User talk:Ruakh/2014

January 2014

Unsorted interwikis

I noticed this edit by Rukhabot and that the interwikis on the page are unsorted. Aren't they supposed to be sorted? Why doesn't Rukhabot sort them? --WikiTiki89 23:57, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

They are sorted. Per MediaWiki:Interwiki config-sorting order, en.wikt uses the meta-native-languagename ordering, which is given at m:MediaWiki:Interwiki config-sorting order-native-languagename. (See m:Interwiki sorting order for more information.) —Ruakh 00:19, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Oh. I didn't realize that we sorted them that way in the source code as well. --WikiTiki89 00:24, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

That's how it works: those pages tell bots how the interwikis should be ordered in the wikitext, and the software just preserves that order when it renders the page. (The software itself doesn't know anything about MediaWiki:Interwiki config-sorting order or m:MediaWiki:Interwiki config-sorting order-native-languagename, it's just a convention.) —Ruakh 01:06, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Does that mean that when we add interwikis to a page, they appear in the same order that they're in the source code, just like with categories? —CodeCat 21:38, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Yup. —Ruakh 21:45, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

"attention"

I noticed you're adding {{attention}} to pages as you fix them, but I'm not sure if that's really necessary? I mean, just adding a headword template doesn't seem like something that would need to be checked. —CodeCat 21:36, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

The {{attention}} isn't asking people to check my work, it's asking people to check and improve the entry. There may be a more-specific headword template that can be used; there may be gender or other information missing; the whole entry may be wrong from the get-go; and so on. I'm removing some obvious evidence of wrongness, but that doesn't mean everything is O.K. now. —Ruakh 21:44, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I just think that if I came across an entry like that, I'd be confused about the template because I wouldn't know what it was for. In the past, I've used a bot to add the correct headword-line templates, so calling for attention has never really been needed for me. Instead, the templates that the bot added would themselves add the appropriate categories, like Category:Dutch nouns needing inflection which {{nl-noun}} adds. It's much clearer that way I think. —CodeCat 21:47, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

I take it you've never actually read the description atop the attention categories? :-)   —Ruakh 21:48, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

I think that all attention tags should have a reason given as a second parameter. Otherwise who would ever be able to fix them if they don't know what's wrong? --WikiTiki89 21:50, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

That seems backward. The person who's giving attention should be the person who can tell if something is wrong (and if so what). —Ruakh 22:12, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

The person who adds the attention tag needs to have something in mind otherwise they wouldn't add it. There needs to be some kind of hint for the person checking it even if it's just "verify headword template". --WikiTiki89 22:16, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

So {{attention|xx|this entry seems to have been created by someone who either wasn't familiar with our conventions, or else wasn't paying enough attention at the time}}? I'm not sure what benefit that adds. —Ruakh 23:53, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Well there has to be reason that it "seems to have been created by ...", so that reason should be in the attention tag. For example: "poor formatting", "suspicious gender/number/declension/etc.", "suspicious definition", etc. You can't expect people to notice the same things that you do even if they are more familiar with the language in question. More importantly, when the person checking the entry looks and finds nothing wrong, they will hesitate to remove the attention tag if they don't know what it was for, or they will remove the attention tag before whatever it was there for is fixed. --WikiTiki89 03:07, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I think you're misunderstanding me. Actually, I think you're misunderstanding the conversation here. The reason it "seems to have been created by ..." is that it had a glaring problem; but I addressed that problem, so it wouldn't be helpful to call it out. So now I just want the entry to be glanced at by someone who's qualified to glance at it. —Ruakh 03:14, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Then perhaps {{attention|xx|double-check entry}} would be best. That way the checker knows that there is no specific complaint. --WikiTiki89 03:18, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

O.K., I can do that. —Ruakh 03:21, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

