you have a bot that will be triggered if I start doing this and (2) it involves meanings of words, which is a Wiktionary specialty. -- — This unsigned comment was added by Ed Poor (talkcontribs).

blind man's bluff edit

I think this is another UK-US difference. In UK most folks say buff. I did think how best to tackle these entries before I made them, and one of my options was a syncronised link. What do you think? -- Algrif 19:07, 23 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Wow, how unexpected. Did I mark "buff" as a mere typo? Trying to use {{sync}} as a subst'd template might be best then. I wonder what buff means in UK English. Over here, you can buff your shoes with a cloth to finish shining them. You could also use buffed (not buff) to describe something very over-inflated (like a body-builder's muscles.) That series of entries could probably use a lot of attention. --Connel MacKenzie 20:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
I very much suspect that back in queen Vic's youth, they talked about playing blind man's bluff in UK too. I suspect it is nothing more than a corruption that is now more common than the root. Might have something to do with the way a young child would say the word? I've never used the {{sync}} template before. Would mind doing the honours? and I will receive the learning with gratitude. Ciao -- Algrif 20:28, 23 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Done. On line one (before ==English==) I added {{subst:synch|blind man's buff|blink man's bluff|subst=subst:}}. Fortunately, the instructions for it are still accurate.  :-)   --Connel MacKenzie 20:42, 23 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Cardinal numbers cats edit

Um, Connel these are POS categories; they are (were) all correct. Kindly put them back. Robert Ullmann 22:23, 23 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Grrrr. I was just going through non-empty {{catred}}s. The categories themselves are marked backwards? --Connel MacKenzie 22:25, 23 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Note that the WT:POS section is wrong (hence part of the "debated" bit); if you look at the all the other POS cats they DO NOT use the xx: code prefix, the use the language name and the part-of speech. This is left over from the attempt to force "number->numeral" on us, when clearly almost everyone preferred "number".
Look at the rest of the POS cats in WT:POS, which are full policy. Robert Ullmann 22:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Sigh. I didn't even notice "numeral" in those. So, basically anything with {{catred}} on it that pertains to numbers is backwards. Great. Wanna help re-align the categories themselves while I run the bot for the category members? --Connel MacKenzie 22:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
be happy to, but it is past sleep time for me tonight ;-(
Also, you aren't using the option to leave other categories in place. (-inplace) Robert Ullmann 22:37, 23 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Please fix {{cardinal}} et al., when you get to them. --Connel MacKenzie 22:47, 23 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
What a mess. Why can't people get the category naming concept? It has been two years now. (I see, EP created the whole mess last year.) Robert Ullmann 12:03, 24 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
I'm sorry, EP made such a horrendous mess of these POS names and cats last February while trying to force everyone to use "Numeral" instead of the generally preferred "Number" that I can't deal with straightening it out right now. Robert Ullmann 13:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic edit

No joke. Just trying to make it consistent with w:Rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic which redirects to here. Evrik 19:37, 24 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Please note: any mention of S. C. here is guaranteed to receive a hostile response. He has personally, directly been responsible for far too much vandalism here to do an about-face and suddenly start acting as promoters of his spam. The fact that it was redundant makes it silly. The fact that is was more than one sentence makes it a distinct liability. --Connel MacKenzie 12:22, 25 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Wow. That was a pretty absurd allegation. --Connel MacKenzie 16:37, 28 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

No "Han tu" edit

Why? — This unsigned comment was added by Cehihin (talkcontribs).

That isn't a valid heading - but could you please be a little more specific? What exact entry? Link please. --Connel MacKenzie 01:35, 27 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Wayobjects edit

The Wiktionary in turn should refer back to the Wikipedia to cover

Peter Horn 23:36, 28 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Language Codes edit

Where can I find some information on the language codes, like 'en', 'sp', etc.? I'd like to find out how to specify my languages correctly for the admin nomination. Thanks. RSvK 01:42, 29 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Never mind; I found them. Thanks. RSvK 02:13, 29 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
The two-digit codes come from w:ISO 3166-1, (which are actually country codes.) The Wikipedia Babel templates have historically been copied whenever a language is missing. --Connel MacKenzie 02:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Connel, why do you keep confusing this with 3166? The two letter codes for languages are w:ISO 639-1, no relation to 3166 (and, note, predates it by quite a bit), except that a number of countries and languages with the same names happen to have the same code. We do not use ISO 3166 anywhere. Our list is Wiktionary:Index to templates/languages Robert Ullmann 11:38, 29 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Because 3166 is what has been used consistently for wiki URL names. My bad. --Connel MacKenzie 01:35, 31 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

cerement edit

Anything I can do to make life easier on cleaning up these old things? I hear that history merger is no fun. Did I accidentally create some history that forced that requirement on you or is it necessary anyway? I don't mind doing some info-extraction/cleanup work once in a while, but I don't want to make work for anyone or waste my time. DCDuring TALK 00:58, 31 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

The history merge is only "no fun" when I totally mess it up.  :-)   In theory, anytime you use the content from a transwiki, they should be history-merged. I don't think we've typically been very good about it, so far. But that is one of the main reasons the full history is coming over the wall. --Connel MacKenzie 01:34, 31 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Would that mean that if all we would get is a badly formatted quote or one WL to a synonym, I may as well just look it up again and allow the transwiki to be speedied without a merger? If there is actually at least a sense line or something a little more substantive, it would seem more worth the extra steps of history merging. Alernatively, is there any template or something that could allow me to select an existing WT entry as target, append all the content of the TW, and merge all the history? I would then finish by editing out the error and duplication manual, leaving a complete trail. DCDuring TALK 02:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Well, there is {{merge}} that should help with that. I haven't done that side of it in a while; you might ask User:Goldenrowley what his preferred method has worked out to be. --Connel MacKenzie 18:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, will do. DCDuring TALK 18:18, 31 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

melt faces edit

is a common phrase. The most oft-cited example would be Shadow priests melt faces. 88.198.175.78 07:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Really? Well, prove me wrong, please. Find three citations here showing that sense, spanning a year. I don't see any evidence for this as a common set phrase. I mean, c'mon - zilch? --Connel MacKenzie 07:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
And don't use OPs. You can e-mail me if there is really a need. --Connel MacKenzie 07:45, 1 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

peḱ- edit

Why this revert? This way {{proto}} can't link to it. Roots have implicit '-' in their name, and that differs them from other POS that can be fully reconstructed for PIE (like those in Category:Proto-Indo-European nouns, not those "nominal stems" as Dbachmann used to lemmatize them) --Ivan Štambuk 11:27, 1 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

A broken template is no reason to move them to the wrong place. Add a parameter for "noun" or "root" to make it point to the right place. I really don't understand the complaint. --Connel MacKenzie 11:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
I've redirected lots of those some time ago before you reverted that particular redirect of mine; but I don't understand, why didn't you also redirect the other ones in Category:Proto-Indo-European roots? The template is not "broken", root is everything that ends with "-". reconstructed PIE nouns are also often cited in '-' form, just to be clear what is the stem onto which suffixes are appended, but unlike paper dictionaries that can't afford the cost in space, it's easy to provide full declensional paradigm on wiktionary, lemmatized as nominative singular, which finally renders the '-' postfix superfluous. --Ivan Štambuk 13:34, 1 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Connel: the page titles should not have "noun" or "root" in them. Robert Ullmann 07:51, 3 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Wiktionary:Reconstructed terms is very interesting on this. Robert, you added that qualifier to no longer say "noun" or "root"? The respective vote didn't specify that. While I am certain that is a mistake, the relevant policy page, does in fact, support your position. I've made the counter-correction you've suggested, moving it back to what I understand to be the "wrong" appendix title. --Connel MacKenzie 18:46, 3 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Rollback me edit

Hi Connel, I screwed up something. Can you revert or rollback the edits I made today from this one?- I didn't read Category:Pages containing style information before changing a bunch of stuff. Sorry--Keene 11:34, 1 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Done. For future reference: you can do it yourself nearly as fast by enabling "Lupin's Popups" in WT:PREFS. --Connel MacKenzie 11:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Cool, thanks for the tip. I'll try that. Or I might just wait til I become an admin if it doesn't work--Keene 11:43, 1 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Archival edit summaries. edit

Hi Connel,

Your archive-bot is very useful; I firmly approve. :-)

One question: would it be possible for the edit summary to indicate somehow the title of the section that's being archived? That would be really useful in looking through the history.

Thanks in advance!

RuakhTALK 11:58, 1 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

There are three significant improvements I want to make to "editarticle.py" - proper section editing (instead of the whole page,) edit summary customization (your request) and proper apostrophe handling in section titles. Unfortunately, all three are a lower priority than rebuilding the older cross-references from the full XML dump analysis and sorting the 27 WT:DEL subpages.
Another somewhat important feature still needed, is double checking that {{rfv has been removed from the target entry, when entries are kept. (If not, then the bot should add a reminder comment to that section...thereby delaying archiving another two weeks.)
Of greater concern, is that the various announcements on WT:GP haven't encouraged quite the help I thought it might. To strike a title is to mark it as kept. Delete the target entry to turn the link red. Sign both events so that people can comment/object/correct/whatever. (Forgetting to sign, can cause the bot to put it into the older archive - which for some of the backlog might be appropriate, if 100% non-controversial.)
Glad you too, like it. --Connel MacKenzie 12:10, 1 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Understood. :-) —RuakhTALK 12:23, 1 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Well, you've broken my priority list by presenting me with something interesting. But it isn't workin' right. Yet. --Connel MacKenzie 23:28, 1 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Ah ha! --Connel MacKenzie 23:52, 1 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
I should recognize these weaknesses of mine, better. http://xkcd.com/356/ --Connel MacKenzie 20:58, 3 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Great, thank you! —RuakhTALK 04:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

copyleft edit

Hi, I've responded to your question about copyleft at User talk:Kop. You may wish to start with my final thoughts I just added to the bottom. --kop 14:40, 2 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

w:Chris.B edit

I can indeed confirm that Chris.B is my account on the English Wikipedia. I'm afraid I can't answer there as I'm on an enforced wikibreak, but you may wish to have a look at my Wikimatrix on Meta for verification. Apologies for any confusion. Regards, RedCoat 15:32, 2 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Enabling your e-mail there is still an invisible user preference, isn't it? --Connel MacKenzie 15:40, 2 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
I can't quite make out what you want me to do now. I am currently using a JavaScript-based "wikibreak enforcer" and thus can't sign in to reply or re-enable the email function. What exactly do you mean by "an invisible user preference"? Regards, RedCoat 15:57, 2 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
I mean, in your browser's options turn off javascript for five minutes, (For Firefox: Tools, Options, Content, uncheck "Enable Javascript". For IE: Tools, Internet Options, Security, Internet (zone), Custom Level, Scripting, Active Scripting: prompt or disable. For Netscape: Edit, Preferences, Advanced, Scripts & plugins, uncheck "Navigator".) then visit w:Special:Preferences and check the "Enable e-mail from other users" and click save. (I suppose just replying there would also do the trick, at that point.) --Connel MacKenzie 16:34, 2 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Okay, done. I've also enabled email for the avoidance of doubt. RedCoat 16:44, 2 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Block of 206.248.66.202 edit

Why did you block a user for "stupidity" when ze had no contributions? (I remember some topic on a discussion room about blocking some other IP for "stupidity"). --Ionas | Fuck Censorship 05:14, 3 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Why would you expect to be able to see deleted entries? This block for you (now for the absurd signature) is incrementally longer than the last. --Connel MacKenzie 06:22, 3 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Rfc on "ei" edit

Hi, you added this { {rfc|find source of copyvio, delete}} on the Finnish section of ei. Copyvio...delete? What did you mean by that? -- Frous 19:29, 4 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

It is not remotely possible that that technical exposition was garnered from whole cloth just from common knowledge of that term. No reference for it was given, yet it clearly was copied from somewhere. --Connel MacKenzie 19:37, 4 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Hair-trigger block edit

Bite much? Do admins on wiktionary even bother warning well-meaning kids when they make silly mistakes, or do you just show them the door? Disappointedly yours, Anetode 04:15, 7 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

A misspellings vandal entering bad redirects into a dictionary? You realize you're busting my chops over a one day block? I've made mistakes - but this was not one of them. I wouldn't be surprised if another sysop blocked you for this harassment. ONE DAY! No wonder 'pedia is...well, 'pedia. --Connel MacKenzie 04:43, 7 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
I can't see deleted revisions, so if this user created a few useless redirects, then my appraisal of the situation may be mistaken. If this was the case, then I apologize, my assumption was that the block was in direct response to this edit. But to characterize my concern as harassment? Give me a break and get over yourself, I'm not an active contributor to this project and I don't care about whatever petty power games you exercise with your administrator privileges. I'm not here to get into a pissing match with you, have fun threatening anyone who dares to question you on your turf. Cheers, Anetode 05:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Get over yourself, indeed. I'm not concerned about you attacking me, I'm concerned about you advocating misspellings in a dictionary. This dictionary. --Connel MacKenzie 05:18, 7 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Threat? Fuck you. --Connel MacKenzie 05:19, 7 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
"I wouldn't be surprised if another sysop blocked you for this harassment." I take it that this was not an implicit threat, but merely a reminder to keep civil - a reminder that clearly doesn't apply to you. So long and thanks for all the fish. Anetode 05:31, 7 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
I invite you to look up the word threat. Good riddance. --Connel MacKenzie 06:23, 7 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
At the risk of sounding like a schoolteacher, I'd like to call a time out. Can you both cool it for a while? Posting while tempers are hot is clearly not helping resolve this. Just a thought, -- ArielGlenn 06:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

User:Connel MacKenzie/Wantedpages edit

Just about all mainspace links to onomatopoeic have been fixed to point to onomatopoetic. Why does onomatopoeic redirect to onomatopoetic, though? bd2412 T 21:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Why'd you comment here? On User talk:Connel MacKenzie/Wantedpages.
Why are all our main namespace entries point now to the not-really-a-word archaic spelling variant? Dude, http://news.google.com/news?q=%22onomatopoetic%22 vs http://news.google.com/news?q=%22onomatopoeic%22 - is the point to confuse newcomers, or to show off the fact that we love calling misspellings "real words?"
I'll bot-correct these shortly.
--Connel MacKenzie 04:22, 7 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
It seems that both words are considered "correct". The OED has cites for both words going back over 150 years (although onomatopoeic is preferred). Atelaes 04:57, 7 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
OED makes a point of listing obsolete and archaic words - so what? OED, SchmOED.  :-)   Most resources, like perhaps ones that actually care about their readers list that as a misspelling. That it is rare, is beyond question right? So what is the point of confusing readers by using a rare alternate? --Connel MacKenzie 05:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
gbc shows 900 cites for the nonexistent variant, and 1200 for the "correct" one. Both certainly deserve entries. Rfv the one if you like. To be honest, I wouldn't even give the second a "common misspelling of", rather I'd give it "alternative spelling of". But, onomatopoeic certainly deserves preference. Atelaes 05:07, 7 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Huh? I don't want to RFV it - I acknowledge it is a variant. But ALL our main namespace entries that have that characteristic should link to the correct (onomatopoeic) spelling, not the rare (onomatopoetic) variant. --Connel MacKenzie 05:13, 7 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
At the time, the "correct" (onomatopoeic) was a redirect to the (onomatopoetic). If it's wrong, fine, but it was on your list as a missing term with links to it, and I directed those links to the nearest existing entry. bd2412 T 23:29, 8 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Oh, I see now. Thanks for the explanation. (Always a pleasure to stumble across a almost-year-old subpage thing. Moving it here probably could have been more graceful.) --Connel MacKenzie 23:59, 8 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Sorry about that. I will clean up my mess. Cheers! bd2412 T 00:21, 9 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

hello connel edit

just saying hello --72.73.90.185 14:18, 8 February 2008 (UTC)Reply


math spam ?? edit

Look at this knot#See_also. Is that random 'math spam' or something real that i dont have a clue about? Mutante 19:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Do you see the "square root of n" symbol when you edit this section? Edit this section and click it...when it is over three lines of stuff, it is probably intentional. (Why one wouldn't just click [cancel] or close the window, is a bit baffling.) --Connel MacKenzie 19:23, 8 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Ahaa, i understand now, thanks ;) Mutante 19:27, 8 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

A warning edit

I don't know if you've been told about this before, but are these unsigned comments yours? At the moment I'm too lazy to go back in the history and see whatnot, but if they are, I would like to warn you about something. Please do not be rude and just block people for "stupidity". And this:

Someone who has in the past made questionable edits here, comes along suggesting a misspelling as a valid alternate. (Note that about half their previous contributions are spam links to external sites, on their user page.)

is unacceptable. Who are you to decide what is "questionable" or not?

This should not reqire a block, just a notice on someone's talk page. Your actions, however, would require a one-day block for being incivil. And we all know this is you:

Importing that template would be more than useless; blocked users cannot comment on their talk pages here. That is custom 'pedia software. I understand you can't see, or didn't notice the deleted redirect that caused the block. Misspelling vandalism might be good for Wikipedia, but doesn't have a place here. A one day block. Your realize you are going on and on about a one day block, right? --Connel MacKenzie 05:10, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

and the signed "no" comment, with no explanation.

You don't explain why importing the "template" (software) would be useless (in actuality I believe it to be useful), just name-calling, just like you did with the [r]thing.

If this was not you, then I'm sorry. --Ionas F

And I do agree with Anetode: You are biting an innocent, well meaning kid and refused to AGF, even if those unsigned comments are not you, the signed ones are enough to prove your incivility and liberal use of the word "vandalism", which, can be considered a personal attack. --Ionas F. --68.224.117.152 21:11, 8 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Rest assured that citing "stupidity" as a block reason is perfectly acceptable wikt procedure. And if you're going to make accusations against Connel, it would be nice if you could at least sign your accusations. Atelaes 21:10, 8 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
That, in and of itself is stupid. It is only what someone considered stupid, this is new to me, I don't consider a good-faith attempt to include an alternate spelling as vandalism or stupid. I don't think what somebody considers stupid to be a block reason, unless it violates some kind of spirit or letter of policy or guideline, in which, I think Connel should be blocked. --Ionas F. 68.224.117.152 21:15, 8 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Gee, in my view, evading a multi-wiki (WMF-wide, right?) ban to troll here, knowing full well you again, can't see deleted edits...gee whiz. That's stupid. --Connel MacKenzie 22:20, 8 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Gee, in my view, this wiki is overly tolerant with people like you who constantly break the spirit of the guidelines, and then are exempt from blocks. I am not under a WMF-wide ban. I didn't say shit about deleted edits. Was it you that made those unsigned edits? --68.224.117.152 05:21, 9 February 2008 (UTC) Ionas F.Reply
Yes it was. But see Atelaes' comments, and if you want to discuss stupidity as a reason for blocking, there is already a thread in the Beer Parlour. Please stop harassing Connel. Harass me instead if there is something you would like to know. This conversation ends here. DAVilla 06:30, 9 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
I never make unsigned comments. Perhaps someone subdivided my statements for some reason or another. But I sign my talk page comments. --Connel MacKenzie 06:34, 9 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
It may have been the horizontal rule that threw him off, but if it was my fault in dividing the statements then my apology for the lack of clarity. DAVilla 06:39, 9 February 2008 (UTC)Reply


I'd be lying if it didn't bother me at all...but it doesn't bother me too much - I don't think many people were mislead (or even confused) by it. Well, with one obvious exception. But I think that is another (entirely separate) agenda, rathen than genuine confusion...and completely irrelevant. --Connel MacKenzie 06:40, 9 February 2008 (UTC)Reply


Hi Connel. Is edit

Hot Tea a troll? Jcwf 19:54, 9 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Yes, by meatball's definition, 100%. --Connel MacKenzie 21:30, 9 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
IRC is handy in too many ways. It is useful for asking a question, because 20 people have the opportunity to give you an immediate answer. (Or in my case, if, say, I were to be flying off the handle in exasperation, someone like User:Opiaterein can provide a word of caution that I apparently need, on occasion.) IRC itself is a simple protocol (you can turn on a primitive link to it, in WT:PREFS, or use a nicer client like Chatzilla, or use a medium-level tool like http://java.freenode.net/index.php?channel=wiktionary-gfdl&nickname= {{USERNAME}}.) About half the conversations tend to be about specific words, half about technical questions (bot/XML/JS) and a small amount of grousing about wiki politics. Some people use it very efficiently, connecting only one or two hours a week. Others (like me) maintain persistent connections, then "backread" to keep up with current events. It provides access to some of the more advanced vandalism tools as well. Lastly, it inherently promotes cross-wiki cooperation (tremendously.) I haven't seen many blatant abuses of the tool; abuse there tends to get smacked down rather quickly. While I'm sure some subtle abuses of the tool must exist, those are not endemic to IRC. Overall, I find it to be a useful tool. --Connel MacKenzie 01:15, 10 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

To Connel MacKenzie edit

my friend got blocked due to semperblotto who is he? can he or you unblock him due to vandal lonestar

View source From Wiktionary for User talk:Connel MacKenzie Jump to: navigation, search You do not have permission to do that, for the following reason:

Your user name or IP address has been blocked by SemperBlotto. The reason given is this: exceeded crap limit You may contact SemperBlotto or one of the other administrators to discuss the block. Note that you may not use the "e-mail this user" feature unless you have a valid e-mail address registered in your user preferences. If you have an account, you can still edit your preferences when you are blocked.

