Patrik Stridvall

Esperanto

Hallå, Patrik! Varför la du {{{1}}} på Template:eo-noun? Jag menar, det finns jo inga oregelrätta formar i esperanto, så den borde vara onödvendig? Jon Harald Søby 12:09, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

The page Wiktionary:Esperanto inflection templates needs it and it doesn't disturb other pages. In principle I think that all templates that uses {{PAGENAME}} should take an optional parameter as well in case it is needed somewhere Patrik Stridvall 12:26, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

meta:Template:if

I was looking at some of your handiwork earlier. I guess it was wrong to assume you were just a random "really smart guy" trotting in off the street, as it were. Whoops, meta:User:Patrick isn't you, after all, is it? --Connel MacKenzie T C 10:44, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

No, it is not me. As to whether I'm smart or not I leave to others to judge... --Patrik Stridvall 11:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Anyway,

I'm certain I do not understand the mechanisms being used in template:if. I created it here, and changed the parameters from test, then, else to 1, 2, 3 to see if that would help my comprehension (and to make the bloody thing less verbose.) That worked just fine. I've now prepared the first of my English inflection templates (sheesh, I'm the only one around here who hasn't written my own series of them, yet) but held off for a moment on uploading them. I'd like to understand those substitution methods a bit better before charging ahead. {{{else{{{else|}}} in particular has me perplexed. Can you explain that in 100 words or less?

{{{else{{{test|}}}|{{{test{{{test|}}}|{{{then|}}}}}}}}}

The {{{test{{{test|}}}| is there to ignore "test" when it is non-empty. --Patrik Stridvall 11:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Also, is meta:template:if set in stone, and being used extensively yet? Or is there time to switch (just that one template) to use numbers instead of named variables? Or is there a naming convention I'm unaware of, like ifn or something? More to the point, if I restore my version of template:if, will it cause massive amounts of incompatability a year (or ten) from now?

I have been planning to study them more carefully, but I haven't come around to it yet. I will try to do that soon. However, I don't think using them will result in any future incompabillities. --Patrik Stridvall 11:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Cheers,

--Connel MacKenzie T C 10:41, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I think I've got it now. The "array" syntax is the cheat that this template uses to accomplish the substitutions,

Yes, I think you got it correctly. However, "dynamic parameter name" probably describes it better than "array". Still, they can be used for some things that arrays are used for in other languages. See meta:Template:switch described in meta:Help:Advanced_templates. --Patrik Stridvall 21:17, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

and I was completely unaware the "array" syntax existed. --Connel MacKenzie T C 20:30, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

It is a new feature in 1.6. Actually 1.6 has not even been released yet but Wiktionary currently runs 1.6alpha. --Patrik Stridvall 21:17, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Inflection templates

I know you have put some effort in categorizing and organizing this stuff, so I let you know that I'm revising things a bit. I'm for instance pulling out the somewhat unnecessary "Wiktionary" from the Category:Wiktionary:Inflection templates. — Vildricianus 21:20, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

My cleanup is done (you may notice the time span between this and the above comment). I understand that you had put a considerable amount of work in the categorization, and apart from the change of names, I've left everything in place (I checked and double-checked that). That is, I've changed about every category of Swedish templates, English topic templates etc. Yes, this was massively complicated and has taken me about 200 edits. Do comment, however, if you find things cluttered up. (You might want to adapt the links on you userpage). — Vildricianus 23:50, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I will look it through later. Have to sleep now. But as for the somewhat unnecessary "Wiktionary:" in the categories. Well, strictly speaking these categories are not really the same as the other categories that classify things in the main namespace. I thought hard about it but finally decided to add it, mostly because of teoretical reasons. I wasn't sure and still isn't sure if it would matter in practise. I don't really care that much, but I'm slightly annoyed that you did it without discussing it first. Surely you must have realized I added it for a reason. --Patrik Stridvall 02:09, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I did realize. I should have discussed it indeed, and the reason why I didn't was because at first, I only wanted to change Wiktionary:Inflection templates, and from there, I got entangled in the categories. I didn't want to stop at half measures, though, so I proceeded. I personally think that the new names are clearer. — Vildricianus 12:28, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I have looked it through now. It is OK as far as I can. As for clearer, perhaps, the reason I did as I did was because I (as a programmer) too often been bitten by, because of convienience, not separating things that are slightly different. In this case, it probably doesn't matter. I'm certainly not going to revert what you have done. It's good that there are other people like you that continued what I started eventhough they they have a slight different vision. But that is what Wiki is all about to eventually reach something good by editing other peoples sometimes misguided attempts. --Patrik Stridvall 12:54, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

accessible

Why did you move that stuff to "obtainable"? The translations don't correspond! — Vildricianus 21:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