User: Kc kennylau

This contributor is certainly very enthusiastic, but the sheer volume of edits has me a little concerned: one bout of accelerated page-creations hit 78 in 12 minutes. I don't know the limitations of the system, but I seem to remember you cautioning someone at one time against setting the throttle on a bot to a fraction of that speed. Even if I knew more about editing in Chinese, I couldn't begin to patrol that. They're also asking for AWB privileges. That said, I know how much I don't know, so I thought I'd bring it to your attention and let you decide if any action is necessary (or even a good idea). Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 03:10, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

One edit every 9.23 seconds is fine from a system-limitations standpoint; I actually run my bots at a higher edit-frequency than that. (Of course, if 78 edits in 12 minutes means something "burstier", with a bunch of edits at once followed by a break, then the situation is a bit different.) (Also of course, I run my bots with the maxlag= parameter set, telling MediaWiki that it's O.K. to reject their edits if the system is lagging, as it frequently is; Kc kennylau obviously isn't doing that.)
But if you're concerned about patrolling, I definitely think it's reasonable to ask Kc kennylau to edit more slowly.
—Ruakh 03:28, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

If you're not worried, I'm not worried. I'm not qualified to patrol Chinese except for language-independent stuff, anyway. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:57, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

logique

I am curious, have you ever taken a course on logic, or perhaps read a book on such? --Æ&Œ (talk) 18:19, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Sure — both math-ish and computer-engineering-ish. Why do you ask? —Ruakh 01:07, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I thought that if it helped you, it would also help our friend; you could recommend that he train hisself to be a logician (an unofficial one), assuming that he wants to improve hisself, of course. --Æ&Œ (talk) 03:10, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

In my experience, the people who would most benefit from that are the ones least likely to resort to it. After all, if you're always right and everyone who says otherwise is out to get you because they disagree with you or don't like you, then you're liable to tell everyone else to study logic, because their thinking is obviously flawed- not yours. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:42, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. Besides, his problem isn't that he's got the formalisms wrong, it's that he doesn't think critically or make rational arguments (or even try to do so, SFAICT). I don't think a course in logic can really help with that. —Ruakh 05:14, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

So fix it

If you want to fix "bugs", fix them, don't just "click the warning message away" and think that solves it. The error is there for a reason, and removing it doesn't suddenly make everything fine. Don't stick your head in the sand and start edit warring over it. —CodeCat 12:00, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

The bug is the script error, as explained in the discussion you claimed to read, where the vast majority of editors agreed.

The point is, missing asterisks do not cause long-term problems — we can easily find, identify, and fix them. Script errors do cause long-term problems — they make it look like Wiktionary is broken, and they drive away contributors that we cannot get back.

I know the error is there for a reason, but it is wrong.

If you revert again, I will block you.

—Ruakh 17:21, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Rukhabot activities

At Wiktionary:Votes/2011-04/Representative entries it had been discussed that the default sorting order within a category should not be overwritten. IMHO it is completly another thing to avoid that each entry in a category gets a headline of this entry. Please look to Category:Kangxi radicals to understand what I try to explain: in opposition to the first few entries, all the characters are precided by an additional headline of the character itself. This is rather disturbing than of any use, doubles the lines and makes it difficult to get a swift overview.

The headings are useful where severeal entries with the same leading letter should be bundled together, making this way partitions allowing an easier overview. They are totally useless in categories of single letters, where they are just doubling each single enty.

I categorized the items in Category:Han rad sup with [[Category:Han rad sup| ]] to avoid the generation of this unwanted headline - this does not change the sorting order mentioned in the votes (when it is done with all entries). As I see now, your bot changed this in January 2013 in 8 of 16 category entries. I repaired it, just to see later that in the above mentioned Category:Kangxi radicals much more entries are affected.
Would you mind to undo that last edit there (33 cases) ?
I think it will be done faster with the bot instead of by hand.