Your IP address is 72.73.90.185. Please include this address in any queries you make.

You can view and copy the source of this page:

the reason is unknown he always says excessive crap limit --Lone.guner 04:47, 10 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

I've reviewed the block log, and the crap limit was indeed exceeded from this IP (for example, throwing a delete tag on a perfectly good article here). It's a one day block, so tell your friend to try being more productive tomorrow. Cheers! bd2412 T 05:06, 10 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
I've already replied to him via e-mail. I'm not about to wheel war over a valid block. Excessive poor-and-mediocre edits are the primary complaint. (Note also that the three week incremental block was instead, only one day.) It would behoove him to follow some of my recommendations on that e-mail...and ask for some specific help on specific entries during the block period, so he can come back and vindicate himself (instead of repeating past performance.) --Connel MacKenzie 05:10, 10 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

what the fuck unblock him dont tag team shit on me and 22332 whatever i thought was vandalism due to some asshole that fucked it up i wanted to revert it fuckers — This unsigned comment was added by Lone.guner (talkcontribs).

I think I'll let DAVilla take it from here. --Connel MacKenzie 05:15, 10 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
With those words he won't receive much sympathy from me, but he could try to get an explanation out of SemperBlotto which I think was the original question. DAVilla 05:36, 10 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

davilla you like a war monger or something oh blotto is a ****** — This unsigned comment was added by Lone.guner (talkcontribs).

Coding information edit

Can you help me understand your code that you use for your wiktionary analysis? For instance in User:Connel_MacKenzie/checktrans I assume the code at the top is shell code, but have you made 1-letter aliases to specific commands? Thanks. --Bequw¢τ 20:16, 10 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Much more interesting than that. See w:MUMPS ... (yes, commands can be abbreviated to one letter) Robert Ullmann 20:21, 10 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
It is w:MUMPS AKA "M." After each XML dump, I import into my M database the contents of en.wiktionary. I leave little one-liners like that around, to help me remember what I did, particularly when I forget about it for a month or a year. To translate that to pseudo-code for you:
  kill                   ;erase all local variables - start clean
  write #                ;clear screen)
  set x=""
  for  (~= "while (true)") do:
    set x=$order(^wiki2(x)) ;next iteration in main table of Wiktionary entries
    quit:x=""            ;exit loop when done
    set t=^(x,"text")    ;get the text from ^wiki2(x,"text")
    set n=^("name")      ;get the page name from ^wiki2(x,"name")
    if t["{{checktrans", ; "[" = "contains"
       t'["{{ttbc",      ; "," is logical "and" here
       n'[":"
         then  write "[["_n_"]] "
               write:$x>60 ! ;wrap text nicely for cut-n-pasting

Hope that helps. --Connel MacKenzie 20:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

I have a program around somewhere to convert syntactically correct code into expanded pseudo-code like the above, somewhere, and planned to expand all of http://tools.wikimedia.de/~cmackenzie/source_code/ at some point, if anyone is interested. Propably more important is to refresh the contents of that directory so that it is current. --Connel MacKenzie 20:30, 10 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the welcome! edit

{{User talk:Amgine}}

Thanks Connel! - Amgine/talk 20:31, 11 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

TLC edit

Hello Connel, I'm a bit confused by your recent edit to the article TLC where your removed the {{initialism}} header template from the Spanish section. The article no longer categorises into any Spanish category - are we doing away completely with header templates and if so I suppose we need to add category links as appropriate?--Williamsayers79 19:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Whoops. That template can be used as a definition-line quaalifier, but the "|lang=" stuff can't go in headings. Sorry I missed the category. --Connel MacKenzie 19:22, 13 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Urban Dictionary discussion edit

Hi Connel,

As per the discussion at User_talk:Conrad.Irwin#Re:_Template:R:Urban_Dictionary, I started a thread in the beer parlour at Wiktionary:Beer_parlour#Referencing_user-contributed_dictionaries_.28like_Urban_Dictionary.29.3F, linking to relevant discussions.

Nbarth (email) (talk) 01:35, 14 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Affetti edit

halp! I got the note about the prod on Affetti, so I went to try to move it over to Wiktionary...but there is already a definition over there for a different meaning of the word...can you help me to sort it out properly so I don't mess anything up over there? The definition that is already there is that its a plural of an Italian word, and I'd like to add the art definition that we've got here but I'm barely up to speed editing over here, I don't want to destroy anything over there :) THANK YOU!! Legotech 17:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

I see our entry for affetti - that is what you mean? If not, then pleae add {{Copy to Wiktionary}} to the top of w:Affetti (again?) and it will become Transwiki:Affetti here, to be move/merged into our entry here, if needed. But it already looks to me, like someone has gone to the trouble of trimming the art definition down to a concise, comprehensible definition here, so I'm really unclear on what information you think is missing. --Connel MacKenzie 18:48, 15 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Brockton block edit

Please indulge me. This is a good case for me to begin to understand the issues around problem-user or problem-IP behavior. "Brockton" has sent me terse e-mails about "Causeway" "accidentally" causing a block. I noted that Causeway had spammed, apparently once. I take it that the IP address is now blocked. Brockton is, at present, a marginally positive contributor, possibly educable. It could easily be that multiple individuals using a single IP connection sign up for accounts, couldn't it? How many offenses were there from that IP account? If there were not too many, say, 3 or fewer, could we give Brockton a chance? Is there any way of having a really tight monitor on that IP address? Is there a way for non-checkusers to "watch" a specific IP address? (I'd volunteer to monitor anyone I went to bat for, although not 24/7!) Let me know if I have misread the situation and your thoughts about it at your convenience. DCDuring TALK 18:06, 15 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

  • (Sorry for barging in) No, this is a long-time sockpuppet whose entries are fairly easy to spot. It has taken him about two years to learn to add a ==language== and ===part of speach=== headers. ALL of his entries need tender loving care, and most of them are not worth the trouble. SemperBlotto 18:12, 15 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
    "Easy-to-spot", but ineffably, I take it. Not just always the same IP address? So the result of multiple simultaneous uncoordinated, non-expert patrollers is that we get several entries from the same editor in RfV, RfD, or heavy edit. Suggests signing up for coverage in shifts, if it can be done securely. DCDuring TALK 18:38, 15 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Note: the accounts blocked yesterday were a result of a positive CU check. Many, many, many other directly-related accounts with inconclusive CU results have been left alone, for now. --Connel MacKenzie 18:41, 15 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Roger, wilco. DCDuring TALK 20:10, 15 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Talk:Wayobjects Talk:Wayobjects (Copy and paste from) edit

2008-01-27 Automated pywikipediabot message edit

Template:transwikied to Wiktionary --CopyToWiktionaryBot (talk) 04:41, 27 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Not yet successfully completed!!! Peter Horn 17:00, 15 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

The Wiktionary in turn should refer/link back to the Wikipedia to cover edit

Peter Horn 23:12, 28 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

as well as
Before deleting this article look at "what links here".

User:Peter Horn|Peter Horn 18:41, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

No definition yet either way:

INVALID Wikipedia link to: {{wiktionary|Wayobjects}} INVALID Wikipedia link to: {{wiktionary|Wayobject}} User:Peter Horn|Peter Horn 19:49, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

The contents have NOT actually been moved!!! User:Peter Horn|Peter Horn 15:14, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Peter Horn 18:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Please read this edit

Ok i am new here but i miss spelt my name how can i change it. ~~~~God Loves & You 00:49, 16 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Wiktionary:Changing username if you have an edit history, but in your case just register a new account and stop using the old one. DAVilla 00:52, 16 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thank you. GLYASDI. And yes, your reminder is appreciated right now! --Connel MacKenzie 01:24, 16 February 2008 (UTC)Reply


Extracting Multiword Terms -Transferred from SemperBlotto edit

Butting in, if I may. John, that sounds very interesting. I've done a straight frequency count of the contents of Project Gutenberg, myself. I haven't done the collocations (SMOC & time constraints) yet. Are there any published algorithms, e.g. for case sensitivity, sentence boundaries, clause boundaries, etc.? I think if the community here sees a list of the top 1,000 collocations, they may soon thereafter change their tune on "Sum-of-Parts" and what it means. (Adding a little levity to a dry topic: http://xkcd.com/114/.  :-) Also, are there any free (as in speech) references out there that you've seen? Of the free sources out there, my frequency analysis is by far, the largest (which I frankly think is pathetic.) But perhaps I'm not looking in the right places? (Or really, looking at all.) --Connel MacKenzie 03:10, 9 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Hi Connel. There has been a lot of published work with mutual information in text over the past 40 years in Computational Linguistics and Machine Translation communities. The simplest and fastest algorithms use heuristics to include some minimal syntactic constituency into the phrase bounding. So for example instead of doing a complete syntactic parse in order to determine noun phrase boundaries you can just use a list of prepositions and make sure that you don't let one end up phrase final. In other words you don't want "The city of London" and "The city of Paris" to suggest that "The city of" is a significant collocation because it isn't a syntactic constituent. I work with proprietary software, but you might check out "AntConc" on wikipedia. It is a freeware concordancer from Laurence Anthony that claims to extract collocations. It has been on my list to play with it, but I haven't had time. For fun, here's a few of the most frequent collocations that I just mined from the first 10 chapters of Pinocchio from wikisource.

Key Word Term # times # Tok piece of wood 11 3 go to school 7 3 Talking Cricket 6 2 Mastro Antonio 6 2 Mastro Cherry 5 2 A-B-C book 4 2 old man 4 2 tiny voice 4 2 three pears 3 2 Very bad 3 2 no one ! 3 3 Mastro Geppetto 3 2 run away from home 3 4 tip of his nose 2 4

Johnfbremerjr 11:65, 9 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Wow. I'm curious as to why they found it necessary to parse a sentence grammatically (isn't that impossible in English?) to apply rules. That presupposes much more than I am likely to do in my brute-force approach to analyzing Project Gutenberg. I suppose I should exclude single word propositions (and articles and single word conjunctions) from consideration, for speed and size purposes. I didn't do that when trying to "fingerprint" different writer's styles experimentally 1, 2, 3, 4, and was not displeased with the results. But failing to exclude them might be a DB size issue. Getting too fancy with heuristic exclusions, is probably a bad idea at this stage. Thank you for your comments. (OK, back to regularly scheduled discussion.) --Connel MacKenzie 08:11, 10 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
There are some algorithms you could use that are very simple and that could get you good recall on finding collocations. You can always add linguistic knowledge later to improve precision and clean things up. Improving the precision is the "last 10%" that takes years of effort and tons of code to achieve, but even without it I think the rough collocation lists sorted by frequency can be very helpful for lexicon construction. So to start really really simple you could just stick all of the terms from a text into an array tokenized by whitespace, e.g. "I make cup cakes and they eat cup cakes too" becomes myWordsArry[0]="'I'", myWordsArry[1]="'make'", etc. Then you can have a companion hash that you can use to look up the offsets of any particular term, e.g. myAllWordsHash{'cup'} = "2,7" meaning that the word "cup" is the 3rd and 8th whitespace delimited term in the text. Once you have these data structures constructed you can use a single pass algorithm to calculate the multiword terms "headed" by any given term. You do this by sorting the hash by the terms and then walking through it doing a pairwise comparison of each entry to the next. So for example you look up all the instances of "cup", append some context words and sort, and then compare the instance n to n+1 one word at a time moving left to right. So in the example above we would have line n "cup cakes and" and line n+1 "cup cakes too", so we would compare line n, word w+1 "cakes" with line n+1, word w+1 "cakes" and recognizing that "cup cakes" has been repeated we would add it to our multiword terms myMultiwordTermsFrequencyHash{"'cup cakes'"}+=1 and push (myMultiwordTermsOffsetsHash{"'cup cakes'"}, [2,7]) so that we are keeping track of how many of each multiword term there are and what the offsets back into the text are in case we want to fetch them out later. I call this algorithm "Johnny's Virtual-Concordance-Driven Multiword Term Spotting". FYI, when you do teh comparison of terms you can make sure that you're starting on a left most head by looking left one word comparing line n, word w-1 to line n+1, word w-1 in order to make sure that you're not in the middle of a collocation that is headed by another word. Johnfbremerjr
Wow, something you said there, made me realize that going backwards will be much easier! The first pass through I can do all two word collocations. Second time through, all three-words. Third time, four-word combinations. But going backwards will make my "simple" collocation finder much more efficient with regard to sentence boundaries. I won't dare check anything to prevent larger group inclusion, as that's kindof pointless for Wiktionary: we want the most common two word and most common three word combinations and four, five, six...combos. The more I look at the theory, the more I think any reduction is wrong, for this purpose. Pronouns can be excluded pretty easily from the results, but rebuilding them later, if curious, is essentially impossible. Hmmm. --Connel MacKenzie 06:08, 16 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

I think you're right about not excluding stuff. A lot of the work I've done in the past has been focused on entity recognition so that means I'm mostly limiting things to Noun Phrases, but I've seen lots of work trying to do stuff like text mining for verb subcategorization frames. A full on syntactic parsing system for natural language needs really detailed descriptions of the different possible argument structures for each word. These often include prepositions, "He blew in her ear" and particles, "He blew the bus up". Some systems go even farther and start to assign possible semantic roles to the differnt argument structures. So for example with the syntactic entry for "blow" with the particle "up", X blows Y up you might define X as an agent of the action that is human or robot and Y as the target that is material. It would be nice to see Wiktionary start to define some XML schemas for the dictionary entries such that they could eventually be used as a computational resource. Right now they are pretty informal. Johnfbremerjr 19:23 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Ouch. That's really annoying. You've reminded me I'm supposed to help set up rfc:2229 on toolserver with what's-his-name. Now that the new en.wikipedia XML dump is available, there's a crunch on, to get it available as a bittorrent. (Which I also don't have the free disk space to do.) Ugh. Need more terabytes. --Connel MacKenzie 04:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Feedback script edit

Hello Connel MacKenzie,
you both have made a great job! But, please have a look on User_talk:Conrad.Irwin#Your_feedback.js. --- Greetings, Melancholie 07:42, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Another bug: See there - Click on an article link and you will get to al.swiki.org instead of als.wikipedia.org! "Allowing multiple votes is intended as we'd have to do privacy-invasive stuff, otherwise.": Already considered cookies? --- Greetings, Melancholie 07:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
OK, the als.wiki works right, now.
Yes, already considered cookies. We assumed we'd have less than 300 votes/clicks per day (so you should expect about 20, I think?) and since they are purged after a day or two, (or a week) and the counts don't really matter it was assumed (by me, mainly) that 500,000,000 votes for MILF would be pretty obviously from just one person.
But now that you mention it, preventing it on the server-side would certainly prevent someone from even trying. And TS is rather overloaded as it is, so preventing attacks is a Good Thing. I'll work out the iphash stuff tomorrow. --Connel MacKenzie 08:44, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Blegumph! Cruddy server-side check is in place. Enjoy! --Connel MacKenzie 11:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Important: User_talk:Conrad.Irwin#IE7_does_not_vote! --Melancholie 11:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

The resulting page on the toolserver opened in a iframe when voting currently shows the number of votes so far. If we want to show the actual results of the feedback survey for the given page, we could do it like this (actually it's the only way, as "cross frame DOM access" is restricted for good reason by good web browsers (and maybe even by IE ;-) Another possibility would be just to let the toolserver result page alert() the results... --- Best regards, Melancholie 00:21, 19 February 2008 (UTC) P.s.: Just linking to the new per page result pages is easier (regarding little space in box), see de:MediaWiki:If-anon-feedback.js and de:MediaWiki:If-user-feedback.js. --- Greetings, Melancholie 01:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Argh. I need some translation help with those. What does it say? --Connel MacKenzie 01:56, 20 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Just wanted to say, that <h5> and fb_thanks are linked to the pages you provided yesterday! Furthermore for users those links are shown in the toolbox, now (in German Wiktionary). --- Greetings, Melancholie 02:17, 20 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Sry, busy with archiving, (interrupted by CU) so, maybe tomorrow I'll write the single-page thing. --Connel MacKenzie 00:34, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Sheesh. OK, where was I? Oh, almost done with WT:DEL archive rebuilding... --Connel MacKenzie 02:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Do you also intend to output the results by a given time range? E.g. 2008-02-20 til 2008-02-25? Because vote results for only one day aren't very representative, I guess! --- Best regards, Melancholie 02:14, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

and

now work, with the default for &fb_wiki=enwiktionary. --Connel MacKenzie 07:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Hello Connel,
Nevertheless, this project gets better and better :-) --- Best regards, Melancholie 02:18, 20 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

WWIN edit

Hi.

I presume you were referring to my work on Little Russia. (What does WWIN mean?)

I started each entry with the simple definition, and then expanded it to specifically define what the thing is, and what it is not. I'm not sure how to accomplish this without referring to the historic facts. I also tried to be precise about specific translations that are often used indiscriminately, like province, district, region, etc. It's a detailed definition, but I tried to restrict it to a definition and not attach unnecessary encyclopedic information.

