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Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2018/August

< Wiktionary:Beer parlour

Dialogue tags edit

I was considering making a category for verbs that are often used as dialogue tags (which is when written dialogue is attributed with something like "he said"). What do you think? Should it be appendix-only? There's no real rules on it, AFAIK (there's no obvious reason I can think of that spoke and talked can't be used as dialogue tags, but they can't). Should it be marked to the correct sense for multi-sense verbs? And should it be at the present-tense lemma form say even though it's almost always the past-tense form said? GaylordFancypants (talk)

Is this the same as what grammarians call a verbum dicendi (plural verba dicendi)?  --Lambiam 14:04, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think so, I'd never heard of that term before. GaylordFancypants (talk)
See also reported speech. SemperBlotto (talk) 20:47, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The verb (or “tag”) may equally take direct speech (a quotation) as a direct object (I’m fine”, he said.), or introduce reported speech through a subordinate clause (He said that he was fine.).
I've taken a stab at starting the template as I envision it. I don't know how to do conditional fields so it's just a non-working prototype to get feedback for now, at Template:Verba dicendi. What do y'all think? GaylordFancypants (talk)
Where would the output of this template be displayed? DCDuring (talk) 02:49, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Under a "usage notes" header. I'd say on both the lemma and past-tense pages (say and said), or if you'd rather just the lemma with a quick usage note on the past-tense form that points readers to the lemma page for the details. GaylordFancypants (talk)
It's somewhat large, and it's boilerplate; perhaps it could be in an Appendix: page? —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 07:33, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps a few well-chosen examples of how to actually use this and what would be displayed will help to clarify the intention. I do not understand the class RPO. Take the sentence “The time has come to talk of many things.” Is talk RPO there? Another question: why does “object=forbidden” list write? To me, “He wrote that everything was fine” is a perfectly acceptable sentence.  --Lambiam 09:25, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the plural is fine for a category (as in Category:English verba dicendi), but for a template the singular is more appropriate, and probably also a minuscule for its initial letter, depending on the intended use.  --Lambiam 14:43, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why not insert the desired content manually in sandbox copies of language sections, starting with one or two in English? Shouldn't we start with the displayed content and not the template? Also, how many expressions would merit application of the concept? DCDuring (talk) 11:39, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like there's more constructions for reported speech than I anticipated (especially taking into account obsolete, regional and rare constructions), so I'm considering the much simpler template at Template:verbum dicendi now (which just says the verb can be used as either a tag, reported speech or both). Then there would be an appendix page listed that describes all the rules in copious detail. GaylordFancypants (talk)
Yeah, I think this would apply to literally hundreds of verbs. A label with a link to the glossary would probably be more appropriate than a usage note in every entry. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 21:57, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of people use verbs for color rather than adjectives or adverbs, which has led to a wide variety of substitutes for the usual "he/she said". You also see a lot of Usenet posts that go out of their way to use extremely strange verbs of this type to introduce the text in the previous message that the poster is replying to. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:39, 3 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Edit request: Wiktionary:Entry layout edit

(Repeat of 16 June 2018). Please see Wiktionary talk:Entry layout#Indentation?.  --Lambiam 14:00, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Template:antonyms, Template:synonyms, Template:hyponyms, Template:hypernyms edit

Currently, these templates throw out module errors when the word parameter is left empty ({{ant|fr|}} → Lua error in Module:nyms at line 17: The parameter "2" is required.).

Couldn't we change that, and make them behave as the etymology templates (for example, {{bor}}: {{bor|en|la|}} → Latin [Term?]), plus make them put the entry in a CAT:Requests for antonyms in Russian entries, CAT:Requests for synonyms in French entries, etc.?

@Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV? Per utramque cavernam 14:48, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. There's no reason to use these if you don't have any content. Just add the category manually. DTLHS (talk) 15:56, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. It would enforce finding synonyms and thus we would have pairings which are only fuzzy matches; and good matches are added anyway when someone sees them. You can use the Thesaurus namespace to request semantically related words – Thesaurus entries suggest by their mere existence to add semantically related words. Fay Freak (talk) 17:00, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Fay Freak: I think none of your points is valid. 1) I didn't say we should add that template everywhere; editor's judgment should be exercised. I'm not going to add an antonym request to giraffe. 2) It's not true that "good matches are added when someone sees them": an editor doesn't necessarily think about antonyms when he comes to an entry. To take an obvious example: вну́тренний (vnútrennij) has no antonym mentioned, while it's been visited by at least three people fluent in Russian. 3) How exactly do you suggest to proceed with that? Create Thesaurus:ru:внутренний to ask for antonyms? That doesn't make sense. Per utramque cavernam 17:15, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
So gently pushing the addition of semantical relations as a maintenance issue while editors actually wanted to do other things? Nice.
The semantical relations can be added with a slower pace too. Fay Freak (talk) 17:20, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Fay Freak: Well yes (isn't it what we do with {{rfinfl}}, for example?), but nobody is forced to do anything here. But I get your point; maybe it's not such a good idea to create an umpteenth maintenance category. Per utramque cavernam 17:25, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Inflections are core information while semantical relations are supererogation. Also they are not placed at the same places the same ways with the same intentions, so they are not so commensurable for this. Fay Freak (talk) 17:37, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You could say the same about etymologies and images, and there are request templates for both. — Ungoliant (falai) 18:42, 2 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No, IMO. If no-one has bothered to list synonyms, maybe there aren't any. (In contrast, if a word was borrowed from another language, that presupposes there is a term in the source language, which could usually be added. And almost anything could, theoretically, be represented in an image—although IMO over-requesting and over-adding images to e.g. noncorporeal concepts or complex verbs would generally be undesirable.) If you think there are synonyms, then you add them, or ask in the Tea Room. - -sche (discuss) 13:20, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise, you have the issue that because it's hard to prove a negative, it's hard to know when, if ever, the request could be removed... - -sche (discuss) 13:52, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