BTW, Category:CJKV radicals contains 275 entries, all of them with the headlinings because of the categorizing without the "| "-sequence. Is your bot able to add this sequence to all the pages in this category? Toda sarang♥사랑 09:24, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry about that. I see that you've now fixed most of Category:Kangxi radicals by hand; I'm sorry you had to do that. (I should have replied faster.) I've now fixed up the last three pages.

For Category:CJKV radicals, I'd certainly be willing to do that, though I'd rather it were mentioned at Wiktionary:Beer parlour beforehand (to make sure everyone's on board with this change); 'be bold' does not apply to bot-edits. Would you be willing to post there?

Thanks,
—Ruakh 18:24, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

February 2014

hihkaista

Can you recall, why you added attention -tag on this entry back in 2012? I don't see any problem in it. --Hekaheka (talk) 21:27, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

It just had some weirdnesses, such as weird use of parentheses ("shout (shrilly)", "my (Finnish) passport"), and I felt that a Finnish-speaking contributor should look at it. If it seems fine to you, then it's fine. —Ruakh 06:19, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

March 2014

tense v. aspect in BH

I think [1] may interest you. (But I must admit I've only read the first section and the summaries and skimmed the balance.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 05:19, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

It does; thanks! —Ruakh 17:45, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

April 2014

Feature request

Hi,

I've made a feature request for you at User_talk:Ruakh/Tbot.js#Tbot_for_Chinese. Please reply when you can :). --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:48, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

הדס

The "{{n-g|A term for tzaddik, a righteous person.}}" sense, with two cites, seems non-distinct from the other sense. The cite to Esther would be a good one, except that it's to a different word. Arguably, it's simply a feminine form, but, anyway, that's the sole cite, I think: the Zechariah cite is I think to the "myrtle" sense, with the metaphor not of lexical interest. And the Esther cite is arguably to Hadasa as a smart or stupid or pretty or ugly or brave or cowardly woman just as much as it may be to a righteous woman. I gather from your inclusion of the sense and its cites that you disagree with what I wrote about both cites, and am curious to know your reasoning. Moreover, I was about to add the modern-Israeli "{{given name|female}}" sense, but worry that it's redundant to the "n-g|term for a righteous person" sense.​—msh210℠ (talk) 04:49, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Re: "I gather from your inclusion of the sense and its cites that you disagree with what I wrote about both cites": No, I actually thought about the same things you did, and strongly suspected that someone would message me asking about it. (I actually find the Esther cite even less relevant than you seem to: hadasá appears to be a proper noun in that cite — Esther's "Jewish name", essentially, just as many Jews today have both Jewish and secular names — and so, at best, using a sense derived from a "righteous person" sense.) I was just following the presentation at the he.wikt entry, figuring that that was the best approach for an edit whose edit-summary claimed it was taking its information thence, and that if we disagreed with their presentation, we could make changes in follow-up edits. —Ruakh 05:09, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Then I think one such change should be removing the second sense. (And another should be adding the given-name proper-noun sense.) Any objection or tweak?​—msh210℠ (talk) 05:38, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Sounds good. —Ruakh 06:06, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Done.​—msh210℠ (talk) 06:18, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

June 2014

Edit-warring with me on my page

If you are going to put the unblock request back, could you at least mark it as accepted or declined? Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 20:12, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