Feel free to pare it down if you see anything which doesn't fit the bill. —Mzajac 20:07, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

"What Wiktionary Is Not."  :-)
I'm not sure that two separate senses is accurate. The word is used to mean anywhere around there, not the exact, specific boundaries, right? --Connel MacKenzie 20:09, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Little Russia in general meant lands inhabited by Little Russians—ethnic Ukrainians. I suppose at the time in colloquial Russian it would also refer to Ukrainian lands outside of the Russian Empire (i.e. parts of Austrian Galicia and Ottoman Bukovyna).
But the territory of Little Russia also included political-administrative divisions which had Little Russia as part of their official name (the Province, later Governorate of Little Russia, and still later the Little Russian Governorates-General of the Left Bank and of the Right Bank), as well as at least one which didn't (the Province of Kharkiv). These did have specific boundaries (which were shuffled around several times in history).
See also my recent contribution to Ruthenia.
Thanks. —Mzajac 21:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
For comparison, my CanOD only has an entry for Little Russian, hist. n and adj, defined as "(a) Ukrainian". —Mzajac 21:22, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

pedophagic edit

Hi. I also deleted this entry at 18:32 I think it should be watched, along with anyone who tries to re-enter it. Cioa. -- Algrif 19:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I saw that. After a couple more I'll protect the deleted page. Won't cry if someone beats me to it, though.  :-)   --Connel MacKenzie 19:13, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Better still, would be if the real definition was entered then semi-protected. --Connel MacKenzie 19:14, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

wiktionary-l subscribers edit

I am not subscribed to the wiktionary-l mailing list (nor do I intend to add yet-another-mailing-list-that-I'll-never-in-a-million-years-be-able-to-stay-on-top-of) and I think you mentioned that you are. Could you please announce Wiktionary:Votes/cu-2008-02/User:TheDaveRoss there? --Connel MacKenzie 21:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

I'm a little embarrassed to say that I'm not either. I figure as long as I'm active here there's no need to be, right? Hopefully someone will see this and pick up on it. DAVilla 22:43, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
OK, I've passed it on to IRC - couple subscribers of https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiktionary-l were there. --Connel MacKenzie 22:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Oh, it seems to be an Information Desk for WikiMedia non-Wiktionary regulars. Since this is the only project I much care about, I don't see the point of joining. DAVilla 23:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

m:n:project:IRC and #cafenea edit

Dear Connel; Thanks again for your help at #cafenea. I have seen that the bot « CalulBalan » has Wiktionary and not Wikipedia as default project family:

[[Craiova]] links to at Wik†ionar (Wiktionary in Romanian language] as http://ro.wiktionary.org/wiki/Craiova

it should link to

[[Craiova]] at Wikipedia in Romanian language as http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craiova

Could you please change this? Thanks for all your help in advance! Best regards
‫·‏לערי ריינהארט‏·‏T‏·‏m‏:‏Th‏·‏T‏·‏email me‏·‏‬ 10:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Done? --Connel MacKenzie 11:48, 21 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

visualization edit

I must be missing something.. I have never edited this entry.. 16@r 11:58, 21 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Butting in: visualisation. /Butting in. DCDuring TALK 20:57, 21 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Replied on his talk page. --Connel MacKenzie 21:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Perhaps this reflects a larger problem; foreign words entered that preclude English words (by merit of us not even seeing the the red-links, because they are blue) are not methodically search and detected. AFAIK, 16r is the first user to actively enter such terms; earlier similar mistakes have been caught much more quickly. I must admit, the obscure British spelling is uncommon, which may have compounded the issue for this particular entry. --Connel MacKenzie 21:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
It's a problem in every language other than English, where the color of the link is not reliable. That it's a rare problem for English is not the fault of any particular contributor. The OED Any unabridged dictionary (edit:) The English language itself has several times as many English words as we do, and the odds are a number of them are blue here and lacking an English section. Yeah, you could ask for a quick look-up, and that's going to create a lot of entries like jefe which you weren't too thrilled about, if I remember correctly. Anyway, this entry was created a year ago, so...? DAVilla 11:22, 26 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Apparently you don't use Hippietrail's "Orange links" thing. Wholesale copyright violation from the OED is a very strange conclusion to reach, DAVilla. On the other hand, "visualization" (and presumably its British counterpart also) is a painfully common word that shouldn't be precluded by FL entries. --Connel MacKenzie 13:42, 26 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
No, I don't know what that is, but it sounds like it could use some fine tuning, and as a bonus maybe it could be useful for languages other than English as well. Wasn't it exactly Hippietrail who'd been working on language discrimination?
OED was given as an example. I should have appealed to M-W since I forgot you don't consider the OED to be as authoritative. DAVilla 17:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Hippietrail's thing does work, but only if you turn it on. The OED is an authoritative collection of most possible combinations of letters, especially obsolete combinations. With the signal to noise ratio being so low for the OED, indeed, I do not consider it to be of any usable value. But that aside, wholesale copyright violation from m-w.com is not acceptable either, particularly when trawling their lists for obscure (or very obscure) items. We have our own methods for generating lists of missing entries; copying from other references is always wrong, here. --Connel MacKenzie 18:05, 26 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Okay, I think this is getting off-point, and I agree with everything you say, so I'll just correct myself and drop it. DAVilla 05:40, 27 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Word list edit

I was checking links into a word and found your page User:Connel MacKenzie/usr/share/dict/words. Great list of words. I don't recognize the source file: how reliable is it for spelling and such? Should I expect to find many words that don't meet CFI? Thanks. RJFJR 19:05, 21 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

That is the main file used for "aspell" on tools.wikimedia.de. Because I'm not certain of it's source, I'm not sure it can be used here...perhaps it should be listed on RFDO as a possible copyright violation...if I can't figure out where it came from. --Connel MacKenzie 19:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
I googled aspell and found http://aspell.net/ which says it is part of GNU. Should be a compatible license if it was entered as part of gnu but we might have to better document the source. As a word list for checking our coverage, like a concordance, seems OK to me. We may want to delete it when we're done checking our coverage. RJFJR 19:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Well, yes. I found the same site at about the same time you did, from the man page. Digging just a little further, it seem that http://wordlist.sourceforge.net/ Kevin says it is - wait, I can't tell what the heck he's saying they are released as. (But yes, whatever it is, he obviously intented for it, as we do, to be GNU-compatible! I.e. GPL or GFDL.) To answer your earlier question regarding our CFI, I think DAVilla's vote of Sep/Oct/Nov 2007 makes those ones "likely to meet CFI" but I (obviously) never completely understood his specification there. The Given Names and Surnames and Place Names, seem to have general consensus for inclusion. --Connel MacKenzie 19:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
If you feel like being bold, splitting that into 26 subpages, I'd be quite pleased. --Connel MacKenzie 19:38, 21 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Splitting into subpages is complete. While doing that I noticed a number of pipe characters embedded in the data. I don't know what they are doing there. (It also has a number of names of brand name products). RJFJR 03:57, 22 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

WT:PREFS arabic alphabet edit

There are several characters which I cannot click in the "special characters in the search field" box. - [The]DaveRoss 17:17, 24 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Check the section name in MediaWiki:Edittools... --Connel MacKenzie 18:50, 24 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Seems to have started working randomly, I'll fiddle around and see if I can figure out what it was. Thanks - [The]DaveRoss 19:30, 24 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Sounds more like a caching problem. ctrl-f5? --Connel MacKenzie 21:00, 24 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Might have been, haven't been able to reproduce. - [The]DaveRoss 21:03, 24 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Wiktionary:Literal and figurative language edit

Hi. I just rolled back a couple of stupid entries, only to realise that the earlier entries were further stupidities, and, as they cannot be rolled back I'm not sure of the correct procedure. Can I leave it with you? Cheers. -- Algrif 19:22, 24 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Feedback edit

In the interests of peace of mind I have deleted my comment from your talk page. DaBPunkt fixed the problem by manually editing the database. Yours Conrad.Irwin 00:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Hrm. Dude, it's a wiki. Seeing goofy "hacking" attempts is part of the game - the fact that you can sometimes see them means they didn't work. (Presumably, because I did sanitize the input adequately during the early tests, blah, blah, blah.) --Connel MacKenzie 15:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

jenkem edit

I reverted your edit of this entry. The definition which you introduced is not supported by the Wikipedia article on this substance. __meco 08:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Your assertion is completely false - I made that modification because of the Wikipedia article and its references. --Connel MacKenzie 17:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
I have written most of that Wikipedia article and have been following the Jenkem story for close to two years now. Your reading of that article cannot be other than superficial, and I am surprised that you don't take a second and more thorough look when you are being corrected. What Jenkem is is not what the controversy you seem to have balked at is about. The controversy is all about whether Jenkem use has been taking place, or taking a foothold even, in the US. I have now added a paragraph to the introduction of the Wikipedia article to emphasize this distinction. The part about it being a hoax should definitely be removed from the dictionary definition. __meco 21:17, 28 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

lob edit

your allegation that this edit inserted "false" information is completely unfounded. The edit did cite the source consulted (OED). The information added is directly informed by OED: lob n. (1) "a spider".[5] lob n. (2) "A country bumpkin: a clown, lout. Now dial."[6] One would expect the minimal courtesy that you would actually verify a claim before idly claiming it is "false", let alone revert it, let alone use the block function. When in doubt, a polite enquiry often works wonders. Your misplaced aggression is damaging to the project: it seems obvious that you should not be trusted with admin functions. Dbachmann 14:25, 28 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

As I've mentioned above, the OED is not a reliable source. That's one reason we have {{nosecondary}}. Furthermore, I specifically referenced 1913 - that "spider" meaning is a fabrication, as is the "bumpkin" meaning. --Connel MacKenzie 17:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)Reply
Rechecking the "The Oxford Dictionary of English (2nd edition revised)" yes, indeed, both "spider" and "bumpkin" meanings are clearly fabrications, not obsolete. --Connel MacKenzie 17:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

About block earlier edit

Hi, Connel, I remember you blocking me 23 days ago when I was adding to marshmallow, and you just plain blocked me for it when I did nothing wrong. That was uncalled for. You were biting a newcomer for that. I'm somewhat inexperienced with this wiki, and I'm beginning to get more as I get used to it. I still didn't like that block you gave me. I find it impolite to block anyone who did nothing wrong. I was about to add more references to my userpage until you came along and blocked me for no apparent reason, but you say I inserted false information, but it was not false info, it was only a misspelling added! When I was blocked, I was extremely embarassed (and not in a good way)! I couldn't add any references, or even leave messages! Then I had nothing to do! That made me feel like I was under a curse, because it worsened my day. You know how rude it is to block innocent users when they were doing nothing wrong. You owe me an apology.Kitty53 19:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Sorry to but in, however: Kitty53 as you have not bee following this discussion on Wiktionary, you will not know the amount of fuss it caused. Had you read all of that (it is spread around in the Beer parlour and the Wiktionary vote archives among other places) then you would not be asking this. This discussion has been settled to the satisfaction of the Wiktionary community, and it does not need further discussion. Yes, Connel may have been wrong but please, for the sake of the community, rise above it. Conrad.Irwin 19:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Redirects edit

Sorry about that; habits from Wikipedia and all. :) Trivialist 20:30, 29 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Vandalism edit

i tried to stop some of it. and also good to see ya connel. --72.73.70.12 04:10, 1 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Speeding up bot edit

Is there a way to speed up bots? Whenever mine's going, it announces it is sleeping for 3.8 seconds, before adding the next page. Any way of making the 3.8 seconds become 0.1 seconds, and speeding the process up? --Keene 23:47, 1 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Yes. The config.py I think is where that setting hides. (Maxsleep, or something.) Be sure you have the community nod before doing so. (In general, I think the sleeps are harmful, as they don't spare the servers any significant grief, but do make it annoying to watch and wait for.) The one reason to keep (or increase) the sleep, is if you have had entries questioned, and people still want to review them closely for a few more weeks. (And what do you care? The bot will catch up while you sleep, but your main entries are still normal speed, simply queueing up a gazillion form-of entries, right? Or has that bot changed that much since I last saw it?) --Connel MacKenzie 23:54, 1 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
Ha, I was pretty close. It is config.py, but it is minthrottle and maxthrottle. --Connel MacKenzie 00:38, 2 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
Well, user-config.py actually. And "put throttle". At least on mine. --Keene 10:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
Erm, no, user-config.py is something different. (Unless I've done it wrong...entirely possible.) --Connel MacKenzie 16:42, 2 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
You are supposed to make the changes in user-config.py, not in config.py. See note at the top of config.py. Else your configuration will get overwritten when you update to a new version of the framework. Robert Ullmann 16:47, 2 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Connel my wiki edit

http://wildfireness.wikispaces.com/ i thought you might like to join. --Yukongold 03:22, 2 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

also just wondering but how can i create my own wiktionary? please reply. --Yukongold 03:24, 2 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

morris dance edit

Hi. I looked at the IP's edit earlier today, and decided it was a more accurate description. Being from UK, and having seen many morris dances, I would agree that "team" is not only the correct word, but also, women can sometimes be included. Furthermore, sticks are optional, not essential. -- Algrif 17:24, 2 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

I believe we are now crisscross posting. Having never seen one, eliminating the fact that it is traditionally a men's dance is astoundingly misleading. Please take a look at Definition sometime - the purpose of defining a term is not to mislead readers. If you want to tweak the wording to say "usually by men" or "mostly by male dancers" or "almost always men" or similar, that is one thing. But eliminating the meaning is quite another. --Connel MacKenzie 17:33, 2 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
Point taken -- Algrif 17:35, 2 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
(And yes, I plan on removing that short term block as soon as I've finished correcting the other edits and talk-paging.) --Connel MacKenzie 17:54, 2 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
That's what I get for AGF of someone who obviously is here with a twisted agenda. Is there any reason to waste my time researching this stuff? When they are crap contribs, they are crap; I guess my instinct to just rollback all was probably better. --Connel MacKenzie 18:14, 2 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
I have never (ever) seen women morris dancing. Perhaps it is a modern feminist thing. Also, the use of sticks or handerchiefs (I think) is a matter of local convention - I've seen hankies in Gloucestershire and sticks elsewhere. SemperBlotto 18:18, 2 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
Maybe it was just poor vision, fooled by the drag costumes? I don't know, and don't care what that person's problem is/was. --Connel MacKenzie 18:25, 2 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Re:plutoed edit

I guess you're right. I mean, I had actually seen the word in a magazine before, but I suppose I shouldn't have edited seeing as how I forgot to write down any of the neccessary citation info. Thanks for correcting me. Teh Rote 18:11, 3 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Welcome message at my talk page edit

Hello Connel, I do not understand the intention of the welcome message from you at my user talk page. What part of that message should I take notice of? --Daniel Polansky 08:31, 4 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Some of the entries you've entered this last month (since the 2/14/2008 XML dump) are in conflict with WT:ELE - obviously you aren't following it, or you wouldn't be generating cleanup items. "Welcome", as always, is a plea for you to read WT:ELE and follow it. --Connel MacKenzie 15:07, 4 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. Now, could you please mention one or two of these entries? I really have no idea in which way I am breaking layout conventions. This nonspecific feedback does not really tell me how I can improve. I have read WT:ELE, and have always tried to stick to it, checking it in case of doubt. --Daniel Polansky 17:47, 4 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
Oh no. I've just checked twice and I think I may have misclicked (wrong username,) as I see nothing untoward in any of your recent contributions, nor anything you did previously to my edits around the time I posted that message on your talk page. I had quite recently finished regenerating http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Connel_MacKenzie/todo8 so there may have been a section there with headings with spaces in them, or something, that you coincidentally edited. If I see something again, I'll be sure to be much more specific. --Connel MacKenzie 21:01, 4 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
I'm glad it is clarified now. When I have read at my talk page that I might want to consider to log in instead of using anonymous IP, I originally thought it must have been a kind of misclick. Anyway. :). --Daniel Polansky 21:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Adding sidebartrans to WT:PREFS edit

I was wondering if it'd be ok to edit User talk:Connel MacKenzie/custom.js to add an option for User:Bequw/sidebartranslate.js to WT:PREFS? It converts the sidebar languages to be displayed in English (rather than in the FL). It's copied from w:User:Tra/sidebartranslate.js and I've been using it for a while. Thanks --Bequw¢τ 20:50, 4 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

I think that would be fantastic. You'll add #44 to User:Connel MacKenzie/custom.js then again where it load the JS in the middle section, then add a commentary for it at the bottom. I do wish this had been moved out of my talk space sooner. Moving it now will break many things (some not even on en.wiktionary!) --Connel MacKenzie 21:03, 4 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
To clarify: yes, please be bold. --Connel MacKenzie 21:03, 4 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
Bolded. See if you like it. --Bequw¢τ 18:54, 5 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
Nice. (I have it turned on, seems to work well!) --Connel MacKenzie 23:24, 5 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Some Czech proverbs edit

Hello Connel, recently, when you asked me to keep WT:ELE, you could have had the following in mind:

I have created that entry in the hope that in that state it is better than nothing, and that someone else can do the rest of the work, like wikifying the words of which the entry is composed. I too am wikifying some other entries, and cleaning them up, after someone else has left them in an imperfect state.

If you prefer that I do not create these Czech proverb entries at all, I can do so.

I cannot with any confidence provide the idiomatic meaning of the entry, despite being a native speaker. To me, proverbs are strange beasts; any attempt of mine to provide their idiomatic meaning would be guesswork.

What I could promise to do next time around is to wikify the single words of which the entry is composed.

You asked why {{infl}} is not used. Is that template preferable to {{cs-prov}}? Why? Are not language specific templates preferable to {{infl}}? If not, is that documented somewhere? In that vein, is it then wrong to have and use {{cs-noun}}?

--Daniel Polansky 10:28, 5 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

The issue may also be resulting from the fact that WT:ELE says virtually nothing on the creation and formatting of proverbs, and that I have found no policy specifically on how do handle proverbs. It seems to me that handling non-English proverbs is rather specific as compared to, say, non-English nouns and adjectives. --Daniel Polansky 12:42, 5 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

I've put at its discussion page a close Romanian relative, hopefully whoever makes that page acceptable, will do the same for the other one too. --Skepsis 02:44, 8 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Sorry for the delay getting back to this. Every time I look a little closer, another subtlety appears. My initial complaint was about the format, not the contents. Proverbs are often some of the best entries on en.wiktionary. I'd be kicking myself for years, if I did something to discourage their entry.
It appears my chagrin was completely misplaced. I though that {cs-prov} was actually {cs-noun} or similar...I didn't realize it was the correct inflection template at all. Yes, all component words of the entry's headword need to be wikilinked (no matter what language) but in hindsight, that seems to be an astronomically petty concern.
Looking at the entry, I do recall wondering what the English equivalent was...and being annoyed that none was listed. Looking at it more and more, I can't think of an equivalent. The closest idiom we seem to have is "shit happens" which doesn't match the register, at all.
The {{infl}} is to be used only when there is no viable substitute like {{cs-prov}}. Using "cs-prov" is far and beyond, the right one to use there, so I'm now very confused, as to why I was so sure it was wrong. And apparently, at the time, I was.
Thank you very much, for clearing up my confusion on this one. I hope you can determine a closer English equivalent for it...none seem obvious, at the moment. --Connel MacKenzie 06:16, 8 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thank you. I am about to replace the literal translation with an estimated meaning of the proverb, as I think finding a direct equivalent is going to be difficult. There is still one issue with the proverbs: where to put literal translations, and how to format them, given they are wanted at all. An attempt to sum up the issue has been made at Wiktionary talk:About Czech#Proverbs; I and User:ThomasWasHere found it difficult to determine what the common practice was, as follows from the table in the linked section.
An aside: I hope your talk page is not an altogether wrong place to discuss this issue. I already wondered whether I should have opened this thread at Grease pit. --Daniel Polansky 07:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
My talk page is still fine for this, but yes, a separate discussion somewhere else is better (linking back here is OK.) The zh: idioms and proverbs are the gold standard for how to enter them. User:A-cai has done some spectacular work on those. Each idiom is different - sometimes it seems superfluous to enter a literal translation, other times absolutely essential.
Still wondering though..."no one lives forever"? "Nothing lasts forever"? --Connel MacKenzie 07:08, 8 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the links on zh: .
I estimate that the meaning of the proverb is: be careful not to use thing too much, lest they break down at some point. But I will check this with other Czech speakers.
Another issue: should I move Category:Czech proverbs to Category:cs:Proverbs? It seems to follow from your recent addition to Category:German proverbs, and from modeling on zh: proverb category. --Daniel Polansky 07:17, 8 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
I shall continue trying to walk on eggshells regarding that topic. I won't run 'category.py' on those until I have solid confirmation from EncycloPetey. --Connel MacKenzie 07:23, 8 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

patrol error edit

  any thoughts? Not on the color, that is MSPaint's fault. - [The]DaveRoss 23:19, 5 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

The last time I looked at that bug, I didn't find the repeat. I'm not sure if it really is getting marked three times separately or not. IFAIK, no one really cares to dig deep enough to find the error though. Not too many people see it, so I'm not too worried. Should I be? --Connel MacKenzie 23:23, 5 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
If you aren't concerned I am not concerned, just making you aware. - [The]DaveRoss 23:46, 5 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Militant RFVing edit

Please take a step back for a moment, to consider the backlog of RFV. Items can be cleared and reviewed later. If you wish to call a small handful into question, please consider waiting a few days on them, so that some of the enormous discussions can shrink first. Then quietly (or otherwise) re-list the ones that overly concern you.