New header "Alternative spellings" distinct from "Alternative forms" edit

I don't like having a single header both for alternative spellings and alternative forms. Couldn't we split them? Per utramque cavernam 08:51, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I can see why you would want to distinguish them, given that we have different templates for their definition-lines, but it'd take up more space when both were present (and look redundant, IMO), and make even more salient the difficulty of distinguishing which strings are alt spellings and which are alt forms: e.g. should alt capitalizations be differences in spelling, or form? (Or should they have their own, third header?) And given that noobs and WF already misuse variants of the header (which DTLHS has helpfully tracked from time to time), any distinction we might pick would not be maintained, so we'd have two headers being used for the same things (e.g. in huevada "alternative spellings" is already used for strings that differ in pronunciation, perhaps enough to be considered not even just alt forms but distinct synonymous words, but at least now that's an error, findable by a simple search, and fixable). Whereas, all alt spellings are alt forms, so headering them as such seems tolerable to me. The existence of different templates seems like less of a problem, although the nominal distinction is certainly not cleanly maintained, because they almost never occur together in the same block of definitions. - -sche (discuss) 13:48, 5 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-07/Alternative forms header? —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 02:08, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't been terribly consistent about this but I tend to favour alt forms for minor spelling differences not affecting the sound (haemo-, hemo-) and synonyms for anything else (magic, magical). I am cautious about introducing further headers because (as -sche suggests) we already take up too much space for simple entries and having a new header doesn't guarantee that users will use it properly anyway. Equinox ◑ 09:32, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

News from French Wiktionary edit

 

Hello!

It's a pleasure to invite you to read the July issue of Wiktionary Actualités translated in English!

July Actualités are filled with three articles: the word populism and a comparison of its definition in several wiktionaries; a presentation of a dictionary about Breton and French in contact; a discussion about the actors of the description of neologisms and the role of Wiktionary it this task. As usual, there is also new and encouraging stats, videos and nice pictures.

This issue was written by nine people and was translated for you by Dara. This translation can still be improved by readers (wiki-spirit). We hope you could enjoy this reading and we'll be happy to answer any question you may have about our publication or articles in it   Noé 09:49, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Adminship (reluctantly) edit

Even though I don't desire adminship, there are times when it would be useful. DonnanZ (talk) 10:45, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

RfV for love? edit

Should we have a policy to follow Merriam-Webster on this issue? I can see strong arguments either way. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:22, 8 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Profoundly stupid. (To be clear: MW's decision, not your post.)
Shall we similarly remove the, ineffable, get?
As far as I'm concerned, Merriam-Webster just admitted that they can't do their jobs, and rather than strive for excellence, they're simply throwing up their hands and sweeping their incompleteness under the rug. I find it difficult to respect such an approach to lexicography. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 16:35, 8 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That has got to be a joke. Equinox ◑ 17:47, 8 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, isn't Clickhole a satire site related to The Onion? - -sche (discuss) 18:08, 8 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. I suspect it isn't citable, but many people online sometimes refer to falling for a transparent joke by The Onion or one of its sister sites as "eating the Onion". —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 22:15, 8 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
See w:ClickHole. DCDuring (talk) 03:35, 9 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I did, however, take this as inspiration to overhaul our entry, adding a few senses. - -sche (discuss) 08:05, 14 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
While we're discussing the entry, aren't verb senses 3 and 5 really the same sense? To me it seems like they both mean "to enjoy, be greatly pleased by, derive delight from" (an emphatic word for like). —Granger (talk · contribs) 12:18, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Linking to alternative forms edit

If anyone would like to help out in linking to English alt forms, alt spellings, obsolete forms, etc., to their main entries, there is now a list of unlinked forms that will take a bit of work to get through. There's also a Portuguese list if anyone would like to help with that. Ultimateria (talk) 01:42, 9 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A related issue is linking to non-lemma forms and alternative forms/spellings instead of to main-entry lemmas. I occasionally find myself clicking through two, three, or (rarely) more entries before getting to a lemma. It's bad enough having to run through an entire lemma entry for a polysemous word to find the relevant definition. DCDuring (talk) 19:28, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that these need to be corrected as well. If anyone is willing to create a list of these chaining soft redirects, I would appreciate it. Ultimateria (talk) 20:19, 14 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Ultimateria User:DTLHS/cleanup/alt form chains DTLHS (talk) 01:02, 15 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! I have my work cut out for me now haha Ultimateria (talk) 02:08, 15 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
What about the mester > mister > míster chain? It just so happens that there are two senses to the middle term, with the other two being alt forms of distinct etymologies. Is screening manually the only way to find them? Ultimateria (talk) 02:15, 15 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

svenverelst-info edit

https://www.bruzz.be/mobiliteit/leukemiepatient-gratis-op-openbaar-vervoer-vlaanderen-maar-niet-brussel-2018-08-07 https://www.hln.be/regio/brussel/kankerpatient-met-leefloon-spaart-elke-mogelijke-cent-eten-uit-vuilnisbak-om-medicijn-te-kopen~a0b4bbda/195.244.180.59 12:36, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Chuck Entz I saw you rolled these links back, but they aren't spam links. They are Belgian media articles about long-time Wiktionarian Sven and his rare form of leucemia, posted by Sven himself. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 14:31, 18 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Differentiating citations by category of "durability" edit

do someone a frighten contains a typical RfV of a current internet meme.