"Edit-warring" after one revert… and this is the person who demands others to assume good faith of him. Typical. And no, he could not. Nobody bothered to add this functionality to the unblock template, or to create another one. — Keφr 21:20, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Kephir, it's a no-no across all Wikipedia projects to edit-war with another editor on their own page. If a person wants to remove content from his own page, he is perfectly entitled to do so. Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 21:50, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Again, one revert does not an edit war make. Mentioning "edit-warring" just serves to paint Ruakh as an aggressor of sorts, and suggest bad faith on his part. So hello, pot. And no page belongs to one user, even user pages. Pages belong to the whole community, should serve the community's purpose, and may be administered at the collective or individual discretion of its members. Which is also true on Wikipedia, otherwise they would not have things like w:WP:U5. While we do not require archiving user talk pages, this recent block is still relevant to current discussions, and therefore the unblock request should not be buried in edit history. Also, we are getting quite tired of reminding you that this is not a Wikipedia project. — Keφr 22:36, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Putting comments back on another user's talk page after that user has deleted or archived those comments is in bad faith, Kephir. That's on Meta and applies to all WikiProjects. Your "no page belongs to one user" isn't entirely true. If Ruakh decided to delete this entire conversation, I wouldn't argue with him. Likewise, he shouldn't argue with me when I want to remove content from my page. Again, this applies to all projects, including Wiktionary, and there's nothing in the Wiktionary policies on userpages that says otherwise. Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 23:03, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Re: "Putting comments back on another user's talk page after that user has deleted or archived those comments is in bad faith, Kephir": That is not true, and I don't see how you can think that it is. I won't bother linking to our page on good faith, because I know you don't care, but you should at least read the first few paragraphs of w:Wikipedia:Assume good faith. "Bad faith" means that someone is acting maliciously, and is trying to harm the project rather than help it. You are, of course, welcome to believe that users should be allowed to remove anything at all from their talk-page, without restriction or encumbrance; but do you really believe that any contrary action is inherently malicious? —Ruakh 00:41, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, it flies in the face of talk page guidelines, starts the beginnings of an edit war, and does nothing to improve mainspace (my definition of "helping the project"). Hardly the most productive use of time...or the one most in line with rules. It's not vandalism, but there's no reason at all to make the edit. But if thought it was a REALLY bad idea, how come I didn't try to remove it again, even though I am entitled to do so? Also, consider what you would do if I did that to you. You would certainly gripe about it on my talk page. Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 01:02, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Your Bot

Hello. I've been seeing a lot from your bot within the past few months, and I've been wondering...

How does one (or, I suppose quite literally "you" in this case) operate a bot like that? I'm not interested in operating one myself or anything like that, but I'm just interested how one operates a bot like that to do what it does.

For instance, does it work whilst you're offline or when your computer is shut down? Tharthan (talk) 18:41, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

I run it on my personal laptop, so it can only run when that computer is turned on and connected to the Internet. And I don't run it as a daemon process or whatnot; rather, I run it in an open Command Prompt (shell) window, so I manually control its starting (and its stopping, usually), and am always more-or-less aware that it's running.

Does that answer all of your questions?

By the way, if I may ask — why aren't you interested in operating one yourself?

—Ruakh 03:56, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I see. Yes, that answers my questions, thank you. The reason why I don't wish to operate one is because the types of things that I do on Wikimedia projects aren't really things that a bot could do. See, anent Wiktionary, I focus more on correcting factitious information, uploading audio files and creating new pages more so than anything else. And, in regards to Wikipedia, I work mostly on creating new pages and correcting factitious information. As such, I really can't see how a bot could make that any easier for me. Tharthan (talk) 14:44, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Do you like video games?

--Æ&Œ (talk) 03:00, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Not really. I mean, I've enjoyed them when I've played them, but I rarely play them. Why do you ask? —Ruakh 04:00, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