But do cease with the inane wheel-warring. --Connel MacKenzie 00:27, 10 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Dude, I don't know how tattle-taling helps anybody. Isn't anyone here a grown-up? It's also apparent that you chastise without having any clue of the infinitely minor scuffle that occurred today over the course of like 3 edits, at which point the dude apparently ran and tattled. You talk about "enormous discussions" shrinking in the next few days, when my concerns were only over six-month old discussions I was a part of and the other contributor was not. The other contributor made several unintelligent judgment calls about "passing" or "failing" when discussions were ambiguous and without closure at best (as many are). He then made a few retardedly careless errors -- selecting too much text and adding a retarded /nowiki block of deleted text on the top of a completely unrelated RFV with no explanation. Before getting out the schoolmarm ruler and calling me up to the blackboard, at least know what's going on and who the dunce is. -- Thisis0 02:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

"Show" tags edit

Do you wish to comment the discussions on Grease pit or Beer parlour before more is tried? :) Best regards Rhanyeia 16:56, 10 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Thank you, yes, those are of interest to me, but I haven't recently had time to keep up with new threads. --Connel MacKenzie 16:58, 10 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Naming of categories for non-English proverbs edit

FYI, I have raised the issue of naming of the categories for non-English proverbs at Beer parlour. --Daniel Polansky 18:37, 10 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

I thought the discussion was at WT:RFDO, actually. --Connel MacKenzie 21:14, 10 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Because you obviously need more work to do... edit

I have no idea how to use AJAX and js to manipulate RC, but you do, so I was wondering how hard it would be to create a highlighting PREF-type thing, where I can choose a color to highlight a line of RC based on certain criteria (maybe light blue for talk pages, light green for NS:0, light red for talk pages...that kind of thing). Would AJAX/js be able to accomplish this and is it trivial enough that I could do it? - [The]DaveRoss 21:23, 14 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

This will be deleted soon, and I think someone over here decided it was wanted. Would you please confirm that's so, or else let me know it's not wanted. Either way, it needs to be deleted soon. Thanks! – Mike.lifeguard | @en.wb 18:52, 19 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Thank you kindly! There's one or two smaller ones still in b:Category:Modules for transwiki, but nothing urgent (the above had been pending for some time, and needed to be deleted). – Mike.lifeguard | @en.wb 20:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Did you get all the subpages of b:Glossary of Astronomical Terms too? Just double-checking. No need to mark all of them, but just drop one on my talk if so. Thanks! – Mike.lifeguard | @en.wb 02:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

Subpages? Oh no! Those are ALL subpages! --Connel MacKenzie 02:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
That's why I wanted to make sure :) – Mike.lifeguard | @en.wb 02:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

User blocked edit

I can't understand why my user (User:Lou_Crazy) was blocked. It's the same username I use on en.wikipedia and other wikis. Can you help me? You can reply in my discussion page, I keep reading it.

--151.64.143.251 15:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

That user is not blocked, maybe it's a different problem (See http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=block&user=Lou+Crazy ). Conrad.Irwin 15:39, 31 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
Or http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=block&user=&page=User%3ALou+Crazy perhaps. How is that an acceptable username anywhere? --Connel MacKenzie 21:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
I don't understand what is unacceptable about "Lou Crazy" as a username? ("Lou is Crazy" I could understand). Thryduulf 23:15, 31 March 2008 (UTC)Reply
Sorry, what? In what way, does a suggestive name like that imply someone intends to help write a dictionary? A name like that is to cause disruption. Is he suggesting Wikipedia is crazy? Wiktionary is crazy? He is crazy? None of those things can be helpful to writing a dictionary. --Connel MacKenzie 22:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
Erm, how on earth can you say that someone intends not to help write a dictionary just because of a name like "Lou Crazy"!? "Lou the troll", possibly (and even then not necessarily), but crazy has a range of meanings, many of them used harmlessly. Has it never been said that you're crazy to spend your free time writing a dictionary without getting paid? It's certainly been said to me. Perhaps Lou just took it as a monika like many disparaging and derogatory phrases are (one my nicknames is "Awkward" for example).
Alternatively, perhaps it is a username he uses elsewhere - perhaps he's crazily good at first-person shoot-em-up games, or perhaps he drives crazily in racing games? Maybe he's known for having crazy ideas like trying to convince people that there should be a Free dictionary that defines all words in all languages?
I would much, much rather let people's contributions speak for them rather than a name that may or may not mean anything in the context of Wiktionary. Looking at their en.wikipedia account they appear to be a respected editor, particularly with reference to Scouting articles. I am not aware of any case of a respected editor on one project being a vandal on another. Also, their user page there suggests their native language is Italian, we don't have Italian translations for all senses of crazy, and those we do have do not go into the nuances of meaning (I don't speak Italian).
All in all, see no reason at all for this user to be blocked based on their username. I will not unblock them myself, but I do hope that other admins offer their opinions and unblock if they deem fit. Thryduulf 00:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
Crazy can be considered an endearment or a comedy name, such as in one of the definitions of crazy is "overly excited or enthusiastic". If this is the only reason Lou is blocked I'd be very worried.... Goldenrowley 01:22, 2 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
I am worried that you wish to support an obviously disruptive name - there is no possible positive connotation in this (dictionary) context. If he's crazy about a first-person shooter game, perhaps he should "play" that instead. --Connel MacKenzie 01:53, 3 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
On the other hand, I am extremely worried that you wish to block a user who is a proven and experienced contributor on at least two Wikipedias on the grounds of a username that is not offensive or indicative of disruption in the opinion of at least two other editors in good standing here (myself and Goldenrowley). Thryduulf 07:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
There's no point in speculating on the meaning of a username. The name is not offensive or disruptive in any way. It is jocular at best, but none of us signed up to be high school librarians, so that's not an issue. The bigger issue here is the presumption that this user has already committed disruption, when the more likely scenario is that they will contribute in good faith (or would have), and it is, after all, on the merit of someone's edits that we ought to be judging them. Dmcdevit·t 07:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
I agree. While there certainly are times when usernames are inappropriate and should be blocked solely based on the name (impersonating users, bots; obscenities), I do not think this case is one of them. Please Connel, unblock. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 07:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
Many of our younger contributors will have silly on-line names. I think we need thicker skin and more evidence-based decision-making about such matters. DCDuring TALK 10:39, 3 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
There are 27 persons in the US with the last name "Crazy" listed in the online phone directory. DCDuring TALK 10:55, 3 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thanks Connel.  :-) -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 08:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
I just think it is a harmless nickname. For example, I think of w:Crazy Horse. I'd give this person a chance. Goldenrowley 05:19, 8 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

fap edit

Why? --BiT 02:09, 3 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

Why was nonsense deleted? Is that the question? Or do you want to know if that is actually a word? It is not. Some kid in grade school apparently wants credit for coining it, a la JOSH IS GAY! --Connel MacKenzie 06:09, 3 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
I for one do not know in what condition the entry was in before you deleted it, but I do know that this is a highly prominent slang onomatopoeia and verb. You can see how many entries it has in the Urban Dictionary and the people I know in real life use it a lot (they used it a lot yesterday for that matter). --BiT 12:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
Published books that use the term please. --Connel MacKenzie 20:55, 3 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
Please note that its appearance in UD is a good indication that it is not a real word. --Connel MacKenzie 21:00, 3 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
Oh of course UD shouldn't be taken too seriously, but it's still a much used word. And since when do words have to have been published in books for them to become real words? The words "1337", "h4x0r" and "pwn" are all similar words which aren't likely to appear in books but are nevertheless used very frequently on the internet (on 4chan for example) and in video games. --BiT 23:51, 3 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
It wasn't my idea to use published books as references, but I (like the Wiktionary community) agree it is the right compromise. Three printed books please, no secondary sources, showing the term in use. --Connel MacKenzie 15:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
There is no reference to three published books in the WT:CFI. --Richardb 02:55, 6 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
Right, it is on the RFV page. "Cite, on the article page, usage of the word in permanently recorded media, conveying meaning, in at least three independent instances spanning at least a year.". - [The]DaveRoss 03:27, 6 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
No, it is in WT:CFI#Attestation: "Usage in permanently recorded media, conveying meaning, in at least three independent instances spanning at least a year." The RFV text is quoting CFI. This being one of four alternatives, and the least subjective. Robert Ullmann 13:17, 6 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
To which the ridiculous grade-school inventions have always been held to the harshest interpretation of it. --Connel MacKenzie 19:50, 6 April 2008 (UTC) And the obsolete meaning should be tagged as such. --Connel MacKenzie 20:01, 6 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

centurion edit

Connel- quick question. In the edit history, you added an image and added "candidate for POTY". What is POTY? sewnmouthsecret 20:14, 4 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

commons:COM:POTY.  :-)   --Connel MacKenzie 05:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thanks! I've never even looked there before. sewnmouthsecret 03:13, 8 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

A possible task for Dvortybot edit

User:DerbethBot/Audio files it appears Derbeth is abandoning the effort, you have a ready-made audio-adding bot, so maybe you can see about them. - [The]DaveRoss 22:18, 5 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

Before that last hard drive crash, the issue was Unicode. When I get back into the swing of things, I'll refactor that a bit to avoid bash entirely. --Connel MacKenzie 20:00, 6 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

Wiktionary:Statistics edit

The namespace breakdown table is lacking some namespaces, Citations: comes to mind. - [The]DaveRoss 00:15, 14 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

RSS Word of the week for the Icelandic Wiktionary edit

Hi. Would you have time to make an RSS for the word of the week on the Icelandic Wiktionary? --Steinninn 15:21, 16 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Others edit

Hi Connel,

I blocked you for this edit because I'm not sure how often your bot runs and whether this would happen every time. Please unblock yourself once you've seen this and have fixed or disabled the bot.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

RuakhTALK 00:20, 17 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

Wait, never mind, sorry. I don't know what's with that diff, but the page itself doesn't seem to have been affected. —RuakhTALK 00:32, 17 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
Not a big problem, that I can see so far (your block.) I've restarted rat patrol; checking transwiki, killbot and the others now show no problems so far. --Connel MacKenzie 14:51, 17 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
Sorry; even that much sounds like a pain. Next time I'll examine more closely. :-/ —RuakhTALK 04:34, 19 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

archiving correctly edit

hey man. What's the process for removing a stricken entry from an RFV or RFD page and archiving it? Take gimp on RFV. It's been stricken for a while, and today I removed the rfv-sense tags from the entry, and archived the discussion to its the talk page within the rfv-passed template. Now what? Should I delete the section from the RFV page? Any guidelines? And then what steps are taken to properly archive it in the monthly RFV archives? Incidentally, I like your archiving method best -- the link to the old-id discussion -- better than duplicating the whole discussion in the rfv-passed template. teach me. -- Thisis0 23:30, 18 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

Letting it sit for one week for FURTHER discussion is the rule. That is too hard to keep track of, so I automated it. If the message appears that it was still marked, that unfortunately counts as "futher discussion" for one additional week. When I remove the tags, I manually fudge the date of the signature of the "still tagged" notice, so that it archives on the hour, the very next hour. --Connel MacKenzie 04:21, 19 April 2008 (UTC)Reply
Cool. So how do those messages get to the archive page when someone else like DaveRoss deletes entries off the RFV page? -- Thisis0 09:18, 19 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

epicaricacy edit

I was looking for the word epicaricacy, only to find it had been deleted. I found the archived deletion discussion. I'd like to put in a definition for the word, my workup is here: User:Evrik/epicaricacy. Before I go recreating a deleted article, I wanted to get your blessing, as you have deleted it 2x in the past. Thoughts? Thanks. Evrik 18:04, 2 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

From my point of view (and Connel may well think otherwise) Wiktionary requires words to have "Citations" not "mentions" - the references you have provided are "mentions" there is no evidence that the word is actually used (though it probably is). If you look on http://books.google.com or http://scholar.google.com or http://groups.google.com then you will be able to find enough citations (3 "durably archived" - which discounts most normal websites - citations which do not explain the meaning of the word immediately before or after). It looks to me that there are probably enough mentions, but you would need to put them onto Citations:epicaricacy formatted in a way similar to Citations:straightjacket. The entry you have created is pretty good but needs a bit of tweaking to meet our formatting guidelines. I'll format it betterly, and you grab some cites - sound ok? (Obviously Connel can come along and delete it again, but if we have real cites then we are in a much stronger position). Conrad.Irwin 18:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
This certainly looks like something I'll delete again. Two "use" citations from 2007 - and several other nonsense non-cites. --Connel MacKenzie 19:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
I see no reason to work aound processes in this case. Clearly, it is a nonsense term incorrectly used, when used. Items that have failed are normally held to the strictest standards (i.e. print citations only) when someone is proposing it be re-entered. If Wiktionary's role has changed, from that of reporting what words actually are used in the English language, to instead inventing definitions for nonsense, well, then, it should be allowed. But as far as I know, that is not the case. --Connel MacKenzie 18:41, 4 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Statistics edit

It looks as though the Wiktionary:Statistics hasn't been updated in a while. Would you mind? --EncycloPetey 23:33, 2 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

OK, tomorrow afternoon or nag me some more I'll re-run it from the last successful XML dump (which was a while ago!) Every time I go to restart it, I get my hopes up that a new one will appear - then the XML dumps crash again. --Connel MacKenzie 07:28, 3 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Is there a dump more recent than 16 March? That's the date used for generating the last round of statstics. --EncycloPetey 00:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
That is the most recent successful XML dump for en.wiktionary - March 16th, 2008. --Connel MacKenzie 15:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

goddessship edit

If you're not going to respond on the RFV, I'll tell you straight-out that I have proven it is not a misspelling. Please fact-check further. :) Teh Rote 16:18, 3 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

The rule which you are ignoring is that English words never have three identical consonants. Your third grade teacher is to be reprimanded for not correcting your illiteracy then. Likewise, your fourth, fifth and presumably your current sixth grade teacher. --Connel MacKenzie 08:17, 6 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
I must have had incomplete textbooks for the past ten grades, then, as I see no citations whatsoever for the hyphenated spelling, or citations for the "fact" that three letters are supposedly not used adjecently. A rule of prefixes in English is that -ship, -less, and -like are not hypenated; what about headship, fearless, and businesslike? They aren't spelled head-ship, fear-less, or business-like. In additon, it seems unfair to use the term "rvv" (reverted vandalism) in your edit summary, when we were not vandalizing, everything was well-cited, which is exactly what the rules state should be done. Teh Rote 20:58, 12 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
I agree that "rvv" was inappropriate, but please don't be silly: of course you see citations. Of the first ten hits at google books:"goddess-ship", five are uses of this sense, and another three are mentions of it. You're right that the suffixes (deprecated template usage) -ship and (deprecated template usage) -less are not usually hyphenated (though with (deprecated template usage) like it seems to depend on the sense), but English writers have frequently made just this sort of exception; (deprecated template usage) de-ice and (deprecated template usage) re-energize, for example, are both very well attested. As for the rule about no triple letters — it's just a normal rule. It's obvious that you're aware of it, and IMHO pretty clear that it's the whole reason you created the entry. The question is, is it an absolute rule? And apparently it isn't; you've given some cites of (deprecated template usage) goddessship, and b.g.c. turns up some more. (Also, apparently some dictionaries must include (deprecated template usage) brrr, (deprecated template usage) zzz, and (deprecated template usage) zzzs, as they're in the major Scrabble word lists.) But it's also apparently a fairly strong rule, since most writers over the years have chosen to insert a hyphen, or to drop an <s>, in order to avoid violating it in this case. —RuakhTALK 22:59, 12 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
If that's the case, no spellings should be listed as "misspellings", two should be listed as "alternative" and the other having the definition. That seems to be a reasonable solution. Teh Rote 00:20, 13 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Sounds good to me. :-)   —RuakhTALK 01:15, 13 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Κύρια Σελίδα edit

I was about to delete this entry as nonsense, but then I saw that you had restored it because of high linkage. I was just wondering if this was still the case. I can put some feelers out with the Greek folks and see if they can figure something out if you still think there's an issue. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 02:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

When WikiCharts was working, this entry appeared in the top 100 pages hit on en.wiktionary. --Connel MacKenzie 15:23, 9 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Documentation of Wikipedia's CopyToWiktionaryBot‎ edit

Hi, I am trying to better understand (and then document) Wikipedia-to-Wiktionary transwiki process. I understand most of it, except one case. Could you enlighten me what just happened with Purist? It seems to me that it was: (1) transwikied, (2) automatically marked as such in Wikipedia, (3) deleted by somebody from Transwiki:Purist, because purist already existed (4) cleared from the Wiktionary deletion log! This is bad, because suggestion left for Wikipedians was: either to delete "Purist" or replace it with a soft redirect. I'm thinking about adjusting Wikipedia templates (TWCleanup) to advice wikipedians to wait until the resolution of Wiktionary's transwiki is completed. Btw. I've improved bot's description, I hope it is better now. User:Kubanczyk --195.212.29.187 10:24, 9 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Something has gone wrong with the automation; its log shows it trying to do w:Military spouse just prior to Purist. Since (appoximately) then, it has "done" Military spouse over and over again. Purist was not imported here, which is why you don't see anything in the deletion log. Robert Ullmann 10:35, 9 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
  • The Transwiki bot has been deactivated, due to the false positives it is getting from the "import pages" MediaWiki feature. I haven't yet contacted Brion to work out a resolution for it yet (only sent him a short message informing him about the problem so far.) Until it is worked out, we may need to fall back to "manual" sysop transwikis. --Connel MacKenzie 15:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Damn... Anyway, I've proposed a change in Wikipedia policy, which would help both Wikipedia and Wiktionary. User:Kubanczyk --195.212.29.187 16:09, 9 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Statistics edit

Is it possible to re-run these yet? --EncycloPetey 13:45, 11 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Nevermind; I see you made a recent reply above. I'll continue to be patiently frustrated by the system's constipation. --EncycloPetey 13:46, 11 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

User:Teh Rote edit

I disagree with your summary that this is illiterate, though I agree it is rather modern. I may well reconsider this if you can persuade me ;). It might be an idea to ask them to change their username if you think this really is an issue. If you are actually blocking for a more discrete reason, could you use something like "check user evidence" in your summary. Conrad.Irwin 21:08, 14 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

I weak-agree that the username is illiterate, but do not think that illiteracy of a username promotes illiteracy much, or is a reason to block the user. Cf. "msh210".—msh210 2008-05-14 (9 Iyar 5768) 21:10 UTC
Ditto. Cf. Rukhabot (talkcontribs). BTW, how did you include the Hebrew date in your signature? (Specifically, it looks like you must have modified your "Nickname" and started using ~~~ instead of ~~~~; is that true, or did you find a better way that I totally have to steal? :-) —RuakhTALK 00:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
No, you got it. But I don't like it actually, as it uses the incorrect Hebrew date when it's after nightfall in Greenwich. (The Hebrew date changes at nightfall, not midnight, at least in Judaism. I don't know about Israeli legal use.) So I'm going to switch back.—msh210 2008-05-15 (10 Iyar 5768) 16:03 UTC
And in case you're curious, it's —[[User:Msh210|msh210]]{{subst:unicode|℠}} <small>{{subst:#time:Y-m-d (xjj [[xjF]] xjY) H:i}} UTC</small> with the "Raw" checkbox checked off.—msh210 2008-05-15 16:27 UTC
Thanks! :-)   Israeli legal use does indeed switch the dates at midnight; it's unfortunate, but it makes sense since Israel uses the same midnight-based clock as the rest of the world, and there's really no other way to handle things. It would be too much to have to pull out one's candle-lighting-times calendar to determine which came first, 6:15 PM or 6:16 PM (let alone the possibility that 6:16 PM could happen twice in a date, during the spring when sunset is later each day). The ancient system of nights, days, watches, and hours just wouldn't work for a society as time-obsessed as our own. —RuakhTALK 22:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Agree as well (my name is actually incorrectly romanized). And the Hebrew dates thing is pretty wicked. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 00:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
liKeWise. mY uSeR naMe hAs A CApiTal leTter iN tHe MiddLe. --EncycloPetey 00:10, 15 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
I must be thick. I don't even see the illiteracy. I thought that the spirit of a Wiki requires a large amount of tolerance and that blocking be limited to cases of bad behavior, usually repeated, and not outweighed by user contributions. DCDuring TALK 00:45, 15 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Consider teh. Or consider rote. What possible takes from just the username are possible? Thoreau? Learn by rote? Both component "words" are inherent abominations, but the user's actions of edit warring after discussion, specifically after their taunts above, make it very clear that he/she has no good intentions here. One reason for the block was given, but indeed, the user's actions prior to the block tipped the balance. --Connel MacKenzie 08:37, 18 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
I'd simply missed the existence of teh, but still don't find it offensive. I don't see any issue whatsoever with Rote, which is a Scandanavian surname, I believe.
So Wiktionary isn't prescriptive about entries, but is prescriptive about user names? I didn't find at WT:USER a community rule against illiteracy. In this case it seems that the same person was serving as legislator, judge, jury, and executioner. DCDuring TALK 13:28, 18 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Despite having read the entirety of this discussion I am still completely baffled as to why anyone has a problem with this username? From WT:USER: Usernames:
  • must not be offensive.
None of "teh", "rote" or "Teh Rote" are offensive to me, nor to anyone else who has commented here.
  • must not resemble another user's username, or anyone's real name (except your own), as these sorts of usernames can cause confusion and can seem deceptive.
I'm not aware of any similar usernames, and it is not similar the real name of any other user or famous person that I know of. There are no issues therefore with confusion or deception.
  • must not be promotional, i.e. they should not resemble a business name, trademark or web address.
Again, there are no issues with that one.
  • should be fairly easy for the typical English-speaker to recognize, remember, and type. This generally means being fairly short; using the Latin alphabet (though some digits, spaces, and/or punctuation may be included as well); and avoiding long unpronounceable sequences of characters. (This rule is somewhat flexible, and compromises may be made in borderline cases.)
"Teh Rote" doesn't fall foul of any of them.
The user also goes so far as to explain the etymology of their username to be "From leet "teh" and English acronym "Ruler of Third Earth"." Looking at w:Third Earth it appears "Third Earth" is a location in a fantasy series aimed at young adults or a location in a children's cartoon series. Neither is at all offensive in any way. I would also like to endorse DCDuring's final sentence. Thryduulf 14:56, 18 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
I would like to ask that this topic be dropped. There is clear consensus that the username is not blockable, though that says nothing about the user. Any further driving home of this point is unnecessary. Conrad.Irwin 15:06, 18 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
(deprecated template usage) drive home is a tough idiom to capture. I've made an attempt; care to take a look? —RuakhTALK 15:25, 18 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