It is characterized as cited, but only one of those is clearly in print. In order to cover such meme-idioms, which we probably should to keep relevant) we have to accept some relaxation of our "durably archived" standard. But we need to acknowledge that there are differences in the types of citations that have evidentiary import. At the very least we need some way of noting entries that only meet attestation with relaxation of the "durably archived" condition. Perhaps we could at least characterize citations as in print, usenet, not provably in print, provably not in print. Usenet is already marked if one of the templates is used. The other two should also be marked as it is an unreasonable burden on a user to research the citation's archival status. There may be other appropriate status markings as well. DCDuring (talk) 19:22, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As more and more text is limited to online news sources such as Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, etc, while print media, in general, is dying, we should probably revisit our durably archived rule. What criteria do we use, however, to identify legitimate sources of language use? Kiwima (talk) 21:21, 4 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionary Cognate Dashboard edit

 
Screenshot of the Hub view

Hello all,

A few months ago, we asked you for feedback about Cognate, the system allowing interwikilinks between Wiktionaries (on main namespace). Several community members gave some suggestions, one of them was to provide statistics about these interwikilinks.

The Wikidata team is pleased to present you the Wiktionary Cognate Dashboard, a website presenting a lot of interesting information about how Wiktionaries are connected to each others. You can find there, for example:

  • the most interlinked Wiktionary entries not having a page on your Wiktionary
  • the number of interlinks between each possible pair of Wiktionaries
  • visualizations of the relationships between different Wiktionaries

To learn more about the tool, you can have a look at the documentation (please help us translating it in your language!). The interface of the tool itself can also be translated in other languages by using this page.

If you find a bug, please let a comment on this Phabricator task or ping me onwiki. Thanks a lot, Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 13:00, 14 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Lea Lacroix (WMDE): Hi. I've recently asked DTLHS for a list of French words found on el.wikt but not here: User:DTLHS/Greek French phrases. Would it be possible to do this myself with this tool? I'd be interested in:
  • which Belarusian entries we're missing that are on many other wiktionaries (an example: a few days ago I've created падбародак, quite a basic word which exists on seven other wiktionaries already);
  • which Belarusian entries we're missing that are on ru.wikt;
  • which French entries we're missing that are on nl.wikt;
  • a couple other lists.
Per utramque cavernam 12:28, 17 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @Per utramque cavernam and thanks for your suggestion. We've been thinking about this, unfortunately we're currently blocked because Wiktionaries use different ways to format their language titles inside the pages, and there is currently now way to browse all pages and check if there is a section related to a certain language on an entry. See details here. Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 13:17, 17 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Cyrillic numbers edit

Our entries for English numerals (e.g. ninety-nine) list Arabic and Roman numerals as synonyms. Do you think we should include the Cyrillic (and any other) ones as well (I am not confident to do it myself). SemperBlotto (talk) 20:23, 16 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Since it's an English entry, and as far as I know Cyrillic numerals are not used in any English context, no. DTLHS (talk) 20:24, 16 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@SemperBlotto: What exactly are "Cyrillic numerals"? If I type "99" using e.g. a Russian keyboard, it's the same "99" you would get using an English or any Roman based keyboard. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 03:16, 17 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry - that was down to ignorance. I had better not ask about Hebrew numerals. SemperBlotto (talk) 06:04, 17 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth: Cyrillic numerals. - -sche (discuss) 06:53, 17 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@SemperBlotto: That's OK and it may be worth considering other numerals where appropriate. @-sche: Yes, but they are archaic. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 09:19, 17 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Implementing "Restructure comparative and superlative categories" edit

In order to implement Wiktionary:Votes/2018-07/Restructure comparative and superlative categories, some wide-sweeping changes will have to be made. These notes below are copied from the vote talk page, where I had talked about ways to implement the change:

  1. Modify the categories under poscatboiler data or wherever it is to match the new spec, keeping adjective comparative forms etc. there until we have gotten rid of those categories
    1. Moving "comparative adjectives" etc. under adjective forms
    2. Adding a new category entry for "comparative adjective forms" etc.
  2. Move the entries:
    1. Category:English adjective comparative forms -> Category:English comparative adjectives (and respectively for all categories under Category:Adjective comparative forms by language).
    2. Category:English adjective superlative forms -> Category:English superlative adjectives (and respectively for all categories under Category:Adjective superlative forms by language).
    3. Category:English adverb comparative forms -> Category:English comparative adverbs (and respectively for all categories under Category:Adverb comparative forms by language).
    4. Category:English adverb superlative forms -> Category:English superlative adverbs (and respectively for all categories under Category:Adverb superlative forms by language).
    • (If the target categories already exist for some langauges, just merge the two)
    • The moving process will probably entail the following:
      1. Modifying Template:comparative of and Template:superlative of
      2. Editing the head template transclusions in all articles
  3. Eliminating the old categories from poscatboiler data