No particular reason, but perhaps I had the idea of asking it because a while ago you said that they are not durable sources for citations (or something to that effect). --Æ&Œ (talk) 09:30, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I've cited a video game once or twice before. I don't see any reason why video games shouldn't be considered valid cites — at least ones that receive a hard copy release. We allow music, movies, and TV shows to be used as cites. Video games are just another type of popular media. -Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 19:44, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I third this. Tharthan (talk) 19:50, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree, but caution is required: there are some that are poor translations from another language, so aren't really English usage- the most famous example being "all your base are belong to us". Chuck Entz (talk) 00:29, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't remember that conversation, but — there are a number of reasons to be extremely cautious with video games. For one thing, a video game is a piece of software, lacking the determinism of something like a piece of music or a movie or a TV show; if I say that a certain quotation appears 1 hour, 7 minutes, 12 seconds into a movie, anyone with a copy of the movie can check that. If I say that a certain quotation appears after you beat level 13 of a video game, provided that in level 6 you chose to discard weapon A in favor of tool B necessary to unlock the quotation, that becomes much more difficult to check; and if I don't even realize that there are preconditions that enabled me to ultimately see the quotation (such as, perhaps, a certain seed value to a random number generator), then it becomes effectively impossible for anyone to check. For another, video game formats and form factors have historically changed more quickly, and remained more proprietary, than those of music and video media, and video games have generally not been as reliably ported between formats and form factors. If a given quotation appears in the Nintendo Wii version of a game — even assuming that it does so very reliably — you can't be very confident that it will appear in any other version of the game. The quotation may be completely unverifiable without specific proprietary hardware. —Ruakh 18:17, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

"For one thing, a video game is a piece of software, lacking the determinism of something like a piece of music or a movie or a TV show; if I say that a certain quotation appears 1 hour, 7 minutes, 12 seconds into a movie, anyone with a copy of the movie can check that."

Not all copies of a film in existence are necessarily identical. There's the original theatrical cut that's released in the film's primary market. But then there may also be an extended edition that's later released on home media, which adds scenes that were cut from the original theatrical release. Or a director's cut which might adds, subtracts, or rearranges scenes because the theatrical cut didn't meet the director's original vision. Or a censored cut produced to comply with the laws of an international market, which has had scenes of nudity, sexuality, graphic violence, or anything deemed offensive to local cultural mores removed. Or a television cut which has had swear words censored and fifteen minutes shaved off the original theatrical runtime so that it'll fit in a typical two-hour "Movie of the Week" timeslot.

In addition, sometimes dialogue is too garbled or indistinct to parse from a film's audio, and one must rely on captions or a copy of the script to know what is being said.

My point, basically, is that a person's ability to verify a movie quote may depend upon their access to the "correct" version of the film and the correct hardware on which to play it. Someone who only owns a DVD copy of the censored cut of a film released in their country isn't going to be able to verify dialogue from a removed scene. Someone who only owns an ancient VHS copy of a movie released before captions became standard isn't going to be able to verify garbled or indistinct dialogue.

I don't see the complexities presented by video games in terms of citing as being all that different from the complexities presented by films. What matters is that quotations are verifiable by people with access to the correct copy of a particular film or video game, and the hardware to play it (or, barring that, the right emulator...), not that they're immediately verifiable by everyone. And I don't see an issue with noting the specific conditions under which dialogue appears in a game if it's not default. It's like noting the edition of a book, since what page a particular quotation appears on may differ between the hardcover and paperback editions, the American and UK editions, etc. -Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 22:38, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Plus, Ruakh, there are movies like Clue where your copy may well have a completely different ending than your next-door neighbour's copy. Tharthan (talk) 01:52, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@Tharthan "In the film's home video release, all three endings were included." --WikiTiki89 15:46, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, so what? I didn't say "all movies are magically perfect sources of citations, whereas all video games were sent by the Devil to confound our citation scheme", I said "there are a number of reasons to be extremely cautious with video games". —Ruakh 07:39, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

@Wikitiki89 I wasn't aware that such was the case. My mistake, then. @Ruakh Fair enough, then. Tharthan (talk) 17:53, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

An important message about renaming users

Dear Ruakh,

I am cross-posting this message to many places to make sure everyone who is a Wikimedia Foundation project bureaucrat receives a copy. If you are a bureaucrat on more than one wiki, you will receive this message on each wiki where you are a bureaucrat.

As you may have seen, work to perform the Wikimedia cluster-wide single-user login finalisation (SUL finalisation) is taking place. This may potentially effect your work as a local bureaucrat, so please read this message carefully.