To hopefully reduce the need for such discussions as this in the future, see my suggestion at WT:BP#Offensive usernames and how to handle them. Thryduulf 15:40, 18 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

I'm sorry Thryduulf, but you have a very strange perspective, when you suggest that "leet" is in no way offensive, in and of itself. Yes, Wiktionary has a very long history of eliminating such cruft. --Connel MacKenzie 15:51, 19 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
I am not particularly fond of leet, I find it ugly and pointless, but I do not find it offensive at all - indeed I can't understand how you do!? I do not understand your "cruft" comment, as leet is no more cruft than rhyming slang or any other regional or other specific group's terms are. Also, a user choosing to take their online name from something they are a fan of is a very different thing to including words from that topic in the dictionary. Thryduulf 16:03, 19 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
It is offensive, from the perspective of analyzing and describing the English language, particularly, doing so correctly. To advocate leet, to the point of having it in one's username, is a clear indication that a person intends harm here. This is very much reinforced by that user's edit warring at goddessship, where a fundamental rule of English is their mission to attack. In English, for every rule there is an exception, right? Yet such an illiterate person is pushing the POV that no rules exist at all, furthermore, that even the most basic rules are not rules at all. To unblock someone like that, after their edit warring, bad username and trolling/taunting, is criminal. --Connel MacKenzie 16:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Reviewing this user's contributions again, I have yet to see anything that was not blatantly wrong that they added. --Connel MacKenzie 16:37, 19 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
illiteracies‎
equos
ædiles‎
oxadiazines‎
big Os
utopias
bulllike
euouae
euouaes
omnilingual
omnilinguals
That' just some of them. I don't appreciate your comment; it seems to be a personal attack. In addition, there is clear concensus against you, and the discussion should be closed. Teh Rote 10:45, 20 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
I'm taking the liberty of unblocking this user. Having reviewed the user's contributions, I'm not seeing either the pattern described above or the "stupidity" alluded to in your block summary. (Which is not to say that there isn't a need for improvement; but note that some of the user's contributions have already passed RFV, and none seem to be "blatantly wrong.") Cheers, -- Visviva 00:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
There is a world of difference, between intentionally incorrect entries and the cleanup done to them as a result of the various processes here. Something "surviving" RFV does not mean the surviving entry is at all similar to the bad initial entry. The fact that the form is not criticized, instead, the actual content proffered, indicates that this is someone up to their old tricks. This is not simply some lack of AGF, rather, a response to their corresponding statements of bad intent, above. Their methods include "substing" indicator tags, complete elimination of tags and removal of any helpful indicators regarding their non-word contributions.
There is a world of difference, between casting a blind eye towards bad contributions that might have some merit, and violently, reprehensibly supporting a known-bad contributor simply because you dislike me or my methods. You do an infinitely horrible disservice to Wiktionary when you follow certain contributors incessant campaigning against me personally.
--Connel MacKenzie 13:03, 22 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Your arguments are effectively against almost all new contributors. That will condemn us to remain the 4th or 5th most popular, least up-to-date, and perhaps the 4th best dictionary on the web. We run a real risk of dieing on the vine. Should users have to take a test before they are allowed to contribute? DCDuring TALK 13:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
That is pointedly false. Not against all new contributors, but against all new contributors who arrive with a specific agenda of inserting errors (only) into Wiktionary. Your additional fallacies are simply inexplicable, or at best, way off the point. --Connel MacKenzie 13:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
What is false? I am speaking of the effect of an apparent practice of blocking instead of educating. If you do not want to educate, that is fine. But hand the user off to someone who is willing. We only find out about "errors" by working on the entries. Not all of them are errors. New users are going to work hard to find entries we haven't added. All of the gimmicky words that we have deleted constitute holes that they will want to fill. Perhaps we need to have entries for those items that only appear when a contributor tries to add them, but do not appear on normal searches.
I would be happy to explain anything that you find fallacious or off-point.
You might find this interesting. DCDuring TALK 14:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
What you said is false. You have twisted your perspective, if you think blocking a malicious contributor (read their comments above, and look at their contributions) who clearly is not interested in being descriptive about the errors, instead, on pushing their anti-dictionary POV - will make Wiktionary die on the vine, then I don't know how to educate you. The user was not trying to fill holes, descriptively, they were trying to intentionally insert errors. For you (et al.) to be feeding them, due to your dislike of me, is reprehensible. --Connel MacKenzie 14:57, 22 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
What is false? I have read the "contributions". I have never understood how you can make so many inferences about people's intentions based on the scarce information that you have about them. To me much user behavior is consistent with teen-ager/young-adult limit-testing (in turn due to incomplete myelinization). Furthermore, the usual anti-authority tendency among youths will lead to their increasingly hostile reaction to any hostility they might perceive toward our censorious handling of their "contributions". Sure, the clever limit-testers may make use chase our tails for a while. There are many aspects of how Wiktionary is going that strike me as poor social engineering that is also inconsistent with the characteristics of an open wiki. We are fighting too many of the wrong battles, IMHO. DCDuring TALK 15:36, 22 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
What you said is false. Specifically, your statement that I'm against all new contributors. Specifically the non sequitur that limiting false information somehow restricts overall growth. You apparently did not read their comments or contributions (here and elsewhere in talk namespaces) that do make it clear it is more than (as you call it) "limit-testing." The only inference I made about them, is based on their actions and comments here, on-wiki. --Connel MacKenzie 15:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Is this seriously how people treat each other on Wiktionary? Do administrators (or in this case, just one) seriously make outright personal attacks with no way for their adminship to be removed...ever? Wow...I'm shocked. This would never stand on Wikipedia, perhaps I should just keep my contributions over there. Teh Rote 17:16, 23 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

It's possible for adminship to be removed, but the community consensus is that the admin in question does more good than harm. I can't account for said consensus, but them's the facts. I do hope you'll stick around and contribute in spite of him, but if you don't, you certainly won't be the first editor to leave on his account. :-/ —RuakhTALK 22:14, 23 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
There are a few points he keeps up bringing. First of all, he claims that I am a "known bad contributor". How am I "known" for "bad" contributions? Is there anyone on the entire site other than him that considers me to be a "bad" contributor?
In addition, he claims that I have an "anti-dictionary POV" and that I am "illiterate". Again, examples are needed. If you are referring to my contributions at goddessship, here's the problem: You claim it is a rule, but provide no citations for that claim. I can't just believe you and take every edit on faith- that's just not right.
Concomitantly, he claims that my comments above are "taunting". That's seeing insults in your soup. There were no insults thrown, until he called me illiterate on the first comment he made.
I request that Connel MacKenzie's contributions be reviewed by another administrator and see if he still fits the bill, because I don't think anyone who makes outright personal attacks has the right to such privledges. Shouldn't people who make personal attacks and abuse sysop prevledges be warned (Lou Crazy) and then banned for a repeat offense? That's what would make the most sense. Teh Rote 18:32, 24 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
It's what would make the most sense, yes, but it's not going to happen, so IMHO there's not much point worrying about it. (BTW, to be honest, I have to admit that I haven't been happy with all of your edits either; in particular, your addition of a "trivia" section to goddessship didn't strike me as appropriate. Even Wikipedia now disprefers those, and Wikipedia's generally more foot-loose than we are.) —RuakhTALK 01:01, 25 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Attacking him personally? I think not. There are numerous unfounded personal attacks against me here, but against "teh" there are only descriptions of his inappropriate actions - his purpose for being here is anti-dictionary. Perhaps here just to troll, after all. As further evidence, all the specious items s/he listed, as well as all comments s/he made here. Looking at the timing of the bait comments s/he made here, I'd say the account was made to test the troll-friendly waters of Wiktionary, moreso than immediately creating bad entries. --Connel MacKenzie 14:51, 26 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Connel wrote: "There are numerous unfounded personal attacks against me here, but against "teh" there are only descriptions of his inappropriate actions - his purpose for being here is anti-dictionary." (emphasis in original) I am not commenting either way about personal attacks against you Connel (imho whether personal attacks, by or against anyone, are unfounded or not is irrelevant), but in the section of your most recent edit that I have quoted, you state that there are no personal attacks against Teh Rote, and then immediately make an unsubstantiated argument at hominem against him when you say that "his purpose here is anti-dictionary". He is not the best contributor to Wiktionary (and I should state that I know that I am not the best either and do not claim to be) but from my reading of his contributions, (and by implication from their comments above, the reading of everyone else who has contributed to this thread bar yourself Connel) I can find no evidence to support your ad hominem allegations of Teh Rote's purpose in editing here is anti-Wiktionary, let alone anti-dictionary. Although he has not on every occasion goen about it in the best possible way, I believe his intentions as a contributor are to further the goals of the project. Connel, I find your comment offensive and as such I ask you to withdraw your accusation. Your behaviour in this matter has, in my opinion, been most unbecoming of an editor, much less an administrator. I am particularly saddened that this is not the only occasion when fellow administrators have felt it necessary to distance themselves from you.Thryduulf 18:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Please do not subdivide this any further than it already is. Building a free dictionary, is a rebellious endeavor. Redefining English, asserting the exceptions to rules therefore abolish rules is nonsense, yet is what is continuously being asserted above (particularly in the previous sub-thread.) To say that that alone is anti-dictionary is an understatement; but all of his contributions I've looked at had similar intentional errors. To wear blinders, for the sake of saying that my handling of it is not perfect, is quite insane. --Connel MacKenzie 06:02, 27 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
I quote from Wiktionary:No personal attacks: "Accusatory comments...can be considered personal attacks if said repeatedly".

There is no excuse for personal attacks on other contributors. Do not make them.

Upon repeatedly asserting comments such as "Your third-grade teacher is to be reprimended for not correcting your illiteracy", "he/she has no good intentions here", "such an illiterate person", "this is someone up to their old tricks", "a known-bad contributor", "a specific agenda of inserting errors (only) into Wiktionary", "a malicious contributor...who clearly is not interested in being descriptive about their errors...pushing their anti-dictionary POV", and everything that User:Thryduulf pointed out. I may not be an administrator, but I know this: If you continue to make personal attacks, you will be blocked and de-sysoped from Wiktionary. Teh Rote 19:48, 31 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Teh Rote. This has been discussed extensively before, see WT:BPA and WT:VOTE/ the outcome you would like seems very unlikely. Yes I think that Connel has acted unfairly towards you, however I also think that posting messages like this is simply trolling and asking for trouble. Connel cannot go too far on his own, as has been shown by the other administrators repeatedly undoing his actions. Please do not troll or provoke him, if you continue you will be blocked for incivility. Conrad.Irwin 20:03, 31 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
I suppose you're right in this case, I was letting him get to me. I'll stop posting here for a while and calm down. Teh Rote 20:24, 31 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Facts are not accusations. --Connel MacKenzie 15:33, 3 June 2008 (UTC)Reply
In which case I look forward to very soon reading the unambiguous sources and examples that support your postulation. If what you characterise as facts and others have taken to be accusations are as you claim then they should be easily demonstrable. (ps: I've restored the section break as the most recent version of Firefox 2 for Linux has trouble editing long sections, as lag between typing and the text appearing increases with section length. Unbroken, this section is getting noticeably slow.) Thryduulf 18:34, 3 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

JA formating edit

I'm not sure why you changed what I'd done on 安心. I believe I've followed WT:AJA as closely as possible.--Hikui87 01:38, 23 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Connel, are you aware that in CJKV languages, a particular alternative form usually applies only to certain senses, rather than to all of them? In these cases, we've placed Alternative forms within the appropriate POS section.
Hikui, are you aware that the {{see}} template can only be used at the top of the page, ahead of all language sections? --EncycloPetey 01:54, 23 May 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thank you, no I missed that. The number of equal signs on "alt forms" was unbalanced, so I put it where I thought it made sense/where it was intended. --Connel MacKenzie 15:16, 26 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

I was not. If so then WT:AJA#Verb_forms_of_nouns and WT:AJA#Quasi-adjectives need to be changed.--Hikui87 02:18, 23 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Yes, that would be worth raisng as an issue on that guide's discussion page. --EncycloPetey 02:32, 23 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Oppose blockage of User:Thryduulf edit

You stated in your summary that he had supposedly "vandalized" your talk page. I don't see what he did wrong. Can you point out how his edits were vandalism, please? Teh Rote 16:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

WT:PREFS on secure.wikimedia.org edit

Howdy, I tend to use the secure server when editing the wikimedia projects. I also like to use popups. It seems that WT:PREFS does not work from the secure server, sample. I setup my cookie on the regular server, en.wiktionary.org, and switched its domain and path to the secure server, but it does not appear to have done anything.

Could you see if it is easy to fix? I think if you use the javascript variables (like wgScriptPath and such) instead of hard coded urls, then there is no trouble. w:en:User:Lupin's popups definitely works on the secure server for en.wikipedia. JackSchmidt 20:27, 11 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

It is a little hard for me to test, but I think one just needs to edit MediaWiki:Common.js, the importScript function, and change:
if(!wiki){wiki="en.wiktionary.org";}
to:
if(!wiki){wiki=wgServer;}
This will at least avoid marking your javascript as untrusted/external. JackSchmidt 20:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)Reply
I've fixed it in a similar way. Yours Conrad.Irwin 20:45, 11 June 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thanks! It works in FF2, but not in safari. However, the problem appears unrelated (it is a permissions problem changing the innerHTML of the head element, but is not triggered on en.wiktionary.org). I'll try to track down exactly what is wrong, since it is probably obscure. Thanks for fixing the JS and the wikilinks too! JackSchmidt 21:58, 11 June 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thank you Conrad. The original intent was to keep the English Wiktionary-specific stuff on the English Wiktionary, but it has grown rather significantly in its functionality, over time. --Connel MacKenzie 15:03, 14 June 2008 (UTC)Reply
FWIW, innerHTML is unreliable - any place I've used it should probably be fixed. --Connel MacKenzie 15:07, 14 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

Help, We've no CheckUsers! edit

Copied from User talk:Dmcdevit, FYA

Hi Dmc, long time no IRC?! I was wondering if you could do me a favour. User:Anthurium claims to be Wonderfool and Willy on Wheels (though I doubt the claim), however I feel it would be prudent to run a check-user on the account and see if there are any socks lurking in the background - as that is the standard modus operandi of WF. Also, with Connel, TheDave and you all predominantly afk - the checkuser situation is fairly dire, any ideas what we should do about it? Conrad.Irwin 11:39, 24 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

Resolved. Conrad.Irwin 12:19, 25 June 2008 (UTC)Reply
Please see WT:CU if you have a moment. Conrad.Irwin 17:52, 28 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

ttbc-top etc edit

I finally got around to putting in the rules to change {ttbc-[top,mid,bottom]} to checktrans-. I'm going to change {ttbc-top} so it will always add to the AF cat, and they will be immediately fixed. At least one person is still adding them, so this will be good. Robert Ullmann 12:11, 25 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. --Connel MacKenzie 22:23, 1 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

Category:Glossaries edit

I have been recently adding glossaries in Transwiki: namespace to Category:Glossaries, for instance Transwiki:Glossary of legal terms in technology. Only today have I noticed that the very same articles have been removed from that category by User:Connel MacKenzieBot in February 2007. Do you still think these articles should not be in Category:Glossaries? What articles do you think should be in Category:Glossaries, if any? My reasoning was that if non-glossary transwiki entries are put into their respective categories, so could glossaries in transwiki namespace be assigned to Category:Glossaries, even if they still need some work. --Daniel Polansky 08:11, 4 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

I do not remember the specific details of a momentary bot-run a year and a half, ago. All glossaries were shunted to the Appendix namespace, last I heard. Which makes some sense, as no dictionary I know of, has a glossary. Such transwiki entries I imagine are still put only in the Appendix namespace. If not, then someone probably just got a little off track, thinking of this dictionary as an encyclopedia. --Connel MacKenzie 21:13, 12 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

Countability of lulz edit

Posting here since you locked the discussion page: lulz is glossed "uncountable", but one of the citations has "get a few lulz". 86.131.102.228 18:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

Previously deleted. Re-entered without evidence, re-deleted. Re-entered, re-deleted, protected. Now entered with citations incorrectly by User:Ptcamn and moved incorrectly by Atelaes, so perhaps this should be forwarded to him, to clean up. --Connel MacKenzie 01:48, 13 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

Jesuses edit

If the word (deprecated template usage) Jesuses offends you as a Christian, then say so; we all get offended sometimes, and that makes us human. (That doesn't make your statements at [[Jesuses]] correct, but it makes them understandable, and perhaps you can help craft an accurate context tag and/or usage note.) But it's hard for me to imagine that a Christian would actually be offended by that word, rather than potentially by what was being said with it; and I therefore suspect you're just theorizing (without evidence) that this word must offend Christians, and therefore that that must be its intent, and going over-the-top with it because you've decided somehow that (1) I had something to do with this entry (as it happens, I hadn't touched it) and (2) that I'm your "adversary". If that's the case, then you need to learn to think, and seek evidence, before you make ridiculous claims that you don't know how to back down from. —RuakhTALK 01:27, 15 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