Right now the step would be to modify Template:comparative of and Template:superlative of; I was thinking of getting rid of the is_lemma parameter and assuming it is always true, therefore categorizing all comparatives under LANGNAME comparative adjectives for instance. Are there any suggestions, or would this be a good solution? SURJECTION ·talk·contr·log· 14:46, 18 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(This change would also apply to language-specific comparative/superlative templates, like the English ones) SURJECTION ·talk·contr·log· 14:49, 18 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wrapping entire entries in {{l|en}} edit

Apparently this is not transparently a dumb idea and we need to explicitly forbid it. Would anyone else like to weigh in? DTLHS (talk) 04:29, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Why forbid it? It may be an easier way to create entries for some users. Does it hurt something? - Alumnum (talk) 04:42, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Technical issues aside (see Chuck’s comment on your TP), this destroys the syntactic usefulness of {{l}}. When you tag a bunch of definitions, usexes, labels, quotations, {{syn}}-type templates and HWL with {{l|en}}, it indicates that the whole content is written in English, which is not the case for half of these things. This could throw off, for example, a parser or a screen reader that is not designed to take into account spans with a lang attribute that are inside another span with a lang attribute. — Ungoliant (falai) 05:30, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
To be nitpicky, in the resulting HTML code, it is only the first paragraph after the start of the {{l}} template that is tagged with lang="en": the headword line in this case. This is probably because {{l}} uses an inline element (<span>...</span>), which cannot surround block elements like paragraph tags (<p>...</p>), so it is only added to the contents of the first <p>...</p> tag. But the HTML is still bad: the headword doesn't need to be tagged as English, then as Portuguese. — Eru·tuon 17:30, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Bottom line: it saves you a few keystrokes, but makes it harder for everyone else. If it were something that went away after the initial edit, it wouldn't be that much of a problem, but it remains behind to confuse other editors and to make the results of modifying basic entry infrastructure much more unpredictable.
I suspect this violates the rules in WT:EL, though I haven't read through it to verify. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:49, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Other templates inside it evidently ignore it. Definitions should link to English, and since the def template was deleted, the linking template is now the only one that does it. It does not put anything into wrong categories or anything. I don't see how those scenarios you described apply here. I doubt that any of you are truly concerned about anything else other than aesthetical preferences. - Alumnum (talk) 08:24, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Probably in violation of "Headword line". ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 06:46, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This is a very bad idea, and I don't even know where to put the warning not to do it. WT:NORM? Luckily, I have never seen anyone besides Alumnum attempt it. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 05:36, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think it violates several web standards and is therefore forbidden already. Plus I do not discern the use Alumnum thinks it has, or what would be “easier”. He has added the template in a way which has not changed anything except making the markup invalid. Fay Freak (talk) 09:27, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It messes up the instances of {{l|mul}} and {{taxlink}}. See User:DCDuring/Sandbox. Translingual terms that are taxonomic names are used in definitions of English terms. DCDuring (talk) 15:36, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Survey of lexicographers' needs edit

Hello,

I just discovered Elexis survey of lexicographers' needs and I invite you to spend some time to fill it. It is aimed at [pro] lexicographers but I consider we are, despite Wiktionary not being our daily job. If you fill out the whole survey, you can get the previous answers and it is quite interesting to read. Deadline is August 27. Let me know if anyone spends some time on it   Noé 15:01, 21 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I filled it out. DCDuring (talk) 16:43, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Word origins edit

I think word origins should also be part of wiktionary. — This unsigned comment was added by 14.142.249.114 (talk).

"See the Top Slang Term from Every State" edit

Make sure we have these? Hyperbolick (talk) 12:55, 23 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Here are the ones we are missing. Please verify existence before adding, since the source site is the worst kind of clickbait (50 pages for 50 paragraphs!), evidently created to serve ads. Equinox ◑ 11:48, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Here's one for brick. Equinox ◑ 16:09, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • 2005, Vibe (volume 12, number 14, page 102)
    And while the tropics are definitely the place to be when it's brick outside, rocking a snorkel on the beach only works when you're snorkeling.
Here's another:
  • 2014, Ray Mack, Underestimated: A Searcher's Story (→ISBN), page 89:
    He was always hanging tight with me and since he had access to a ride . . . it made traveling easier. I mean it was no biggie brain buster to take the train, but when it's brick outside . . . fuck the A train.
I have added brick, with two more citations. Not that hard to find, actually. Kiwima (talk) 03:40, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Some books seem to be suggesting it's AAVE. Given that the list also seems to get "get 'er dun" wrong, I wouldn't trust its regional labels without cites or references. - -sche (discuss) 17:23, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

List of broken links from Wikipedia to Wiktionary edit

Wikipedia is the top referring site to Wiktionary, responsible for 64% of referrals.

In my profile: User:Uziel302 I put a list of over 5000 broken links from Wikipedia to Wikisource, any help fixing those links or creating the articles will be much appreciated.