Why is this happening? As currently stated at the global rename policy, a global account is a name linked to a single user across all Wikimedia wikis, with local accounts unified into a global collection. Previously, the only way to rename a unified user was to individually rename every local account. This was an extremely difficult and time-consuming task, both for stewards and for the users who had to initiate discussions with local bureaucrats (who perform local renames to date) on every wiki with available bureaucrats. The process took a very long time, since it's difficult to coordinate crosswiki renames among the projects and bureaucrats involved in individual projects.

The SUL finalisation will be taking place in stages, and one of the first stages will be to turn off Special:RenameUser locally. This needs to be done as soon as possible, on advice and input from Stewards and engineers for the project, so that no more accounts that are unified globally are broken by a local rename to usurp the global account name. Once this is done, the process of global name unification can begin. The date that has been chosen to turn off local renaming and shift over to entirely global renaming is 15 September 2014, or three weeks time from now. In place of local renames is a new tool, hosted on Meta, that allows for global renames on all wikis where the name is not registered will be deployed.

Your help is greatly needed during this process and going forward in the future if, as a bureaucrat, renaming users is something that you do or have an interest in participating in. The Wikimedia Stewards have set up, and are in charge of, a new community usergroup on Meta in order to share knowledge and work together on renaming accounts globally, called Global renamers. Stewards are in the process of creating documentation to help global renamers to get used to and learn more about global accounts and tools and Meta in general as well as the application format. As transparency is a valuable thing in our movement, the Stewards would like to have at least a brief public application period. If you are an experienced renamer as a local bureaucrat, the process of becoming a part of this group could take as little as 24 hours to complete. You, as a bureaucrat, should be able to apply for the global renamer right on Meta by the requests for global permissions page on 1 September, a week from now.

In the meantime please update your local page where users request renames to reflect this move to global renaming, and if there is a rename request and the user has edited more than one wiki with the name, please send them to the request page for a global rename.

Stewards greatly appreciate the trust local communities have in you and want to make this transition as easy as possible so that the two groups can start working together to ensure everyone has a unique login identity across Wikimedia projects. Completing this project will allow for long-desired universal tools like a global watchlist, global notifications and many, many more features to make work easier.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about the SUL finalisation, read over the Help:Unified login page on Meta and leave a note on the talk page there, or on the talk page for global renamers. You can also contact me on my talk page on meta if you would like. I'm working as a bridge between Wikimedia Foundation Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Stewards, and you to assure that SUL finalisation goes as smoothly as possible; this is a community-driven process and I encourage you to work with the Stewards for our communities.

Thank you for your time. -- Keegan (WMF) talk 18:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

--This message was sent using MassMessage. Was there an error? Report it!

November 2014

Why remove interwiki links?

Hi, there. Just wondering, was there a new policy coming in? I just saw this edit, and don't quite understand what's going on. Please tell me abou it. Thank you! --- SzMithrandir (talk) 22:09, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

sorry, just saw that zh:挂面 actually doesn't exist .. no wonder :P

No worries. :-)   —Ruakh 19:28, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Category:Hebrew feminine nouns with plurals ending in ־ים

Are you sure we should be grouping -áyim together with -ím? The dual form does not depend on gender, it is always -áyim. --WikiTiki89 15:41, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, I admit, a major consideration was that I found it difficult to name the category in a way that would capture the one without the other. That said, I do actually think it makes some sense to include these nouns, for the following reasons:

• They are plurals, not duals. I'm pretty sure it's connected with the dual form (either by etymology or by contamination, or both), but they're freely used for more than two (as in the árba eináyim of a one-on-one meeting), and even when there are exactly two, it's perfectly normal to make that explicit (e.g. hekhzík bishtéi yadáyim), whereas *shtéi pa'amáyim is ungrammatical (hence the Haggadah's shtéi f'amím). And heck, teeth don't even usually come in pairs, at least in humans, so why do we speak of shináyim?
• I've checked every example I've thought of — meaning all the ones in the category — and they all have plural construct forms ending in -éi- (as in oz'néi-hamán, na'aléi-spórt, etc.). I'm really not sure what to make of this, but I think it suggests some connection between -áyim and -ím. (Our entry for yád tries to claim that the -éi- form is a "dual construct", as distinct from the "plural construct" found in other senses, but I really don't think there's any basis for calling it that.)