Ruakh, this edit was made by you. So, you are mistaken in saying you didn't touch the article. --EncycloPetey 01:42, 15 July 2008 (UTC)Reply
EncycloPetey, you misread what I wrote. I wrote, and I quote: "I hadn't touched it". Not "I didn't touch it", nor "I haven't touched it", but rather "I hadn't touched it". Connel's edits took place before mine. —RuakhTALK 12:13, 15 July 2008 (UTC)Reply
Ruakh, I know you often (whenever you get the chance, it seems) engage in wheel warring, especially if it has anything to do with me. Are you adversarial? Duh. Do you remove any comments you don't like, willy-nilly? Of course you do - doesn't matter whether it is a vote page, discussion page, or content page. You comments and position on the Jesuses entry predates your most recent edit to it, by far - at least as far as May. It is disingenuous to suggest yours is a neutral position, especially when your more recent action is to censor a relevant, meaningful warning about a tricky English term - presumably because you don't like the wording? More and more, I am disgusted by your actions here on Wiktionary. You seem to be fostering a troll-friendly environment only when I am an immediate target. I must warn you, that will turn on you, before you expect it. Your profound efforts to trip up automation efforts by adding needless complication, is also not appreciated. --Connel MacKenzie 05:19, 16 July 2008 (UTC)Reply
Connel, let me reply point by point.
Re: "I know you often [] engage in wheel warring [] with me": This is somewhat true, but of course, the reverse is true as well. (It takes two to wheel-war, and I believe I'm much more willing to accept compromise than you are.)
Re: "Are you adversarial? Duh.": Same.
Re: "Do you remove any comments you don't like, willy-nilly? Of course you do - doesn't matter whether it is a vote page, discussion page, or content page.": That's not true. I do remove personal attacks sometimes, but I always note when I do. (I'm actually undecided on this practice — in some cases I worry the note makes the comment seem worse than it was — but overall I think it does more help than harm.)
Re: "You comments and position on the Jesuses entry predates your most recent edit to it, by far - at least as far as May. It is disingenuous to suggest yours is a neutral position [] ": To be clear, I'm neutral about keeping or deleting the entry; but I'm not neutral about what the entry should say if it does exist. I'm not being disingenuous, and I don't know why you'd think I am.
Re: " [] a relevant, meaningful warning about a tricky English term - presumably because you don't like the wording?": Relevant, meaningful, and as far as I can discern, completely false. The over-the-top wording was a problem, too, but even "This term is ungrammatical, and offensive to Christians" would be unacceptable (without references or other evidence), because it's unsupported.
Re: "More and more, I am disgusted by your actions here on Wiktionary.": Quite frankly, your emotions rarely seem to correspond to reality, so I can't say that this bothers me very much. Obviously I wish that we had each other's respect and got along better, and if I knew how to bring that about I'd do what I could, but as it is, I'm not losing sleep.
Re: "You seem to be fostering a troll-friendly environment only when I am an immediate target.": This is also something I worry about. I think you're way too block-happy; sometimes you seem to be proven right in that the blockee becomes a vandal or troll, but I always wonder if they would have, had you not antagonized them. I'm never sure how I should handle such situations; generally I prefer to unblock the blockee and keep an eye on them, but then if I misjudge, I feel like I enabled their subsequent misbehavior. I imagine this is something you and I will never see eye-to-eye on.
Re: "I must warn you, that will turn on you, before you expect it.": I don't understand this warning, sorry. If you're saying that a troll-friendly environment is bad for the community as a whole, not just the targets of trolls, then I certainly agree. (That's actually the reason I remove personal attacks.)
Re: "Your profound efforts to trip up automation efforts by adding needless complication, is also not appreciated.": I certainly have no intention of tripping up automation efforts. "Needless" and "complication" are both subjective. If you could give a specific example, that might help clarify what you mean, unless what you mean is that you're back on the topic of entries for Hebrew roots.
RuakhTALK 23:41, 16 July 2008 (UTC)Reply
You've never compromised - you've only continued wheel warring, with no one besides me even noticing, evidently. Since you've gotten away with it, you are obviously feeling bolder each time. Brilliant.
Your style of selective comment removal is beyond over-the-top - comments that only you think are about you personally (which in fact, clearly berate your actions, not you) removed by you yourself? You think no one is watching at all? Well, in that perhaps you are right.
About that individual entry - yes, you are lying for no apparent reason I can tell, except that it coincided time-wise with Connels. Do you not even read the sections you remove then block-quote? If you think that is some theory of mine you are sadly mistaken - but I know you can't pass the opportunity to make a personal attack, so you just insinuate some nonsense and your posse backs you up. Nice.
I don't quite see how you personally have gotten so far off track. The purpose of a dictionary is to explain words to people - essentially by each spelling. Your campaign to eliminate all usage notes is profoundly inexplicable. That is what a dictionary is for, that was several years of refinement of best practices - censured 100% by Ruakh after-the-fact? If someone adds a usage notes section, it is one thing to refine it. But it is a Doremitzwr-reminiscent style troll to remove it. (Note: that is not a personal attack - that is EXACTLY the action he took to spark numerous troll threads...history that your remember clearly, I'm sure.) Likewise, your apparent opposition to any meaningful tags. The purpose of a dictionary is not to provide people with a place to enter probable-copyright-violating Hebrew technical details.
I don't wish we could respect each other. I recognize that impossibility. I do wish others here would recognize your troll actions, your troll accusations, your one-sided comment removals, your flagrant content removal, your bizarre anti-technical approach to every technical solution (such as definition-line qualifier tags.)
You pander to every troll you see. How that isn't troll-friendly, you don't see? But you still spam links to that slander site, right? Oh, I know - why don't you call me a troll again - such fun!
Your selective comment removal has always been bad for the community.
Hebrew roots indeed. But no, that wasn't how you pulled my chain this time. Subst-ing definition-line qualifiers, embedding HTML in wikitext, pushing for permission to include bad Unicode titles previously rejected, slipping in characters outside the previous accepted code set in Eddittools. Dude, you are anti-technology on a hundred different fronts. Each little exception that you made without asking (or despite an answer you got!) has broken something downstream. But you dance happily in your ignorance, because you don't know or care which 'downstream something' got thwacked.
Hey - beautiful continued troll on my talk page. Kudos to you, too - not just your friend. --Connel MacKenzie 17:02, 21 July 2008 (UTC)Reply
Re: never having compromised: I think I have; but then, obviously I'm not the best person to judge.
Re: removal of comments: Fine, I'll stop, since clearly it drives you nuts. (For the record, (1) you've also removed comments before, and (2) I've also removed comments that were attacking you; but I can't deny that I've removed comments more often than you have, and that they've often been yours.)
Re: [[Jesuses]]: I'm not lying, and I've given you no reason to think I am. If you think I'm lying, that's your problem, and I'm not going to let you bully me over it.
Re: [[Connels]]: In retrospect, I should have deleted this entry, because I can't blame you for being bothered by it. (I might similarly have flipped out if someone created entries about my name — it could easily come off as creepy/stalkerish.) It is a valid entry, but obviously there are plenty of valid entries we don't have yet, and there was no reason for this one to be added in particular.
Re: usage notes and tags: To the contrary, I think usage notes and tags are wonderful, when accurate. Clearly you and I don't see eye-to-eye on what "accurate" means: I think it has something to do with the real world, and you seemingly do not. (For example, I remember when we were discussing [[Aryan]], and it turned out that you were partly right — (deprecated template usage) Aryan does sometimes refer to white-supremacists — but you found yourself unable to convince people, and eventually turned to evidence-gathering as a very last resort. Like, “when all else fails, consult reality”.)
Re: probable-copyright-violating Hebrew technical details: I don't know what you're talking about, unless you're talking about Hebrew roots, in which case you don't know what you're talking about.
Re: recognizing me as a troll: Funny, it's my vain hope that someday people will recognize you as one. (Insofar as "troll" means "one whose goal is to drive away contributing members of the community", you're definitely #1.)
Re: "You pander to every troll you see. How that isn't troll-friendly, you don't see? But you still spam links to that slander site, right? Oh, I know - why don't you call me a troll again - such fun!": Feel free to rewrite this paragraph so it makes sense.
Re: subst-int definition-line qualifiers: I don't think I've ever done that. Link, please?
Re: embedding HTML in wikitext: The only thing I can think of is &eacute; and so on. Like all formatting concerns, that's something bots should fix — and until they do, I don't worry about it too much. When there are a bunch in an entry, I'll go through and fix them, but when there's just one or two, I don't think it's a big deal. (If you do, please explain why.)
Re: bad Unicode titles previously rejected: You mean, how I think there should be entries for Unicode characters?
Re: slipping in characters to Edittools: I don't know what you're talking about. What character have you objected to, and why haven't you expressed your objection before?
Re: etc., etc., etc.: etc., etc., etc.
RuakhTALK 21:20, 21 July 2008 (UTC)Reply
So I've paid some attention to my editing patterns since this discussion, and I guess you're right that I use a fair bit of HTML-style markup in entries (as opposed to MediaWiki-specific markup, or to markup that's factored out into templates). Obviously you've no business concluding that I'm “anti-technical”, but if you could explain what it is “downstream” that could possibly be harmed by that, that would obviously change things. —RuakhTALK 20:08, 26 July 2008 (UTC)Reply
It is funny, that a troll like you should bring up Aryan again. Your insanity is pretty extraordinary, but your accusations that I turned to evidence as a "last resort" are so far fetched, I have trouble deciding where to start. It was at that time that you confessed to having created an internet persona, spending months establishing your new moniker on internet forums before attacking Wiktionary. You then came here and in total opposition to what the word actually means in GenAm, asserted the obsolete historic meaning for that entry. At the same time, the entry on Wikipedia was under similar attack. A troll there pointed to the defaced Wiktionary entry as evidence, which started my review of it. The entry we had at the time did not pass the laugh test - so obviously completely wrong that one cannot help but laugh..."Dear Lord! Someone tried to pass this off as legit?"
It is true, that from that point forward, I have doubted you every time you have suggested you are American. Sorry, but such an assertion is too far fetched to believe. That is like a politician's lie: so absurd, so ridiculous, so brazen, so far fetched one finds it hard to do more than chuckle. Likewise your linking to that wiki-hate (slander) site. Why did you do that? Duh. You have an agenda for stuffing copyright violations (Hebrew dictionary?) here, so you have to attack anyone good at flushing them out.
Now, are you a troll? Of course. Have you driven away good contributors besides me? Of course. Have you helped other trolls hurt Wiktionary at a technical level? Of course. What, right after the conclusion of the Doremitzwr blow-up about unacceptable characters that made MediaWiki 4.x and 5.x choke, you went ahead and stuffed those same characters not into entries but into Edittools itself! Keeping in mind that all secondary tools are (at best, by definition) one version behind (but usually many) it is absurd to think that such additions might be helpful.
Your userpage now claims you have a degree in computer science. I feel sorry for that university, if you genuinely did buy a degree from them. But I doubt that too, as your ignorance of technical issues is sometimes baffling. And I am not convinced you actually do live, or ever have lived, in America.
Back to matters at hand: stop wheel warring. Stop feeding trolls. Stop unblocking trolls and vandals. Please stop, or my opinion of you will somehow be lower. And please stop being a moron...Jesus is listed in CMOS as a specific example. Yes, of course you are wrong. And no, of course it is not something I made up.
--Connel MacKenzie 17:33, 25 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

I apologize. edit

Connel, I owe you an apology. I won't say what for, but there, it's out there. I apologize. bd2412 T 03:00, 17 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

CopyToWiktionaryBot broken? edit

User:CopyToWiktionaryBot hasn't edited since the start of May. Just thought you might like to know. --Closedmouth 15:09, 19 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

f**k edit

You protected this page from creation giving the reason "bad entry title". I don't see how that works. It's obviously not a technical restriction, as only [, ], {, }, |, <, and > are disallowed. If it's due to the spelling, f--k is entered, why not this one? --Teh Rote 04:34, 20 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

Excellent troll, again. Who elected you god, that you can now time-travel, specifying what is or isn't an allowed character? Why would you presume? Oh, because this is another troll. "*" isn't a wildcard in your world? Even if there is a way it can be created, doing so causes considerable problems with secondary pages, external tools and internal tools. But most of all, it boots nothing to make such an exception - that's why it was rejected each time here. But Kudos for another excellent troll - love the wording "...obviously not <obvious reason>..." - such a classic troll formula. Dude, you should publish a troll guide. Stay the fuck off my talk page. --Connel MacKenzie 16:28, 21 July 2008 (UTC)Reply
Connel, he's quite right: That entry can be created (as evidenced by the fact that it was), and there's no technical restriction blocking asterisks (as evidenced by, well, the fact that the entry can be entered). I believe there's an unwritten policy against asterisks; if so, say that, rather than jumping to unjustified accusations and hyperbole. Better yet, start a WT:VOTE and turn it into a written policy. But you're an administrator, and if you're not capable of feigning calmness in your interactions with relative newcomers, then you've no business interacting with them at all. —RuakhTALK 21:25, 21 July 2008 (UTC)Reply
CM: I think you've erred. He is like any contributor. He has attempted to find out policy and found our stated policy, such as it is. Since we are supposed to be run by explicit policies, I don't see what he has done wrong. If you do not reply quickly, I will unblock him. If unblocking is a mistake, then I will be happy to block him. It is not unreasonable for someone to ask a question on your talk page. If you find it unreasonable, you should get someone else to carry your water. DCDuring TALK 00:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)Reply
I have unblocked Teh Rote and his IP address. Please let me know if there is more to this instance than is visible under this heading. DCDuring TALK 02:48, 22 July 2008 (UTC)Reply
Teh Rote has been warned three times not to edit this page, at least twice with the threat of blocking. While taken on its own the block is totally unwarranted, in the circumstances Teh Rote is at fault (this time). Conrad.Irwin 14:59, 22 July 2008 (UTC)Reply
What is his recourse when he trying to complain about an arbitrary decision (not clearly connected to an explicit policy AFAICT)? In normal practice I would expect a senior admin to be able to articulate his views and convince most newbies of the error of their ways without resorting to extreme measures. How a user is supposed to know that it is important to exclude certain typography not explicitly mentioned in any policy is beyond me. For the punishment for asking about it to be blocking is beyond me.
I wonder who is really the troll in this case. The principal difference I see is that one person has "power" at Wiktionary and the other does not. I am aware of the repeat nature of these confrontations between Teh Rote and CM, but was unaware of three "warnings", not that we have a policy on "warnings" and the consequences of their violation. Hasn't CM been "warned" three times at least? I will not interfere should a block be re-imposed, but certainly not because I agree with it.
I had requested that Teh Rote avoid any contact with CM on these pages, not a "warning", not even a reasonable request, but as advice. It is a shame that this kind of thing recurs so frequently and that it has not been corrected. It is not healthy for Wiktionary. A small part of the problem is that there really aren't enough explicit help pages, guidelines (preferred), and policies (sometimes necessary) to refer newbies to when their actions are destructive or admins to when their behavior is over the top. DCDuring TALK 15:38, 22 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

Just a heads-up: after discussion at the Grease pit where it became clear that most editors do not object to asterisks in page titles (including yourself, seemingly, as it's you who created [[*nix]]), I went ahead and unprotected the entry, and created a first draft. Please feel free to RFD and/or RFV it, etc., but please don't delete it without further discussion. Thanks! —RuakhTALK 14:37, 7 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

So, you knowingly restored an entry you have been informed causes technical problems. You are a vandal and nothing more. --Connel MacKenzie 16:34, 25 August 2008 (UTC)Reply
"Informed" is kind of a strong word. You made a bullshit claim with low information content and high invective content, were called out on it, and disappeared. You are a troll with dictatorial aspirations, and nothing more. —RuakhTALK 16:56, 25 August 2008 (UTC)Reply
Person one: "Hey, this causes a problem. Don't do it."
Person two: "Awww, bullshit. I'm doing it anyway."
Dear person two (Ruakh): you are a troll. The worst kind, from what I can tell. --Connel MacKenzie 22:17, 25 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

Couldn’t the technical issue be resolved by housing the entry at:

Or maybe by substituting another similar symbol which would not cause technical problems with “wildcard” searches or whatever? I hope this helps…  (u):Raifʻhār (t):Doremítzwr﴿ 22:56, 25 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

That is an interesting approach. However, changing character sets is rarely advisable, not at all within a single word. I think that would do absolutely nothing to help searches, but might further confound other tools. --Connel MacKenzie 01:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)Reply
OK. I’m totally clueless when it comes to such things; this just seemed like a logical solution that might have worked…  (u):Raifʻhār (t):Doremítzwr﴿ 02:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

User:TheCheatBot edit

Hi Connel, I've noticed that a lot of users are entering plurals by hand, is there any chance that TheCheatBot (or indeed any of it's companions) can be run? It's not absolutely necessary, as we'll get there eventually anyway, but it'd be great! Conrad.Irwin 18:01, 21 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

The way I've written it, no. Not without a successful XML dump. Still waiting on that. --Connel MacKenzie 16:28, 25 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

To vacillate edit

I was wondering whether duabus sellis sedeo could be translated as vacillate? --BiT 10:09, 26 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

I would not think of that as a very good translation, offhand. That proverb seems to be describing a turncoat or double agent, not someone indecisive. --Connel MacKenzie 16:27, 25 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

w:User:CopyToWiktionaryBot edit

We've got a backlog of automated tranwiki requests since the bot hasn't been running recently. Do you think you could run it when you get the chance? w:Category:Copy to Wiktionary is pretty full. If you want to reply, please do so at w:User talk:Lifebaka or by email. Thanks. w:User:Lifebaka Lifebaka 11:55, 29 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

hemlock.knams.wikimedia.org edit

Hello Connel,
could you update the broken form link in User:Connel MacKenzie/spellcheck.js from hemlock.knams.wikimedia.org to toolserver.org? --- Best regards, Melancholie 03:30, 30 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

Yikes. So sorry. Yes, of course. --Connel MacKenzie 16:21, 25 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

As you created Category:Pronunciations wildly different accross the pond, you will probably be interested in the Beer Parlour discussion I have just started about it. See Wiktionary:Beer parlour#Category:Pronunciations wildly different across the pond. Thryduulf 13:35, 12 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

Wiktionary:Statistics edit

Is it possible to update the stats yet? I know Robert was bemoaning the fact that an XML dump hasn't happened in a while, but some of the stats haven't been updated since March. Is there a more recent dump than that? --EncycloPetey 06:15, 21 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

Nope. There really hasn't been a successful XML dump since then. --Connel MacKenzie 15:02, 25 August 2008 (UTC)Reply
Where would be the best place to gripe (so that something might happen)? No XML dump since March is ridiculous. --EncycloPetey 22:07, 25 August 2008 (UTC)Reply
If I knew... well, perhaps w:User talk:Brion VIBBER. He may know who it has been passed down to, anyhow. --Connel MacKenzie 22:12, 25 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

Robert tells me there was an XML dump on 13 June. --EncycloPetey 16:02, 26 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

Gutenberg edit

Hi Connel, any chance on having an update for /Gutenberg frequency list? --Pourquoipas 11:21, 21 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

ibid

IW vandal edit

If you want to block him: just see the things that did on es.wiki. He is the "grawp vandal". Greetings from Rome, --RoyFocker 16:38, 25 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

No problem: he was blocked from meta (and his ip). Thanks again! --RoyFocker 17:43, 25 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

wikimedia-checkuser edit

Greetings!

I'm Fluff @svwp, just became CheckUser and I'm lurking to get into #wikimedia-checkuser. As stated on my userpage I'm on freenode as fluff. Please contact me there!

Best regards and thanks in advance!

/Fluff 22:54, 25 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

grundle edit

Why is this article protected? As the talk page notes, there is adequate sourcery to support slang use of "grundle" to mean the perineum. — This comment was unsigned.

Because it is completely contrived. Having been proven to be a farce once in the past, it has to prove much wider acceptance, than mere secondary errors that originated from the entry that was entered here.

Greetings and proposed changes to Template:en-noun to handle “foreignisms” edit

Hi Connel. ‛T’as been a while. How’re you? I don’t see you being your usual active self here; been busy IRL?

Anyway, to get back to Wiktstuff:
Last time I was around here, we’d been discussing how to handle the many unnaturalised Latin, French, Ancient Greek, and other foreign phrases used in English. We made quite a bit of progress, but never really concluded anything. I’ve changed my mind somewhat since then; I now think it perfectly adæquate to have a context tag reading simply (Latin phrase), (French phrase), (Ancient Greek phrase), or similar — the fact that the headword occurs under an English language section makes it unlikely that such a tag would cause confusion. As a further measure, I believe that the headwords of such phrases should be italicised, in line with the traditional convention of italicising such phrases in writing, and in imitation of a number of dictionaries which italicise the headwords of such “foreignisms” (as one of my dictionaries — The Chancellor Illustrated Family Encyclopedic Dictionary — does).

Italicising headwords requires either some awkward template manipulation (as in crux gammata) or a change to {{en-noun}}. I propose the addition of a for= parameter to {{en-noun}}; its activation (e.g., thus: {{en-noun|for=1}}) would italicise every headword — both the singular and its plural(s) — in the inflexion line and add the entry to a category such as Category:Unnaturalised foreign words and phrases used in English. I also propose the creation of {{foreign phrase}} (for context tags), which would take the lang= parameter, so that, for example, the following code would render thus:

  • {{foreign phrase|lang=la}} = (Latin phrase)
  • {{foreign phrase|lang=fr}} = (French phrase)
  • {{foreign phrase|lang=grc}} = (Ancient Greek phrase)
  • And so on…

These tags would also add the entry to a new category; viz. Category:Latin phrases used in English, Category:French phrases used in English, Category:Ancient Greek phrases used in English, or whichever as appropriate and defined by the lang= parameter.

How does this sound to you? I know {{en-noun}} is a bit of an overloaded template, but I’d imagine that it could handle a parameter that just italicises and adds a category. Also, using the {{foreign phrase}} template for context tags correctly requires knowing some language codes, which may seem a bit of a daunting learning curve at first; however, seeing as almost all the “foreignisms” in general usage in English come from Latin, French, or Ancient Greek, then it really isn’t a problem. (Of course, terms specific to geology would also require knowing lang=de for German and those specific to music would require knowing lang=it for Italian, but again I maintain that it is no considerable feat to learn those additional language codes.)