Thanks.Uziel302 (talk) 15:34, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to primarily be links to fix rather than entries to create; many simply have capitalization when they shouldn't (unlike in Wikipedia, capitalization is important [as in, it matters if you have it or if you don't] in Wiktionary) SURJECTION ·talk·contr·log· 15:44, 24 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Long English words edit

How is this category populated? Is it automatic? How long does a word have to be? SemperBlotto (talk) 11:00, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Manually; at least 25 letters long. Equinox ◑ 11:27, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's automatic. DTLHS (talk) 17:08, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it's still at the bottom of the page even if you take the manual category out. (How much memory does checking for whether or not a lemma should be in that category add, I wonder...) - -sche (discuss) 17:10, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
None. DTLHS (talk) 17:11, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Tarantino "Language" edit

There are some lemmas in "Tarantino", but actually Tarantino is not a language but one of the several dialects of Neapolitan/South Italian Language. The correct way to include Tarantino dialect's words in the Wiktionary is to write them as variations of Neapolitan/South Italian lemmas, that's how it works for other languages as English, where, beside the standard pronunciation, they are often written the local variations (US, Canada, Australia, etc.). --Jamala (talk) 11:07, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@GianWiki, -sche Per utramque cavernam 11:14, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There is also another problem, i.e. Neapolitan Language lemmas are, in most cases, not general lemmas of the Neapolitan/South Italian Language, but lemmas in the dialect of Naples, with IPA for Naples accent, with Naples ortography, and so on. That because of the misleading name of the language (Neapolitan) that coincides with the name of one of the dialects of it (Neapolitan as dialect of the city of Naples). Just read my home page description to understand better. Anyway, that's a secondary problem now. --Jamala (talk) 11:26, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The Italian dialects are a bit of a grey area, hard to know when/where to separate vs when to lump together under shared codes. (We also separate Emilian and Romagnol from each other.) If there's no standard form of "South Italian", it might make sense to leave Neaopolitan standardized on Naples, and add any other dialects that currently lack codes in under Neapolitan, with dialectal labels(?) (which should then also be added to Naples Neapolitan). Whether Tarantino should be merged, I don't know. I note there are separate Wikipedia editions in Neapolitan vs Tarantino. Pinging @SemperBlotto, Widsith, who have some knowledge of these languages, having added some of our Neapolitan and/or Tarantino words; what do you think? - -sche (discuss) 17:07, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Neapolitan of Naples has it own peculiar features that make it quite difficult to be used as a general standard, anyway Tarantino is part of South Italian/Neapolitan for sure, as far as I know languages are not made by wikipedia editions.--Jamala (talk) 21:34, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Does a general standard exist? What resources would you use to find Neapolitan words and their spelling? Crom daba (talk) 21:46, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A general standard does not exsist and for now I accept the fact that Naples is used as it, but it would be better to define a way to obtain general words that can summarize all the features of all the dialects, for example I find strange to accept "veré" (to see) as the standard form, when it's clearly a phonetic variation (rhotacism) present only in some dialects (e.g. Naples), the general standard should be "vedé", that's just an example.--Jamala (talk) 21:57, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Moreover, also the ortography has to be reviewed. Neapolitan traditional ortography was only used in Campania region, elsewhere (Abruzzo, Molise, Puglia, Basilicata) it is used a different ortography (curtiello vs curtielle). These are just some points. --Jamala (talk) 22:03, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Jamala Being able to decide on a standard form can be a lot harder than it seems, often there will be small differences across dialects that cannot be accounted for by usual patterns of correspondence, how would you approach such cases? Crom daba (talk) 22:30, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
yes, there are many cases of words that do not follow a precise pattern of standardization, in this case I would consider only the varieties following the pattern, considering the others as local alternatives (as for English, there are words that are just pronounced with an other accent, others that in some dialects are not only pronounced with an accent, but they also change in structure, then they become a local alternative of the more common and in this case official word, the same in Spanish and etc.). Eventually, if there are words that are quite different among each dialect, then it is possible to accept the form of the biggest dialect (Naples). --Jamala (talk) 06:52, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I give you an example, the masculine determinative article is 'o only in Naples, but in all the other dialects is "lu" ('u), I would consider 'o a local alternative of lu, not the opposite.--Jamala (talk) 06:52, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I only add words that I've either seen used in print, or that are in a reputable dictionary. In the case of Neapolitan, for me that means either something archaic from Lo Cunto de li cunti, or something given in Iandolo's Dizionario Napoletano semantico-etimologico. I would consider Tarantino to be a dialect of "Neapolitan", but I don't have especially strong feelings on the matter. Ƿidsiþ 07:20, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There's a problem: Neapolitan Language is not the dialect of Naples, but the name of a cluster of several dialects, with different ortographies and different phonologies, there are a lot of poems and books in each of these dialects, how to select words? --Jamala (talk) 07:37, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. I would also consider this http://www3.pd.istc.cnr.it/navigais-web/ as a good source, and also this https://www2.hu-berlin.de/vivaldi/?id=0001&lang=it --Jamala (talk) 07:38, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Dialectal forms in languages with non-phonetic scripts edit

It often occurs that a dialectal form that is given in IPA transcription is important for purposes of etymology or reconstruction and needs to be cited in an etymology section or a descendant list, what should be the suggested way of doing this? My solution is to do it like this:

Speakers of Ordos (and other Mongols in Inner Mongolia) use a slightly updated version of Classical Mongol as their literary language, and ᠴᠢᠯᠠᠭᠤ (čilaɣu) is the place where this pronunciation should belong. Yet at the same time, spoken Ordos is quite different from Written Mongol and Mongol script cannot express its pronunciation fully and even if it could these would be eye dialect spellings, not valid instances of Written Mongol.