They don't? Obviously because I thought they did. Just because a word can replace another word in some sense doesn't mean we should have multiple copies of translations. If you are just talking about the Dutch translations. Well, that is why I added a TTBC... --Patrik Stridvall 21:26, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

What? Just because the definition tag says "obtainable" doesn't mean that it is the same as "obtainable" (it does deserve a better definition). Please don't move translations you're not sure of this way. You could draw my attention to it (for Dutch) when you're not certain, but this is unnecessarily confusing things. BTW, I still don't see them at obtainable? — Vildricianus 21:34, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Obviously accessible and obtainable have an overlapping sense. There are many words that are like that. In this case obtainable seem to be the candidate to have the definitions on. And yes, they are there. The servers are just slow, I have had a problem with this too...

But sure we have can define a policy regarding how and then this should done. It needs to be done for many different words I think. --Patrik Stridvall 21:48, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that'd be a good idea. Of course, there's overlap, but that doesn't mean we should start moving translations. Often, there are subtle differences, even if not in the languages you know. That's more than enough reason for not doing as you proposed. — Vildricianus 21:53, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. Unless the subtle difference is very clearly defined the translations will be wrong. In this case there was no more information to indicate anything else. Translations are often to not say almost almost very approximate anyway. Believing that any other languages will reflect any subtle difference and futhermore that it will be useful to anybody is overly optimistic I think. --Patrik Stridvall 08:33, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I have done some further research see [1], [2], [3]. Given this I'm not convinced any use of accessible in that specific sense is in any meaningful way distinct from obtainable. One source, but only one, suggest that accessible means "easily obtainable" but even so, I don't expect that any translation will be different in any meaningful way. It possible that any difference you imagine exists is in the Dutch translations. Even if the sense was "easily obtainable" I think that a "See obtainable" would be better.

So, yes. I do believe that some senses need to be shared between different words and that we need to define a policy outlining how this should be done. --Patrik Stridvall 12:18, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Invitation to contribute

Hi,

(Patrik - you're a regular contributor so I think you know about this already, but I'm sending it out to lots of people. I know you do a lot of work here already so feel free to say no if this is more than you are willing to take on.)

You might or might not already be aware that there is now a new system in place for marking translations that need to be checked (those that are suspected of being incorrect or those where it is not clear which sense(s) of a word the translations apply to). (See here for the Beer parlour discussion on this topic.)

Translations to be checked are now categorised by language. For example, Category:Translations_to_be_checked_(French) contains a list of all words where French translations need to be checked. This is designed to make the checking of these translations easier to maintain and work with.

I'm contacting everyone who has expressed an interest in working on translations or has indicated in Wiktionary:Babel that they have a good knowledge of a particular foreign language or languages.

Would you be interested in helping out with the translations to be checked for Swedish? If so, please read the page on how to check translations.

If you want to reply to this message, please do so on my talk page. Thanks for your help you can provide.

— Paul G 08:46, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

nibling

I really don't like what you've done here with the Swedish translations. If there are different words for different shades of meaning in translations, then these should be done as follows:

• xxx (meaning 1), yyy (meaning 2) [etc]

rather than introducing a translation table for each. There is meant to be one translation table for each English sense. Many languages will not have the shades of meaning you have introduced, and will have unnecessarily duplicated entries in the translation tables. — Paul G 13:32, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I see your point, but I don't like your formating either. Futhermore there it is unclear in general what consititutes a sense of a word. The word can represent any of nine different distinct concepts so in some meaning it has 9 senses. But OK since nephew and niece covers 3 concepts each I guess that leaves 5 senses (one primary and 4 secondary).