So yeah, whaddya think? Do get back to me…  (u):Raifʻhār (t):Doremítzwr﴿ 13:09, 4 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

Hello. If I recall correctly, one of the issues we were discussing at that time, was how overloaded {{en-noun}} was (way back then, when it was relatively simple compared to what it is now.) I maintain my general stance, that such things shouldn't be described as English when they really aren't. I would be more comfortable with {{borrowed phrase}} instead of {{foreign phrase}} but perhaps I didn't see some subtle catch that you did? Either way, there shouldn't be any manipulation of en-noun for this - these shouldn't be categorized as English nouns. If they function similar to an English noun, then they will go under a ===Noun=== heading. But they shouldn't have the category. As you say, they should be italicized or something. What you did for the entry crux gammata seems to be unacceptable: Conrad Irwin's software crashes when trying to render it. (For me currently, that displays as a headword then a blank page.) Having a {{borrowed phrase}} template would allow for much simpler (less conditional) parameters, categories and formatting options. Out of the blue like this, it is certainly worth discussing a bit more, before trying to put together a coherent proposal for the grease pit (and then later, the beer parlour, then eventually, wt:vote.) Who knows - maybe the community now wants more simplified approaches for these things (i.e. manual categories external to the templates, and no - or at least less - overloading of inflection templates, less formatting variety - especially when superfluous to some.)
To repeat: I maintain that a Latin phrase (especially a rare one like that) should not be described as being "English." Some of our discussions scratched the surface of how to determine what is and what isn't adopted into English. I hope it is obvious to you, that by any of those measures, the entry you mention can not reasonably be called English. When it is mentioned in English, it is usually italicized (and followed with the word "swastika" in parenthesis.) When not italicized, it usually is being used erroneously. To be passionate about categorizing errors like that, without indicating that they are errors, is certain to ruffle my feathers. I have never (and probably will never have) understood what could motivate someone to do that.
--Connel MacKenzie 07:40, 5 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
Excuse me for butting in, but on a note about your suggested syntax above
  • {{foreign phrase|lang=la}} = (Latin phrase)
would to me suggest that this is a foreign phrase being used in Latin. As English can embed phrases from other languages, so I would expect (but don't know) other languages to do similarly (e.g. I imagine that Latin phrases are also embedded in French). I would therefore suggest the syntax:
  • {{foreign phrase|source=la|lang=en}} = (Latin phrase)
with the lang= parameter being optional for English, as this would match how the "lang=" parameter is used in every other template I can think of.
I'm not, at this juncture, making any comments on the rest of this discussion as I have not thought sufficiently about the issue. Thryduulf 11:29, 5 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
Agreed. Also, neither their suggestion and yours would work with other context labels, unless we required {{foreign phrase}}/{{borrowed phrase}} to be the first label (in which case a bit of hackery would suffice). I think it might work better to have separate templates for separate source languages. —RuakhTALK 12:49, 5 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
The proposal he is tabling is for English sections only. --Connel MacKenzie 22:42, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
True, but I don't see the point in making it harder for ourselves should we ever wish to do this for foreign languages as well. Thryduulf 12:42, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
Re: "I maintain that a Latin phrase (especially a rare one like that) should not be described as being 'English.'": I'm inclined to agree. The thing is, I haven't seen a better approach. (Well, for "crux gammata" itself I think we should just have the Latin entry; but there are many cases where that won't work as well, either because English writers have pluralized it by adding -s, or because the phrase isn't actually attested in the source language or doesn't have quite the same sense, or because the source language doesn't use the English alphabet.) I really think it's worth hacking out some sort of halfway-general solution. (It's such a pain that everything has to be so rigidly categorized as belonging to a specific language and part of speech. I understand why we do it, but it gets frustrating when these distinctions are blurry and we basically have to invent them.) —RuakhTALK 12:49, 5 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
The original solution was to list the "inflection line" as plain wikitext with no templates. Categories added separately below. But that doesn't address the problem of calling a Latin phrase "English." It should be described as Latin, with a usage note saying it is sometimes, rarely/poetically/etc. maligned into looking like English. --Connel MacKenzie 22:42, 6 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
I remember reading that Japanese embeds set phrases of English words into Japanese speech/writing. However, the phrases used are not actually set phrases in English (nor indeed do they always make sense in English), thus they would rightly fail rfv/rfd if they were presented as English. We should include them somehow, as they are obviously idiomatic, but I presume that no Japanese speaker would say they are Japanese and no English speaker would say they are English. Might I also suggest that this conversation be moved to the beer parlour? Thryduulf 12:42, 9 September 2008 (UTC)Reply
The original conversation is over a year old, yet broad concepts and goals aren't understood. Having something slightly coherent is less disruptive to the BP. --Connel MacKenzie 19:39, 17 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

Languages edit

I noticed that you have a lot of language edits, but your native language is English. What part of the United States are you from? Did you ever visit any of these countries or have relatives from them?

Thanks 74.70.187.171 22:18, 20 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

Good morning troll. Adding content is not related to formatting changes. You wish to add content from a language you do not speak natively? Precisely where are you copying that information from? --Connel MacKenzie 13:49, 3 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

Transwiki duplicates edit

Hi Connel, if it is not too much trouble do you know how to post a report that will show Transwiki duplicates (like the one at User:Dmcdevit/Transwiki duplicates)?) That report only goes through March 2007 or so. DMCdevit recommended you on my talk page. Thanks! Goldenrowley 04:54, 4 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

I need a clean XML dump to regenerate that data. Fortunately, that looks like it is only a few days away now. I don't think this made it onto my "process" list of things to update, so thank you for the reminder. (But I may need another after the next successful XML dump is processed, if I miss this again.) --Connel MacKenzie 08:06, 4 November 2008 (UTC)Reply
Maybe tomorrow...http://connelm.homelinux.com/estimate.html#enwiktionary --Connel MacKenzie 06:09, 7 November 2008 (UTC)Reply
Umm, Connel, in your absence you may have missed out on some rather interesting news. We now have new dumps at all times. Check out Wiktionary:Grease_pit#XML dumps. My sincerest apologies if you already knew this. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 06:57, 7 November 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thank you. Since I use a variety of different things from "the XML dumps" and that covers only one particular subset, I do in fact, need to wait for the official dump(s) before getting resynchronized. --Connel MacKenzie 15:50, 7 November 2008 (UTC)Reply
Yes, in particular the dailies don't include the Transwiki: namespace, which is needed for this. It would not be hard to create a list of transwiki duplicates without the XML at all; but since it is just a matter of waiting a bit longer, is not worth-while. Robert Ullmann 15:58, 7 November 2008 (UTC)Reply
Wow. Processing the dump takes much longer now. Probably because I am out of practice, but also because of configuration changes (e.g. crazy new Microsoft memory limitations.) I'm about halfway through the portion that used to take me two hours, so it should be a couple days before it settles down. --Connel MacKenzie 16:15, 13 November 2008 (UTC)Reply
Thank you ! Goldenrowley 03:39, 15 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

OTRS request (ticket 2008102810053143) edit

"Horphag Research Management S.A." mailed OTRS to note that the definitions on pycnogenol and pycnogenols refer to trademarked names and are otherwise incorrect. I would appreciate if you'd offer advice as to what sort of response to offer them? Thanks. :) ~Kylu (u|t) 19:13, 4 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

  • My understanding is that Pycnogenol (capitalized) is trademarked, but the uncapitalised form is not.
  • This from the OED - [< French pycnogenol (J. Masquelier et al. 1979, in Internat. Jrnl. Vitamin & Nutrition Res. 49 308) < pycno- PYCNO- comb. form + -gène -GEN comb. form + -ol -OL suffix, with allusion to the readiness of these compounds to undergo condensation reactions (see CONDENSATION n. 6).]

Originally: any of a group of flavonoid compounds found esp. in pine bark. In later use: an extract of the bark of the maritime pine (Pinus pinaster) containing such flavonoids, used as a dietary supplement for its antioxidant properties.

1979 J. MASQUELIER in Internat. Jrnl. Vitamin & Nutrition Res. 49 307 Pycnogenols is the term put forward by the authors to designate flavan-3-ol derivatives, so as to distinguish these substances..from the heterogeneous group of flavonoid compounds. 1989 Nutrition News (Nexis) 31 Jan. 2 Pycnogenol has [a] molecular structure similar to compounds found in the family of flavonoids, known to be powerful antioxidant agents. 2001 Observer 24 June (Life Suppl.) 53/2 How else do you explain the recent claim that retsina, of all things, has life-extending qualities, thanks to high concentrations of an anti-oxidant called pycnogenol in the pine resin used to flavour the wine?

  • This is from US Patent 5,470,874 (November 28, 1995)

The second embodiment of the invention includes the pine bark extract known as proanthocyanidine, also known as pycnogenol. This substance has been found most effective in combination with ascorbic acid in the approximate amount of 1% to 5%, although this substance may be used in liberal amounts in view of its non-toxicity.

  • But this is from US Patent 6,045,849 (April 4, 2000)

Products whose major component is proanthocyanidins are on the market, such as "GRAVINOL" (trade name; manufactured by Kikkoman Corporation) and "KPA" (trade name; manufactured by Kikkoman Corporation) whose raw material is grape seeds, "Applephenon" (trade name; manufactured by The Nikka Whisky Distilling Co., Ltd.) whose raw material is unripe apple fruits, and "Pycnogenol" (trade name; manufactured by Horphag Research Ltd. in the Swiss Confederation) whose raw material is bark of maritime pine trees and these products on the market can be used.

Trademarks are reg no 3148921 (US)/ 0854068 (intl class 32) word mark, reg no 2796485 (intl class 3) typed drawing, reg no 1769633 (intl class 5) typed drawing. All owned/assigned to Horphag.
Note that there is no distinction between capitalized and uncapitalised forms unless the mark is already a word. "Windows" is a trademark, "windows" doesn't infringe. "Ferrari" is a trademark, and "ferrari" does infringe if used in commerce.
IMHO, our entry should acknowledge the trademark, but define the word as in OED and used as above. (And someday I'll maybe write a reference-USPTO template?) Note that the earliest filing date (of an active Horphag registration) is 26 January 1990 (reg no 1769633), claiming first use in commerce 22 December 1987. But at the same time g.b.c easily finds use in 1985. So the trademark is a claim on the use in commerce of an existing word (the "Windows" case).
It shouldn't be tagged "dated" in any case. Robert Ullmann 12:23, 5 November 2008 (UTC)Reply
"dated" removed. The apparent coinage date 1979 is confirmable on Google Scholar, but a full citation is not visible. There is plenty of scientific and popular health lower-case usage from suable publishers through 2008. I don't think upper-case version would meet cfi. DCDuring TALK 12:56, 5 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

Hi there. Thanks everyone for chipping in. For a boiler-plate response, I'd start with something like this:

Thank you for contacting Wiktionary. We regret that we cannot in good conscience remove the entry you indicate, as it does not seem to violate any trademark, specifically none under US trademark law. If you believe you have additional salient evidence, please add {{rfd}} to the entry in question, to discuss the matter in detail with the Wiktionary community.

or something like that. Thanks Kylu! --Connel MacKenzie 06:07, 7 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

sunroofs edit

Despite looking ugly, this has become the de-facto plural (google:sunrooves google:sunroofs). On a related note, thank you very much for running TheCheatBot. Conrad.Irwin 12:50, 15 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

It is still wrong so it is not something I want my bot associated with. --Connel MacKenzie 12:53, 15 November 2008 (UTC)Reply
Note also that Google identifies it as an error, as well. --Connel MacKenzie 12:54, 15 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

Dude, you want to enter that crap, enter it yourself. Don't restore the error. Insert your very own error, invented from whole cloth. --Connel MacKenzie 13:07, 15 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure what you mean, when I search for google:sunrooves it says "Did you mean google:sunroofs", based on this and the fact that there are 0 uses in books for "sunrooves", versus 700 for "sunroofs" I have recreated "sunroofs". Conrad.Irwin 13:12, 15 November 2008 (UTC)Reply
Checking again, I was thinking of a similar Google search I did a few minutes earlier, that has opposite (normal) results. --Connel MacKenzie 13:22, 15 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

in the mood edit

Hi Connel,

Is the meaning of in the mood really as narrow as that? --Polyglot 06:55, 21 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

As a sentence, yes; as a phrase, no. That is possibly a North American denotation. --Connel MacKenzie 16:27, 22 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

HELP! edit

Connell, help! We are being serially attacked by some anons, MANY anons who are trashing miscellaneous faster than anyone can revert it. Wholesale blocking needed! -- Pinkfud 07:03, 3 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Announcing this here seems to have worked, but WT:VIP is probably better. --Connel MacKenzie 15:25, 3 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Thanks edit

I'm not new, but it has been half a decade since I had to sign a wiki contribution, so I forgot how many tildes to add... had to look on wikipedia's help page, because it was not mentioned on wiktionary's. -- Tormod 02:48, 5 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

New template (Wikipedia) Duplicates edit

HI Connel, I thought you might be interested to know I started to work on how to keep Wikipedia from duplicate transwik request. I came up with a Wikipedia template {{TWCleanup2}} over at Wikipedia and used it to move words off the transwiki list that are duplicates. As the dictionary matures we'll need to turn some words down (to put it mildy, we're getting so many duplicates this year). Goldenrowley 05:50, 6 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Move to Gadgets tab in Special:Preferences ? edit

Hello, you seem to be pretty experienced with this stuff, could you weigh in at Wiktionary_talk:Preferences#Move_to_Gadgets_tab_in_Special:Preferences_.3F ? Also, where are the scripts located for the individual functions/gadgets that are listed at Wiktionary:Preferences ? I want to use importscript to add some of them to my monobook.js (or maybe monobook.css ?) file, so that I do not have to keep resetting things if/when I switch to another computer or browser. (Which essentially is what I proposed by moving the preferences, or at least some of them, into a Gadgets tab in Special:Preferences. Cirt (talk) 01:12, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for the notice. I'll try to comment tonight. --Connel MacKenzie 03:43, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Okay great, thanks. :) Cirt (talk) 05:34, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Also separately just for me - where are those scripts located so I can use importscript to add some to my monobook.js ? Cirt (talk) 05:37, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

The thing is, if you are using the English Wiktionary, you do not need to modify your monobook.js at all, to use them. You merely check off what you want on WT:PREF and the site JS loads them for you. --Connel MacKenzie 17:19, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Yes but - then if I switch computers or browsers I have to do that again, every single time. But if instead I copy the coding or importscript the coding into my own monobook.js file - I will never have to do that again. Cirt (talk) 17:54, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
How many different computers and browsers do you use? Some of the widgets don't work on all browsers, so the customization by browser is a desirable feature. Never is a really long time. When features were being added several times a month, it certainly made a lot more sense to keep the moving target, dynamic. --Connel MacKenzie 21:56, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Well, at any rate I added some features to my own monobook file, so no worries - User:Cirt/monobook.js. I really would like to know the locations of the coding on some of those individual gadgets so I could add them there individually. Would that be possible? Cheers, Cirt (talk) 22:04, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
You can look them up in User:Connel_MacKenzie/custom.js. Conrad.Irwin 22:23, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Okay I will try doing that. Thank you, Cirt (talk) 22:36, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Similar ones are linked near the top of my user page. --Connel MacKenzie 23:22, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Ah okay, I will look there too, thank you. Cirt (talk) 23:24, 9 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

(e)s and (s)es edit

After you found all the (e)s and i cleaned them up, you might want to do a similar search for (s) in plural=, like in Zucchini. Mutante 10:24, 14 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Good call! Done. --Connel MacKenzie 17:16, 1 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

picoohm edit

Do you remember why you deleted picoohm? Sum-of-parts? (We've still got picoohms but I'd delete it as plural of delted entry.) RJFJR 20:54, 5 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Because it is a spelling error of pico-ohm. That was part of a larger series all entered in error. --Connel MacKenzie 22:22, 6 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
I see no use for a unit so small (I doubt it is measurable), but since I spell megaohm and kiloohm I would also spell it picoohm. (Not that that proves much, I'm historically a bad speller.) I'm not familiar with any unit in which the pico prefix is hyphenated. ...Well, that's interesting: I just googled for picoohm and about half the uses of first thirty look to be hyphenated. I wonder if this is something some people do before units beginning with a vowel. The matter remains: Should we delete picoohms on grounds of 'solely plural of deleted entry'? RJFJR 04:06, 7 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
As long as the deletion comment points to the correct spelling, that seems best, yes. Otherwise, it should be identified as a misspelling/soft redirect. --Connel MacKenzie 14:15, 7 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
Looking at history of megaohm/mega-ohm, it seems apparent User:Heron was POV pushing. That one remains incorrect (despite the seeming proliferation of the misspelling.) --Connel MacKenzie 14:18, 7 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Archiving bots edit

I realize you're not on too much as of late, but I was wondering if it would be a lot of work to turn your archive bot onto WT:RFC. I'm pretty sure all of the exact same rules would work perfectly, and there are a lot of completed threads which simply need to be moved (and are really tedious to do by hand). Hope you are well. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 20:25, 8 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

I've just removed a number of sections "by hand", and can attest that not all — probably not most — are worth archiving: many are just "Needs help.~~~~ Fixed.~~~~", which I deleted without archiving. See RFC's recent history: when I was archiving one I said so in the edit summary, otherwise I just said "removing". If most don't need archiving, I'm not sure you'll wish to sic your bot on it.—msh210 06:28, 9 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
Perhaps, but I wonder if some less than useful talk page archives are a lesser evil than many man hours wasted on a task which could be completed by a bot. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 06:37, 9 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
I'll dust off my notes from WT:GP if I find them, to take a shot at this this week. I know it was relatively high up on my list of things to do. I should have some time for this tomorrow evening, in fact. --Connel MacKenzie 22:25, 10 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
  • Hi, thought I should bring this to your attention -- the script accidentally scooped up two non-closed sections in that batch. And since I'm here, may I just express enormous thanks for providing this automation; people (like me) may quibble with the implementation, but it is a marvelous timesaver. -- Visviva 04:59, 16 January 2009 (UTC)Reply
Hi. What you are actually seeing is a DIFF view bug. If you look at them one-by-one like this it makes it much less ambiguous. The two that were not stricken were A) inactive, B) hmmm. That's weird, the archive comments on them are wrong. Oh shoot. Great catch...let me check that some more. Thank you for restoring them. --Connel MacKenzie 16:59, 16 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

WOTD RSS Feed edit

Hey Connel, Is there any chance of you restarting/updating your RSS feed creator on toolserver? It seems to have got stuck on December 23rd, and while it's not a huge problem, it's just another of those "nice features" that once given people moan when you take away :). WT:GP#RSS Feed. Thanks. Conrad.Irwin 01:51, 19 January 2009 (UTC)Reply


Since you seem to be on the site... http://toolserver.org/~cmackenzie/wotd-rss.php seems to have gone off for Solstice celebrations and not returned? - Amgine/talk 19:58, 23 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Not 12/21, but 12/23. But OK, ok. I'll get onto IRC and figure out how to reactivate my toolserver account. --Connel MacKenzie 04:29, 24 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

I have done an RRS2 and an ATOM feed as documented here, if you want you can use that but you would need to update the link in what produces the {{Word of the day}} code. --Jamesdlow 23:55, 6 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

IP address edit

I saw you deleted User:158.91.206.205. Out of complete curiosity, what was the content of the page? I did not create it. Tim Q. Wells 04:23, 27 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Userpages created for another IP address are normally spam. --Connel MacKenzie 02:37, 28 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Merging accounts?? edit

Salute Connel MacKenzie,

I am in migration for gobal account. My previous account here and at the wikipedia is Zeke sq-N and my global account is Zeke. My home wiki page is in the Albanian Wiktionary. So, i was wondering if there are possibilities for merging my accounts here and also at the Wikipedia? --Zeke 08:50, 14 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

Absolutely. See WT:MV for more information - I can't help you myself, but that's where the request needs to be. --Connel MacKenzie 06:28, 15 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

Wiktionary:Requests for deletion#Jesuses edit

Hi Connel,

Just FYI: Wiktionary:Requests for deletion#Jesuses has been tagged with {{look}}, if you're interested.