This must be a very common situation for languages with a venerable written tradition, how are we to handle them? Crom daba (talk) 23:45, 25 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Crom daba: I don't think it's common at Wiktionary to have many examples with dialects without their written forms, for Chinese and Arabic dialects we attempt to find / make some written form - some are based on transliterations found in other dictionaries. E.g. Moroccan Arabic doesn't have a very established written form but there are rules, so Moroccan Arabic can be written in the Arabic based on those rules. Otherwise, it would be in Roman letters, either form would be unattestable. Min Nan POJ spellings appear in dictionaries but it's not always easy to attest. Some failed or will fail if properly tested with CFI.
I don't know if it's appropriate here but maybe you can provide the transliteration without the Mongolian spelling, something like {{m|mn||tr=čiluu}}: [script needed] (čiluu). Maybe also with ps to render the transcription. Perhaps, what you provided is the only way - just show the IPA - with no native script or romanisation, which can't be attested. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 00:48, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Atitarev Attesting pronunciations seems like a tricky business. I don't like the {{m|mn||tr=čiluu}} solution, since script is not actually needed and transcription shouldn't be used for IPA. Using an ad-hoc romanization is also inadequate since these forms shouldn't be their own entries in the first place, and it would just mean another system for the user to learn while the data is perfectly representable with IPA and obvious to most users.
I guess my suggestion would be to make a template that's a hybrid of link templates and the accent template, what drawbacks would this have? Crom daba (talk) 01:13, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Crom daba: OK then. I see your point. Providing pronunciation in etymologies may be useful, even if the source language has the script and transliteration. Users might wonder why алфави́т (alfavít) is pronounced more like Modern Greek αλφάβητο (alfávito), rather than the Ancient Greek ἀλφάβητος (alphábētos), which is the source. Just the transliteration and the native script is not enough. Providing the late Ancient Greek pronunciation may be useful to understand the b/v and e/i discrepancy. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 01:25, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to delete Simple English Wikiquote and Wikibooks edit

There is a now a proposal to delete Simple English Wikiquote and Wikibooks. Agusbou2015 (talk) 22:27, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal withdrawn, and the projects will not be deleted. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:49, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Editing of sitewide CSS/JS is only possible for interface administrators from now edit

(Please help translate to your language)

Hi all,

as announced previously, permission handling for CSS/JS pages has changed: only members of the interface-admin (Interface administrators) group, and a few highly privileged global groups such as stewards, can edit CSS/JS pages that they do not own (that is, any page ending with .css or .js that is either in the MediaWiki: namespace or is another user's user subpage). This is done to improve the security of readers and editors of Wikimedia projects. More information is available at Creation of separate user group for editing sitewide CSS/JS. If you encounter any unexpected problems, please contact me or file a bug.

Thanks!
Tgr (talk) 12:39, 27 August 2018 (UTC) (via global message delivery)[reply]

Well, we now have to give people back their rights if they want them. I propose that we notify all admins, and those that express a desire to edit sitewide CSS or JS in the future should be made into interface admins. @Chuck Entz, TheDaveRoss —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 19:17, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think that seems like a good idea, although I am not sure that the discussion about how to handle this was truly resolved. Since the status quo (prior to the overlords imposing their will) was that all admins had this ability, it seems like our tacit policy is that any admin who wants to have this power may have it. If that policy is to change I think we should vote on it. - TheDaveRoss 12:58, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I agree we can grant it on request (and only on request, not automatically en masse to all account that have admin rights, since one reason for the change seems to have been to keep inactive users' hackable accounts from having it). I'd like the ability, since I occasionally edit CSS in particular, though I don't mind waiting if we want to discuss things further first. Some other users who've recently edited site-wide CSS and JS and who I'll ping to comment here if they want the ability back are @AryamanA, Atitarev, Daniel Carrero, Dixtosa, JohnC5, Justinrleung. - -sche (discuss) 18:58, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes please, I'll probably work on using better Indic fonts at some point. —AryamanA (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान) 20:53, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I would like it if more of our technically competent users had this power, but would use it with great care, both with respect to security and to stability of the user interface. DCDuring (talk) 17:43, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's kind of late to ask, but I'd like to have the ability back. — justin(r)leung { (t...) | c=› } 02:10, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Chuck Entz, TheDaveRoss: Are Aryaman and Justin ever going to get access back? Looks like @Vorziblix could use it as well. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 05:00, 2 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not actually a bureaucrat; if Chuck isn't around @SemperBlotto and @Stephen G. Brown are the other two most active bureaucrats. I am not sure what the best process for requesting these rights are, but probably a new WT:GP item for each person with a ping to the 'crats would suffice for both reasonable transparency and likelihood of being acted on. - TheDaveRoss 12:43, 2 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Based on the above discussion, I have granted the interface-administrator bit to User:AryamanA, User:justinrleung, and User:Vorziblix. —Stephen (Talk) 13:56, 2 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