My general attitude toward categories is that it's better to be inclusive, and let browsers judge for themselves whether a given word is relevant to their need, than to try to curate them too perfectly.

What are your thoughts?

—Ruakh 04:23, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

So I guess when I say "dual", I mean the etymologically-dual ending. As for your second point, the plural construct -éi was originally the dual construct but replaced the original plural construct, which had been -í (since the unvocalized spelling didn't change, it's hard to say when this happened). As for what to do, I think we should have a separate category for nouns that use the dual in place of the plural, like עיניים (and possibly another category for nouns that use the dual as an actual dual, like שנתיים and פעמיים). And we also might want a category for masculine nouns that use the feminine plural ending, like אבות. We might also want an independent set of categories for feminine nouns that do not end in -á and for masculine nouns that do end in -á. Essentially, my point is that the usage of the dual, whether as an actual dual or in place of the plural, does not depend on gender at all. --WikiTiki89 00:46, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Re: "So I guess when I say 'dual', I mean the etymologically-dual ending" and "Essentially, my point is that the usage of the dual, whether as an actual dual or in place of the plural, does not depend on gender at all": I think this conversation will get lost if you keep using the word "dual" to refer to plural forms. How about "ayim forms"?

Re: "As for your second point, the plural construct -éi was originally the dual construct but replaced the original plural construct, which had been -í (since the unvocalized spelling didn't change, it's hard to say when this happened)": That is really interesting, thanks. How did that happen? How do we know that it happened? Do we have any evidence that it actually happened in Hebrew (as opposed to an ancestor of Hebrew)?

I agree with all of your statements about other categories we should have. I waited with this one until I had thought of enough examples (of the -ím type) that I could start the category off respectably; for the same reason, I didn't want to create all the categories at once and have them all languish.

—Ruakh 18:14, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Let me rephrase: Essentially, my point is that the usage of the -ayim form, whether as an actual dual or in place of the plural, does not depend on gender at all.

As for the origin of the plural construct, I don't remember where I read this, but will explain the evidence as I see it. I'm going to simplify this a bit to avoid talking about irrelevant issues. Hebrew only preserves one case (cognate with the genitive case in Arabic) out of the two or three Proto-Semitic cases, so I'm going to pretend that the other cases didn't exist. The masculine plural morpheme in Proto-Semitic was *-ī and the dual morpheme was *-ay. Proto-Semitic also had a suffix *-n or *-m. The function that this suffix had originally is debatable, but long story short, it became attached to the *-ī and *-ay suffixes in the non-construct states. Thus, there were now four suffixes: *-īm and *-aym in the non-construct states and *-ī and *-ay in the construct states. Following the regular sound changes in Hebrew, keeping in mind that the construct state is phonologically equivalent to a pre-tonic syllable: *-īm > -īm, *-aym > -áyim; *-ī > *-ī, *-ay > -ē. Clearly the only thing that doesn't fit is the fact that *-ī does not exist in Hebrew, so it must have been replaced with -ē sometime between Proto-Semitic and the time of the Masoretes (I don't know whether there is evidence from the Septuagint or Origen's Hexapla). Furthermore (this is something I forgot about when I previously said "since the unvocalized spelling didn't change, it's hard to say when this happened"), in the feminine plural possessed forms, there is an extra -ē-, which is even found in the consonantal text as an extra yud. Following regular derivation from Proto-Semitic, possessive suffixes should have attached to the feminine plural the same way as for regular singular nouns. For example, "your daughters" should have been *בְּנוֹתְכֶם (*b'nōṯ'ḵem) rather than בְּנוֹתֵיכֶם (b'nōṯēḵem). This extra yud is consistently used in all books of the Bible, as far as I know. I think this could indicate that the these forms were borrowed from the feminine dual possessed forms (see this table of the forms of שָׂפָה), which would mean that at least for the feminine this change occurred in pre-Biblical times, but it could also be argued that they were formed by analogy to the masculine plural possessed forms, which may not have changed yet at that point. The situation is similar in Aramaic for the construct states, but I know very little about the Aramaic plural possessed forms. For reference, here is an example of the declension of the (somewhat) regular Arabic noun ابن (“son”), equivalent to Hebrew בן (see especially the construct states of the dual and plural):