RuakhTALK 02:43, 20 February 2009 (UTC)Reply

Talk:haber edit

Connel, You state "kept", but every bit of discussion in the linked archived discussion speaks for removing the content in question. --EncycloPetey 16:08, 1 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

Although those edits come from Connel MacKenzie (talkcontribs) and not a separate bot account, they're definitely made by a bot, and AFAICT, the bot announces "kept" or "deleted" based solely on whether the entry exists at the time of archiving. It's not a foolproof system; I'd estimate that it's correct about 70% of the time. I think it might be better if the bot simply didn't state "kept" or "deleted" at all, but let the reader draw his/her own conclusions based on the linked discussion. —RuakhTALK 16:28, 1 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
That portion is automated, similar to what Ruakh said (bit more involved than that.) If there was a disposition template thing I could look for, it might be slightly more accurate; but when one is kept and another removed, it would still be wrong. I think the way it is now is the best compromise likely. For a deleted entry marked kept (does that happen at all?) the misleading message tells us sysops where to find the discussion. For deleted senses marked as kept, it is a little more obtuse; however, the comment that Ruakh refers to appears only in RFD/RFV history comments, so I'm unsure how that could be misleading...the residual comments are on the talk page. Those talk page comments (when viewed) are in all cases self-explanatory. So I don't see a way to improve it, even with a disposition flag. If we were to ask the original bureaucrats, I'm sure we'd be told not to save any of these ancillary discussions at all. So this compromise setup still seems like the best approach, to me. --Connel MacKenzie 19:29, 1 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Re: "Those talk page comments (when viewed) are in all cases self-explanatory.": They're self-explanatory to you and me, because we realize that they're automated and heuristic-driven, and don't necessarily reflect the conclusion or resulting action; but most editors don't realize that, and I've seen quite a few express confusion over them. It's not a huge deal, but it would be better if the bot simply didn't make those claims. —RuakhTALK 20:47, 1 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
People look at the revision history comments? Are we talking about the same thing? --Connel MacKenzie 02:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Maybe not the revision history comments, but they definitely look at the comments your bot leaves on talk-pages, such as Talk:haber. As you can see, it says "kept", but actually, the section was removed. That's what EP and I are talking about. —RuakhTALK 04:05, 4 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Maybe better if it didn't say unless it knew for sure. Anyways I think it's better to have working with minor flaws than not working at all. Connel, can you point me to what I need to do to get your archiving bot up and running on my computer? First I need to download the python wikipediabot, right? DAVilla 22:25, 12 April 2009 (UTC)Reply
Correct. Then you need GT.M Mumps installed. Then I still need a way to get my backup somewhere accessible. Will try more tomorrow afternoon on restoring my backup server with last good version. --Connel MacKenzie 20:38, 13 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Wiktionary:Statistics edit

Hi, sorry if you're already buried in work, I'm wondering if you have the time/XMLdump to update the statistics. -Edelstam 14:00, 9 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

OK, I'll restart that this afternoon. --Connel MacKenzie 17:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Still recovering things from yesterday's power outage. --Connel MacKenzie 14:56, 10 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Thanks Connel :), I didn't know there was a power outage =/ -Edelstam 07:05, 11 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Just my neighborhood, not wiki. All better now. --Connel MacKenzie 18:42, 11 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

Speaking of outages, my webserver's motherboard has a few melted components (minor fire.) Apparently, I shouldn't have used a cheat surge-suppressor for it - the return of power pushed it over the edge. Not bad, for a ten-year-old boxen. I have its drive mounted on my diskserver box (all looks good so far) but it will take me a few more hours to get the webserver mappings and firewall exemptions redirected. Worst case, another day or two before random pages work again. --Connel MacKenzie 04:40, 15 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

Random page edit

I am not sure if this is mentioned elsewhere, but the "Random entry by language" function no longer seems to be working. It seems to not load when trying to connect to your server. Dominic·t 06:39, 27 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

Still working on it. Note to self: check backups more frequently. --Connel MacKenzie 01:28, 28 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

Update, please? edit

Can you do an update at User:Connel MacKenzie/Gutenberg of the most common Project Gutenberg words WT doesn't have? (I'm not sure how much work is involved in this). Thank you. RJFJR 16:39, 30 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

I gave up on that, as the remaining words not in Wiktionary that appear as letter combinations in the body of the Project Gutenberg texts, were nonsense. Looking at the last several runs, it is plain to see there is not much (and nothing of value) that can be gained, by delving farther down that path. There is a DB dump currently running, so some things should get updated today. The features such as random page that require my web-server rebuild are still pending, however. --Connel MacKenzie 18:14, 1 May 2009 (UTC)Reply
Thank you.RJFJR 19:06, 1 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

TheCheatBot edit

TheCheatBot has created both phonologicallyer and phonologicallyest as plural forms of phonologically. Whatever the reason, some improvement in the bot is probably needed. Lmaltier 06:24, 1 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

A certain amount of manual review helps it function adequately. Better trapping of bad edits that cause such secondary errors, gleans better results in the long run. --Connel MacKenzie 18:15, 1 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

Statistics edit

It's been about two months since they were last updated, so it's probably worth slogging them again, when you find the time. --EncycloPetey 01:21, 11 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

Are you finished with your lead balloon? edit

Both User:Connel MacKenzie/lead and User:Connel MacKenzie/lead2 are showing up in Category:Translations to be checked (Catalan) (and quite a few other categories, but that's where I noticed them) when they really shouldn't be. Are you still working on your experiment? — Carolina wren discussió 00:20, 14 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

CM has not been active lately. I don't know if he will return, though I often wish so. Take a look at his edit count. I am taking the liberty of removing the ttbc templates. He can revert the edits if he needs to. DCDuring TALK 00:33, 14 September 2009 (UTC)Reply
Thank you DCDuring. Those experiments are quite inactive now. --Connel MacKenzie 14:56, 23 September 2009 (UTC)Reply

labor edit

Hello. You largely rewrote the English section of this entry in 2005 (doh...) The verb definition says "see British/commonwealth entry for definitions, etymology, pronunciation, translations, etc." I'm just wondering if there is any specific reason for the strikethrough? Hydrox 13:13, 2 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

At that time, there was significant dispute about entry duplication. In my opinion, it is obvious that both merit independent entries...especially when one considers that the pronunciations are substantially different. Have fun rewriting that - touching any US/UK entries tends to ignite the worst in many people here. --Connel MacKenzie 13:27, 13 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Transwiki? edit

Hi Connel,

As my dishwashing duties, I was thinking of helping you clean out the Wiktionary:Transwiki log. Presumably this is ok? Any particular requests? AFAICT, the process is:

  • Format and categorize the transwiki’ed file correctly;
  • Move transwiki page to the correct WT page;
  • Move log line to archive.

…correct?

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 06:34, 15 November 2009 (UTC)Reply


When I was last doing them, the major issue was that most of the Wikipedia transwiki items did not meet Wiktionary's CFI. Verification was more important than formatting, but I'm not up on the current trends regarding them. I'd be careful not to accidentally supersede prior RFDs or RFVs. Other than that, yes, knock yourself out on them. --Connel MacKenzie 20:24, 18 November 2009 (UTC)Reply
Ok, will do, thanks!
—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 19:27, 19 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Welcome back edit

Nice to see your postings. I hope all is well. DCDuring TALK 00:29, 20 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Re: Citation needed edit

Connel, I'm sorry to have responded to your vote on the voting page itself, rather than contacting you directly. I agree that it was flamebaiting, and that was definitely poor judgment on my part. Rest assured, the {{citation needed}} template I facetiously added below your vote does not break a (non-existent) tally bot, nor does it invalidate your vote.

In fact I did invalidate one voter's vote: Daviduzzu voted twice for the tiles logo. My intention was not to harangue anyone voting for the book logo, just to point out what I found to be valid counterarguments. I did likewise once or twice on the right side of the page as well. Although I've been enthusiastic about the tiles logo from the beginning, I only became involved with this second logo contest to provide context to voters who were given none in the Wiktionary sitenotices. So from now on, I'll gladly stay out and let others manage the vote, since it's not like I have plenty of free time these days anyways. :^)

The discussion topic I started was not an attempt to beat a dead horse. The opinion page I linked to discusses the possibility of an expired patent overriding a current trademark, and I found that argument intriguing, if not convincing. Plenty of people have voted there with an claim of trademark infringement, but few or no details. Apparently there has been endless discussion of the Scrabble trademark issue, but I really hadn't noticed it.

In all honesty, I'd be okay with either logo. I happen to prefer the tiles one, but at least the book logo is better than the multitude of blue-green-red logos that were proposed. I was frustrated that people were voting based on legalities, rather than taste. And they had every right to, but there are plenty of valid arguments against the tiles logo that have nothing to do with trademark law.

 – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 06:52, 23 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

There are lots of reasons to dislike the tiles logo. This is a good reminder that comments should not be allowed in voting. Legitimate or not, it only invites others to comment in reactionary, inappropriate ways. --Connel MacKenzie 22:45, 26 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

Kąġi Oȟąko edit

Hi!

I just tried to create Kąġi Oȟąko (Dutch Wiktionary), but then I got this warning Translated):


No permission
You do not have permission to access this page, for the following reasons:
Your username or IP address is blocked by Tvdm. The stated reason:
Cross-wiki vandalism.
Every computer connected to the Internet is assigned an IP address assigned by his ISP. In many cases, a regular user a different IP address. Your IP address was recently used by you or someone else for edits in violation of the rules of Wiktionary.
You can contact us for consultation with one of the moderators.


I tried to take contact with Tvdm, in vain (clicking on anything gave nothing).

I read the “Wiktionary:Blocking policy” page, but I do not understand why I have been blocked by Tvdm, but I do not appreciate that much to be called a vandal on the Dutch Wiktionary and not here or on the French Wiktionnaire. Can you help me sort this out and solve the problem, please? I need help, not blocking…

Furthermore, I used formerly different names on several Wikipedias and Wiktionaries, not in order to hide in some way, then, one day, I clicked on the “Unified login” link. Now, my username is the same everywhere, but it did not help: I wished the former accounts and user-related pages would be merged into User:Kąġi Oȟąko, but that's not what I got. What should be done to reach this?

Many thanks forward for your help (and, excuse me for this, but I do not understand anything about Internet, related topics, some terms used at Wikipedia and all these acronyms — please be patient with me).

Regards,

৵ Kąġi Oȟąko Ƭ 09:20, 4 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

And now, there is something else there… ৵ Kąġi Oȟąko Ƭ 09:27, 4 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

cat and mouse edit

How come you created a redirect for this entry? My understanding was that redirects were discouraged on Wiktionary. I've tried my best to turn it into an actual entry, though bare in mind I'm terrible at creating English entries. Cheers! Tooironic 09:13, 12 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

Redirects are not allowed for single words, but are used for some phrases. At the time, since we had an entry at the wrong place (cat and mouse game) but not at the correct place, I was lazy and created the redirect, instead of moving the entry and cleaning it up. I believe the issue at that time, was simple coverage of searchable terms. --Connel MacKenzie 10:52, 13 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

Your template edit

Hi Connel. Could you please remove Template:rfc-cjkv from Category:Chinese words needing attention? Thank you. Tooironic 10:39, 22 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

Wow, a "request for cleanup" template really should be there though, shouldn't it? Or do you just want it wrapped with an includeonly? Or has someone else already taken care of it? --Connel MacKenzie 08:26, 23 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

Category:English borrowed words ? edit

Hi Connel,

Hope you’re well (we’ve not chatted in a while). I recently discovered Category:English borrowed words (from (deprecated template usage) démarche), and noticed that you’d created it.

As you know, I’ve a keen interest in etymology, and (as a general matter) am quite in favor of as many and finely defined categories as applicable – thus as a general matter I’m quite in favor of having a “Borrowed words” category. However, I’ve several concerns about the current category:

If we wish to distinguish borrowings, simplest is probably to adjust the etymology category boilerplate so that except for ancestor languages, derivation categories are placed in “Borrowings”.

Alternatively, perhaps you meant to distinguish words that are not anglicized, using some foreign spelling (e.g., démarche, but not march). We have Category:English spellings by character, which covers some of this, but we’d also want to include terms like (deprecated template usage) Quran, and it seems a slippery category, especially with all the borrowings from French (naive/naïve? boulevard?) and Latin – at what point does a word “become” English? (When its pronunciation is clear from its spelling? Oh dear.)

So I was wondering if you’d support either an {{rfd}} or perhaps some variant category? (I’m asking you first both as category creator, before raising it at RFD/BP.)

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 08:47, 10 April 2010 (UTC)Reply
As I recall, the category was an attempt at a compromise for words that clearly were not English at all, yet some assert are recognizable in English. Démarche is a good example - it by no means actually is an English word, yet spurious citations for it exist, despite the "correct" English spelling of the rare term demarche.
Does the category still serve a purpose? Hard to guess. I agree the name could be better. --07:47, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
They and march descended from Middle English. Perhaps restrict the category to words borrowed into English?​—msh210 17:47, 6 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

OIC – so the idea is “foreign words sometimes used in English, but really not recognizable”. There are good examples in technical martial arts vocabulary, for instance. This is still a slippery category, but much more restricted. My inclination is to either recognize them in English (as recent borrowings) if legit, or not include them (and only include the foreign language entry) if not. I think the deeper problem is how to have CFI for foreign borrowings, as distinct from “foreign words used in English but really not English”, which seems the crux of the issue.

Thanks for clarifying!

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 21:00, 8 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Help please edit

Hi Connel MacKenzie, I was wondering, can you please log into your wikimedia toolserver account. I am trying to use your spellcheck tool and I got the following toolserver message:

"404: User account expired

The page you requested is hosted by the Toolserver user cmackenzie, whose account has expired. Toolserver user accounts are automatically expired if the user is inactive for over six months. To prevent stale pages remaining accessible, we automatically block requests to expired content.

If you think you are receiving this page in error, or you have a question, please contact the owner of this document: cmackenzie [at] toolserver [dot] org. (Please do not contact Toolserver administrators about this problem, as we cannot fix it—only the Toolserver account owner may renew their account.)"

Thanks --Alpha Quadrant 20:35, 12 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Wiktionary:Votes/2010-04/Voting policy edit

I urge you to vote. (I don't know which way you'll vote, but I want more voices, especially English Wiktionarians' voices, heard in this vote.) If you've voted already, or stated that you won't, and I missed it, I apologize.​—msh210 17:00, 21 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. --Connel MacKenzie 08:49, 24 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

User:Connel MacKenzie/spellcheck.js edit

Hello, Connel. I took a look at the code on your userpage after the template broke and I tried to import it onto my subpage, but it does not seem to work. Could you help me fix it? TeleComNasSprVen 19:45, 20 September 2010 (UTC)Reply

The toolserver tool it refers to is not reachable. Firefox provides an integrated, superior solution - if you edit significantly here, Firefox is essentially required. --Connel MacKenzie 01:21, 14 October 2010 (UTC)Reply

Pages looking like spam edit

What is the purpose of a user page like 20001-25000 (yours, it seems)? It looks like spam or some SEO trick. --Mortense 16:46, 17 September 2011 (UTC)Reply

Just the opposite - those helper pages (many many many more like it, also under my username) are to assist Wiktionary editors find main-namespace pages that need the most help. --Connel MacKenzie 23:19, 8 October 2011 (UTC)Reply

Talk:lulz edit

Could you unlock this talk page? Jiiimbooh 20:38, 23 October 2011 (UTC)Reply

Done and watchlisted.​—msh210 (talk) 21:54, 23 October 2011 (UTC)Reply

toQ deleted edit

Hiya, you deleted the page toQ without any reasonable deletion comment. Mind telling us what the reason was? I am assuming that it’s because Klingon is no longer accepted as a language on this wiki, but it would have been nice to have a link to some sort of page detailing this decision and formalising the criteria for inclusion? — Timwi (talk) 18:19, 21 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

See [[WT:CFI#Constructed languages]], based in part on a vote. (I'm not saying that that vote is the reason for the deletion — the deletion predated it — but it is a completely valid reason for not undeleting the entry.)​—msh210 (talk) 19:06, 21 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the links. In future, please specify a proper reason in the deletion summary. That’s what it’s there for. Thanks! — Timwi (talk) 19:25, 21 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for keeping an eye here - very much appreciated. --Connel MacKenzie (talk)
Hi Connel! Great to know you're still around ... somewhere (-; — hippietrail (talk) 07:16, 6 April 2013 (UTC)Reply
Thank you. Hope you are well. Sad to see some of the trends here but no matter what, Wiktionary will always hold a dear space in my heart. --Connel MacKenzie (talk) 09:02, 10 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Template deletion discussion edit

A template related to one that you were a supporter of in the past has been nominated for deletion at Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Others#Template:Please do not link directly to the individual Webster 1913 abbreviations. If you encounter an article that does link to one, please edit it and replace the linked abbreviation with the corresponding text. - dcljr (talk) 13:58, 5 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. --Connel MacKenzie (talk) 03:31, 4 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

CU edit

Just letting you know about [[Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2014/March#CheckUsers on Wiktionary]].​—msh210 (talk) 18:12, 30 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. Regarding CU status - it has always been my belief that all CU's should have extensive knowledge about IP and a solid foundation with TCP/IP. The CU tools don't offer any benefit to someone who doesn't understand the results. That said, community politics (towards the end) often ran afoul of definitive results. So I'm not sure the CU ability is beneficial at all times. --Connel MacKenzie (talk) 22:36, 30 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Somewhat random, but... edit

My mind keeps reading your name as "Colonel MacKenzie", which makes me always read your statements in my head with the voice of an military veteran. I just wanted to mention this, because my mind has been doing this for years. Tharthan (talk) 21:36, 29 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

I am indeed a veteran, but USN not army. If it helps at all; when you see my name try thinking of "O'Connel" or even better..."Oh! Connel!" Hope this helps. --Connel MacKenzie (talk) 22:33, 30 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Your account will be renamed edit

23:45, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed edit

23:49, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

This is a joke in poor taste. --Connel MacKenzie (talk) 00:31, 19 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Gutenberg edit

Hi CMK. I've been mercilessly deleting things fro your subpage User:Connel MacKenzie/Gutenberg. As it was originally a page to find missing entries, I've added lots of blue links, and speedied any pages which were all blue links. Hope you don't mind! --Type56op9 (talk) 12:46, 18 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Sounds like a good plan, offhand. --Connel MacKenzie (talk) 00:33, 19 March 2015 (UTC)Reply
Are you still here, then? I thought you'd taken your ball and gone home. With a dozen edits over three years, you might as well be gone. bd2412 T 16:36, 7 April 2015 (UTC)Reply
In any case, I have proposed to remove your bits. Not any bits that you'll miss, though. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:52, 7 April 2015 (UTC)Reply
I've cleaned out User:Connel MacKenzie/Gutenberg, just so you know. It was an enjoyable experience figuring out the meanings. --Zo3rWer (talk) 08:00, 26 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

Frequency lists edit

Hi. I would like to know what was your methodology while preparing this list? I mean did you use some kind of a bot to calculate the per billion counter? :) Please let me know. Tashi (talk) 00:35, 29 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

I wrote my own programs in the programming language MUMPS. At the time, I was diligently downloading everything I could, from Project Gutenberg. --Connel MacKenzie (talk) 22:11, 18 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

No, those are both covered under sense one. edit

The above appeared on my talk page signed by you, but I have no idea what you are talking about. Bgoldnyxnet (talk) 18:09, 2 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

RFD discussion: March–April 2018 edit

 

The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process (permalink).

It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.


From a dump dated 2009-02-02

A fairly large file that duplicates others in concept.

"This is temporary, until they fix Special:Wantedpages." (which has long since been fixed) DCDuring (talk) 23:48, 12 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Delete. Per utramque cavernam (talk) 22:34, 13 March 2018 (UTC)Reply


Edit request edit

User talk:Connel MacKenzie/archive-2006-08 has lint errors, including Lint errors: Multiple unclosed formatting tags, and this is a particular problem now with the rollout of the new linter software, because <tt>...<tt> used to be quietly corrected to <tt>...</tt>, but the new linter software doesn't do this, so, starting in the middle of the CommonsTicker: new version, new features section, everything appears in monospaced font. If you unprotect User talk:Connel MacKenzie/archive-2006-08, I can de-lint it for you, or if you want to do it yourself, please change:

<tt>editor<tt>

to

<samp>editor</samp>

This will leave a number of obsolete HTML tags, specifically <tt>...</tt>, which should be replaced with <samp>...<samp>, and <font>...</font>, which require a small amount of customization in replacing with <span style>...<span>. These obsolete HTML tags are not as urgent, because browsers will probably support them for awhile. —Anomalocaris (talk) 15:29, 6 June 2018 (UTC)Reply

  Done Another admin unprotected the page; I've made the corrections. —Anomalocaris (talk) 16:28, 6 June 2018 (UTC)Reply