How do we link to abbreviations from lemmas? edit

For example, ABV links to alcohol by volume through the {{initialism of}} template. But how should alcohol by volume link to ABV? Under the header of Alternative forms? Abbreviations? (Is that a standard header? Would acronyms and initialisms be included too?) WT:ELE doesn't mention linking to abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms. Ultimateria (talk) 22:30, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer the Synonyms header. DTLHS (talk) 22:34, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Me too. I agree with DTLHS. DCDuring (talk) 17:44, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Synonyms is probably the best header for this. - -sche (discuss) 18:58, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That does make sense. I'll start implementing it. Ultimateria (talk) 02:54, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

no Chinese index at Main Page? edit

Why isn't there a link to the Chinese index at the Main Page? Can someone add the link? ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:28, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. I think that the indices are mostly pretty bad, though; I'd rather remove that whole section of the main page. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 14:33, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. The Esperanto index is really bad—I think the last significant update to it was in 2012. —Granger (talk · contribs) 00:31, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I hate that they're so prominent on the main page when they're so woefully out of date. I agree that we need to remove or renovate them. Ultimateria (talk) 02:56, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'd put MB's pages like User:Matthias Buchmeier/es-en-q on the front page instead - much better and up to date. --XY3999 (talk) 14:16, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really understand what the benefit of the index pages was supposed to be in the first place. What does the Esperanto index offer that isn't already provided by categories like Category:Esperanto lemmas and Category:Esperanto adjectives? —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:20, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah. Let's remove them from the main page. We could replace them with links to the lemma categories (now that you mention those), but why? - -sche (discuss) 17:53, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@-sche, Ultimateria, Mx. Granger, Metaknowledge Would one of you take it upon himself to remove them? I don't think anyone will take exception to it. Per utramque cavernam 12:12, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Since I've already brought up this same topic here this year and nothing happened, I have gladly removed all references to the Index namespace. Ultimateria (talk) 17:16, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Ultimateria: Thanks. I think the link to Wiktionary:Topics ("Topical index") should also be removed, at least temporarily, as that page is currently in RFD. By my doing, admittedly, but that page has already been RFD'ed before, and was kept only because of one keep vote (against 3 delete)... Per utramque cavernam 17:32, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for bringing this up. I've replaced Wiktionary:Topics with Category:List of topics, which is really the same thing but more complete and self-updating. Ultimateria (talk) 22:24, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sino-Vietnamese readings vs. Vietnamese readings of Chinese characters that are not used in Vietnamese edit

The information provided by the Nom Foundation is sourced from various references, one of which is the Giúp đọc Nôm và Hán Việt (Nôm and Sino-Vietnamese Pronunciation Guide, abbreviated as "gdhn"). While using the query service [1] provided by the Nom Foundation, I've noticed that the book seems to be both a Vietnamese/Chinese multilingual dictionary, as well as a dictionary for Nôm characters. For example, in the case of phấn, the following entries are listed: KevinUp (talk) 11:02, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply] 

(1) 奮 奋 Phấn (fèn)
(2) 粉 Phấn (fen)
(3) 粉 * (Hv phấn)
(4) 鼢 Phấn (fén)

I'm not sure why 粉 is listed twice, but based on the context provided, it seems that the first entry is for Chinese usage (something you would find in a Chinese-Vietnamese multilingual dictionary) while the second entry is for Vietnamese usage (Hv=Hán Việt), for the Sino-Vietnamese word that has been absorbed into the Vietnamese language. KevinUp (talk) 11:02, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In view of this, are there any plans to separate the two contexts? This entry seems to be well formatted: 鈙 - The {{vi-readings}} template is used to differentiate between (1) Hán Việt readings derived from fanqie (phiên thiết) and (2) Nôm readings for vernacular readings used in Vietnamese.