1. siblings' children
   1. nephew
   2. niece
   3. brothers' children
   4. sisters' children

I really think we need to define a policy how we should handle this kind of issues. If we can't agree on how we should handle senses for concrete distinct concept, I can't see how to agree on abstract concepts. See also the discussion on this page concerning any shared sense concering accessible and obtainable.

Futhermore we probably should have primary and secondary senses for words since often English words have secondary senses that Swedish simply can't represent you have to use the primary sense and try to be more specific some other way. --Patrik Stridvall 16:56, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we need a policy on this. What we should not be doing, in my view, however, is subdividing senses artificially for the sake of a foreign language that has finer distinctions that do not exist in English. This is likely to lead to a multiplicity of subsenses that apply only in certain foreign languages (for example, consider "you", where some languages have singular and plural forms, formal and informal forms, male and female forms, etc, whereas English has only the singular and plural forms).

By the way, shouldn't "siblings' children", etc, be "sibling's child", etc, as each "nibling" refers to a single child? I think having plurals makes things a little unclear.

Of course. Swedish barn can mean both child and children so I just mistranslated. --Patrik Stridvall 17:47, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you could raise this in the beer parlour so we can work out a suitable policy. Thanks. — Paul G 17:02, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that I don't have any good solutions nor am I sure whether I agree or disagree on whether we should subdivide the senses for translations or not. In some meaning if an English word can represent a concept it must in some meaning have a corresponding sense. On the other hand doing this might lead to an enourmous amount of senses that few languages can represent... So yes, I share your worries, but I'm still not sure whether I agree or not.

BTW. Then we have the opposite problem. English senses that doesn't seem have different translations. See life. --Patrik Stridvall 17:47, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

The translations section provides possible translations. No translation can claim to be congruent (and in practice almost never will be!) with the meaning it is assigned to: Any translation might have meanings the meaning it translates doesn't have and vice versa. Definitions of any word should always be given in the most natural way with respect to the word's language. We do not split definitions just because it would be natural in some other language. To what extent we should specify that a translation does not cover the whole definition is debatable. The current solution on "nibling" is acceptable, but I wouldn't mind too much I we decided to remove the specifiers in parentheses. On the long run you will be able to look up what exactly the translations mean by clicking on them (A prerequisite for this is of course that we scrap the "translations only" policy for the definitions of non-English words, which people like Connel fiercly uphold despite its obvious idiocy). People came to the same conclusion on fly (French verb translation) and man (Definition split on 16/08/05 for Polish translations). Ncik 18:40, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

What is a natural split and what is not? I think it depends more on the topics of conversation than the language you are speaking in. All words represent concepts, sometimes a word represent some concept sometimes it represents some other related concept. The senses of a word described in a dictionary is the set of all concepts a word have been observed frequently enough to represent. These observations have been grouped together in senses and given a reasonable definition. However, the groupings are largely arbitrary and is based on whomever is doing the groupings limited knowledge of possible topics of conversation. The fact that any mistake is more easily detected when translating between language doesn't really make the mistake more any less serious.

As for non-English words, they should have qualifications, not definitions. In practice, however, the difference between a definition and a qualification in not that great even though a qualification is usually shorter and can even be empty in rare cases. Swedish solsystem means exactly the same as English solar system nothing more nothing less so it doesn't need a qualification. --Patrik Stridvall 19:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Merger doctrine

Thank you for your comments, and for your reference to the merger doctrine. I expected there must be something like that but surprisingly I had not encountered the term before. This has gotten me to look further into this, hoping that I could find something relating to dictionaries. So far I have found one case from Japan. See http://www.itlaw.jp/originality.pdf pp7-8. The Lotus v. Borland case is also instructive http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/6805/articles/int-prop/lotus/lpf-amicus2.txt . Eclecticology 12:46, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Many cases you will find concerning it involves somebody that have an "unique" idea often an algoritm or something similar. In the "Lotus v. Borland" it was a GUI IIRC. Our situation is much stronger since "unique" ideas (read: concepts) doesn't usually have words attached to them and even if they have they are not likely to meet our CFI. Futhermore dictionaries are for obvious reasons neither the originators of the idea (read: concept) nor the orginators of any expression describing it. So they must themselves derived their entry from somewhere, thus they must themselves have justified their inclusion using the merger doctrine or something similar. This makes their case even weaker.