Declension of noun اِبْن (ibn)

Singular	basic singular triptote
	Indefinite	Definite	Construct
Informal	اِبْن ibn	الِابْن al-ibn	اِبْن ibn
Nominative	اِبْنٌ ibnun	الِابْنُ al-ibnu	اِبْنُ ibnu
Accusative	اِبْنًا ibnan	الِابْنَ al-ibna	اِبْنَ ibna
Genitive	اِبْنٍ ibnin	الِابْنِ al-ibni	اِبْنِ ibni
Dual	Indefinite	Definite	Construct
Informal	اِبْنَيْن ibnayn	الِابْنَيْن al-ibnayn	اِبْنَيْ ibnay
Nominative	اِبْنَانِ ibnāni	الِابْنَانِ al-ibnāni	اِبْنَا ibnā
Accusative	اِبْنَيْنِ ibnayni	الِابْنَيْنِ al-ibnayni	اِبْنَيْ ibnay
Genitive	اِبْنَيْنِ ibnayni	الِابْنَيْنِ al-ibnayni	اِبْنَيْ ibnay
Plural	sound masculine plural
	Indefinite	Definite	Construct
Informal	بَنِين banīn	الْبَنِين al-banīn	بَنِي banī
Nominative	بَنُونَ banūna	الْبَنُونَ al-banūna	بَنُو banū
Accusative	بَنِينَ banīna	الْبَنِينَ al-banīna	بَنِي banī
Genitive	بَنِينَ banīna	الْبَنِينَ al-banīna	بَنِي banī

Regarding the categories, just to clarify, are you saying that you agree that words like עין should be removed from Category:Hebrew feminine nouns with plurals ending in ־ים and placed into a new category for -áyin forms?

--WikiTiki89 20:38, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that explanation!

Re: "are you saying that you agree that words like עין should be removed from Category:Hebrew feminine nouns with plurals ending in ־ים and placed into a new category for -áyin forms?": No, I was only saying that I agreed that they should be put into a new category for words with plurals in -áyim. (The two categories are not mutually exclusive.) I'm not sure yet whether I agree that they should be removed from Category:Hebrew feminine nouns with plurals ending in ־ים; you make a good case, but I'll have to think about it a bit.

—Ruakh 03:47, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

So, I think you're right. What should we name these categories? —Ruakh 03:21, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Maybe Category:Hebrew nouns with plurals ending in ־יים for words like עיניים and Category:Hebrew nouns with duals for words like שנתיים? --WikiTiki89 03:40, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Would we keep the name Category:Hebrew feminine nouns with plurals ending in ־ים, but just not have it include words like עין? (By the way — do we actually need a category for nouns with duals, or would it be enough to link to the form-of category for dual indefinite forms?) —Ruakh 04:34, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes there is no reason to change the name. Theoretically, the form-of category for dual indefinite forms would do the same thing, but in practice the form-of entry for the dual might not exist. --WikiTiki89 05:37, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

December 2014

Redirects in interwikis

(Commenting here so I don't stop the bot again). No problem, thanks for the reply. Smurrayinchester (talk) 22:17, 5 December 2014 (UTC)