Now, while I haven't really followed exactly what Primetime and "friends" have been doing, I simply don't have time to read everything, I'm not convinced that what has been done is a copyvio. However, it too much into the gray zone for my taste, so I agree that we should do whatever possible to discourage such behavior. --Patrik Stridvall 19:11, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Thx

Thanks for your answer on Ec's talk page! — Vildricianus 18:02, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Deleting Russian

Why are you deleting Russian entries, as you did at [4]? They were correct. —Stephen 20:08, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Deleted? I moved them to translations to be checked. While there was a high probably that they were correct, I thought better safe that sorry. Beside there are more senses now so attracting the attention of somebody who speaks Russian was a bonus. :-) --Patrik Stridvall 20:26, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

This is the second time I've seen you messing with translations. (a) If you're not certain whether a translation is correct or not (particularly in a language you don't understand), check the history of a page to see who added them. (b) Translations that are in disambiguated tables (with bold definitions above) are likely to be correct; moving these to TTBC is adding to the problem instead of solving it. If everyone starts overhauling definitions in order to fill in their own translations and moves those present yet to TTBC, we'll never achieve anything. Please consider not doing this again! — Vildricianus 20:35, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

The point is that when the senses change quite significantly I can't be sure whether a translation for a slightly changed sense is correct or not. Who added them is really irrelevant. This is not very likely to happend very often for each word though. I usually research every sense of each word very carefully before doing something like this. As you can see I usually add synonyms and antonyms to be sure that they really are reasonally distinct senses. I'm sure that there is much more to do for each word but after my changes it is much less for anybody to feel need to do it again. While certainly invidual senses might be split, merged or added and, fewer and fewer translations will be moved back to TTBC each time. Eventually after a few iterations we will have good senses with translation table headers that are not very likely to change in any significant way. --Patrik Stridvall 20:53, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Please tell me the difference between branch of knowledge that studies the past and study of the past; also between aggregate of past events and past events. Even better, tell me the difference between The list of past and continuing medical conditions of an individual or family and The list of past and continuing medical conditions of an individual or family. — Vildricianus 21:16, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I made a mistake in this case. But there were only one language Russian that had translations so I didn't really make keeping the translations at the senses at a priority. If there are many translations I'm usually much more careful. Moving the Russian translation away was the first I did so I could divide up the senses without bothering with a language that I didn't understand. Sure perhaps I should have moved them back when I finally arrived at senses that wasn't that different.

I'm not sure why you waste time discussing this. Is not the entry for history much better now? I'm not perfect and neither are you. I have seen mistakes you have made and but I don't complain unless there is a policy issue involved. --Patrik Stridvall 21:37, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Just that one case, huh? Then what’s the difference between "medical history" and "medicine: list of past and continuing medical conditions"? I had just put that category onto the page and I had just finished putting the Russian translations for the various senses. You aren’t paying attention to what you’re doing. Please fix it, because I’m certainly not going to. From now on I’m watching, and if you screw up my work again, Ï’ll starting reverting you. —Stephen 22:47, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

As I said, since it was just one language, it was easier to move it away to TTBC, than to think about preserving it. It was because I am careful that I moved them away. But sure I can easily fix the "old" senses since as it turned out they didn't really change in any significant way, the problem is that I have no idea whether they are correct for the other senses so it would be better somebody that understood Russian fixed it all. But OK if you insist. Done.

There is a reason why there is policy called "Assume good faith". It is because it avoids these kind of discussions that takes much more time than it takes to actually fix the problem. --Patrik Stridvall 23:22, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Every translation is worth this entire project's value. Why do I care? Because I'm not fond of seeing the TTBC categories grow instead of decrease. And because I've seen you doing such things before; therefore I was concerned. Generally, I prefer discussion and clarification rather than negligence or complacency. That way, both parties can learn and understand one another. That's why the Talk namespace exists. Moreover, you should know I like to elaborate on various subjects ;-). I never waste time while writing in English. — Vildricianus 21:49, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind discussing the principle of what I am doing. If you disagree with the iterative process I favor, fine, lets discuss that. No problem. But when you get started with specifics you get into things that might have been done by mistake and that just wastes time. If you make an accusation I sort of have to defend it.

As for growing TTBC categories. Well, the Swedish one is shrinking rapidly. Almost 90% done. :-) I have found that it is essential to find synonyms and antonyms for the senses to really understand how the translations are to be done and that takes time. Otherwise the Swedish category would be at zero right now. Unfortunetly this process grows the other categories, but I think it will be better in the long run. --Patrik Stridvall 22:33, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Split of time as verb

I have reverted your split of a verbal sense of time. The policy as I understand it is to translate each English sense, and not split them on account of translations. I am not accusing you of deliberately countering that standard: from the examples it might seem that there could in fact be distinction. However, I believe there is none.

• "The President timed his speech badly, coinciding with the Superbowl."

Here the actor is human and the object is his speech. It is incorrect to say that this is "of a human" since the object is inanimate.

• "The bomb was timed to explode at 9:20 p.m."

This is passive voice. The actor is human and unnamed. Equivalently, "Someone timed the bomb to explode at 9:20 p.m."

The word set can only be substituted in the second as a result of the wording. However, it could be used in the first if the context is altered slightly:

The President set his speech to coincide with the Superbowl.

Although the Scandinavian languages may not agree on this, to say that a clocked device is different is an unnecessary distinction in English. The concepts appear to me to be very closely related. Davilla 09:47, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

What triggered the change was the fact that Finnish already had made a distinction and I realized that Swedish make the same distinction so I thought I would take it all the way... Thinking more about it is possibly more a question of pragmatics in Swedish and possibly Finnish than of semantics. "tidsinställa" means literally "to set the time for" but it would sound odd to use of non-devices eventhough the meaning would be absolutely clear. Still "to choose the time for" and "to set the time for" is subtly different even in English, but perhaps not in any meaningful way. --Patrik Stridvall 10:24, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

TTBC sv

I see the category is empty now. As I understand most of this is your work, thank you! — Vildricianus 08:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Most of it, yes. I have had some help though, or at least the category have been shrinking from time to time without I have done anything. Anyway, if you think I have added senses that doesn't "make sense" (pun intended), feel free to put it back in TTBC. I don't mind. I expect it to be an iterative process. --Patrik Stridvall 09:04, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Toolserveraccount

Hello Patrik, please write an eMail with your prefer login-name and the public part of your ssh-key to zedler-admins@wikimedia.org and I will create your account soon. -- DaB.

Units of Time

Thanks for filling in the Swedish months of the year! It's so nice to see this information finally showing up on Wiktionary. Second, could you help fill in the Swedish information on Appendix:Units of time? If you know of people who could help fill in more languages, that would be great! --EncycloPetey 12:09, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. No, I don't know anybody that speaks any of the languages not yet filled in. --Patrik Stridvall 15:41, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Input solicited

Just wanted you to know: there is a new section of Wiktionary, WT:GP that could use your insight.

On another note, could you write something to reset Wiktionary:Sandbox every 15 minutes or so? --Connel MacKenzie T C 14:41, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

header tool

Looks like you may be taking a break, but: when you have a chance, could you update http://tools.wikimedia.de/~stridvall/headers.php to reflect the June XML dump? Thanks. —scs 04:42, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Or /home/stridvall/public_html/_user.php ? July dump was on 20060704. --Connel MacKenzie 04:50, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Done. --Patrik Stridvall 19:01, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! —scs 20:54, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Swedish on English Wiktionary

I have made a proposal on Wiktionary talk:Swedish inflection templates#Naming conventions and template layout that I would really like your input on.

Furthermore, I moved Wiktionary:Swedish Language to Wiktionary:About Swedish (to follow the same naming convention as Wiktionary:About German) and expanded it a bit. Would the talk page of that page be an appropriate place to discuss general concepts/problems related specifically to the presentation of Swedish words on English Wiktionary?

I realise that you are very busy right now, but then on the other hand there is no real rush. Summer is here, enjoy. *smile* --sanna 06:43, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

göro

I've nominated the göro entry for deletion. --LA2 13:00, 22 August 2010 (UTC)