Currently, most Han characters use {{vi-hantu}} (created in 2006). Should we be using {{vi-readings}} instead of {{vi-hantu}} for better readability? KevinUp (talk) 11:02, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Mxn. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 03:03, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I found a beer parlour discussion five years ago regarding the usage of the two templates. (Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2013/December#Nom character). I think {{vi-hantu}} should be gradually phased out in favor of {{vi-readings}}. KevinUp (talk) 15:52, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be possible for someone to fix Module:vi so that {{vi-readings}} is able to display the Han character in a Vietnamese font before the Hán Việt and Nôm readings? KevinUp (talk) 15:52, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've recently updated Module:vi in this edit here: [2]. The {{vi-readings}} template is now an improved version of {{vi-hantu}} and the older {{vi-hantu}} template should be considered deprecated. KevinUp (talk) 18:15, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Here is an example of a Vietnamese reading of a Chinese character which is not used in Vietnamese: 飪, which has two readings: nhẫm and nhẩm [3]. I'm not sure how the two readings are obtained. Based on Middle Chinese phiên thiết, the reconstructed reading is nhậm (如(như)甚(thậm)切). A query of "nhẩm" using the service provided [4] indicates the meaning of 飪 to be identical to its usage in Chinese. KevinUp (talk) 11:07, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Wyang Any thoughts on this? My main concern is the distinction between actual readings that have been absorbed into the Vietnamese language and those that are listed in Giúp đọc Nôm và Hán Việt to help native Vietnamese readers understand Chinese characters. KevinUp (talk) 11:07, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Giúp đọc Nôm và Hán Việt is a poorly composed resource in terms of Hán/Nôm distinction and Vietnamese etymology. It confuses many Sinitic (Hán) readings with non-Sinitic ones as it overconservatively assigns valid Hán readings and senses as Nôm. For phấn, it realises "Bột tán" is a Sino-Vietnamese meaning, but still erroneously treats the senses "Bột tán", "Có dạng bột tán" as Nôm, thus the split into two entries in the dictionary. Similar examples can be seen in bao (Lo liệu trước sau (như Bao Hv): Mọi việc cứ để tôi bao; Lớp vây bọc: Bao thư; Bao gạo; Bao lơn; Cụm từ: Bao tử (*thai ở bụng mẹ; *dạ dày)), cân, dẫn, thương, nhận, etc. Also many of its readings are outright wrong: for example Hán-Việt of 空 should be không and khống, whereas the dictionary just has không and conflated khống with không.
For 飪, the regular Hán-Việt reading is nhẫm. The character was a rising-tone character in MC, which is realised as the ngã tone in Hán-Việt when the character initial is a sonorant. Note that 甚 had two readings in MC: 常枕切 and 時鴆切. The 如甚切 fanqie for 飪 is based on the former reading of 甚, the Hán-Việt reading of which is actually thẫm. In Modern Vietnamese, however, the former reading has merged into the latter, leaving only thậm as the SV for 甚. Generally speaking fanqie is still a reliable and handy method to use, but there are a number of caveats. Apart from choosing the correct MC reading, it is important to also bear in mind that fanqie was meant for MC, not Modern SV readings, and quite a number of rules often have to be applied in order to convert the "raw" fanqie to the correct SV reading.
Wyang (talk) 10:37, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Wyang: Thanks for the reply. In view of this we should stop using readings provided by Giúp đọc Nôm và Hán Việt. There are indeed a significant number of erroneous readings in it. For Nôm readings, Tự Điển Chữ Nôm Dẫn Giải would be a better resource as it is very well cited ([5]). As for Hán Việt readings, we can use Vietnamese dictionaries such as Từ Điển Hán Việt (Trần Văn Chánh, 1999) where the phiên thiết readings are available. There is also WinVNKey [6], although it tends to be slightly outdated in terms of character support. KevinUp (talk) 18:15, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Bumm13 Hi there. You might want to take note of this: When using {{vi-readings}}, we need to separate Hán Việt readings from Nôm readings. The Nôm Foundation lists these readings as "Hán-Việt reading" and "Vietnamese" respectively. Also, take note of the references in brackets: (btcn), (vhn), (gdhn), (tdhv). Readings from (gdhn) should be used with slight caution. KevinUp (talk) 18:15, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I didn't fully understand that difference (at least regarding the Nom Foundation source information) when I first started adding Sino-Vietnamese readings to the single-character CJKV articles back in 2012, so some cleanup of Vietnamese sections in those articles is needed. That said, I do know the difference between Hán Việt readings and Vietnamese Nôm and am careful not to confuse the two. Thanks for the heads-up on the (gdhn) source readings from the Nom Foundation. Bumm13 (talk) 02:44, 1 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Bumm13 The use of {{vi-readings}} is part of this entry layout proposal. I don't have as nearly much insight into Vietnamese etymology as Wyang, but in my opinion even GĐHN is better than how the Unihan database completely conflated Hán-Việt and Nôm readings. (Presumably Unihan was the source of most of the {{vi-hantu}} usage around here.) FYI, the Vietnamese Wiktionary imported readings from {{R:WinVNKey:Lê Sơn Thanh}} with permission. I haven't heard any criticisms of WinVNKey's Hán-Việt and Nôm tables, but there are a couple things to note:
  • To KevinUp's question, there's a lot of intentional between the Hán-Việt and Nôm tables. For example, in vi:nhậm, 飪 is listed once as Sino-Vietnamese for "nhậm, nhẫm" and another time as Nôm for "nhậm, nhẫm, nhẩm". My understanding is that a reading will appear in both tables if it is used both in Chinese transcription and in Vietnamese text written in chữ Nôm. WinVNKey is an input method editor, after all, so its primary focus is transcription and transliteration rather than etymology.
  • Interesting. Turns out the reconstructed reading of nhậm based on Middle Chinese (如(như)甚(thậm)切) is relevant after all. Yes, a reading will appear in both tables if the original meaning from middle Chinese is also used in Vietnamese Nôm. KevinUp (talk) 14:38, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • WinVNKey relies on the HAN NOM A/B fonts (?), which predates the last few rounds of CJK additions to Unicode. Though the vast majority of characters are encoded in the CJK Unicode blocks, some rarer Nôm characters were encoded in the Private Use Area and need to be converted. (We haven't begun this conversion at the Vietnamese Wiktionary, and I'm unaware of a good resource for doing so systematically.)
 – Minh Nguyễn 💬 13:11, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do have a copy of the HAN NOM A/B fonts and it seems to contain many glyph that are not yet encoded in Unicode 11.0. I'm not sure whether some of the glyphs are actual Nôm characters or not. It might take some time for all of these characters to be encoded. KevinUp (talk) 14:38, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Mxn: I think it is well established now that Unihan contains a large number of mistakes, eg. stroke count, pronunciation, definitions and is the main reason why cleanup is still ongoing for single-character CJKV entries. As for GĐHN, it does seem to have confused some Sino-Vietnamese characters as Nôm characters. I even found some Nôm characters that have been encoded with simplified Chinese components, eg. 𬖷 (⿰粘间, U+2C5B7), 𬅂 (⿰枯恶, U+2C142), 𦫘 (⿺色发, U+26AD8). These characters appeared in GĐHN and do not have corresponding traditional forms, which is why I am slightly doubtful about the usability of GĐHN. KevinUp (talk) 14:38, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Fortunately, there is the well-cited Tự Điển Chữ Nôm Dẫn Giải (Nôm Characters with Quotations and Annotations) by Prof. Nguyễn Quang Hồng which lists Chữ Nôm characters (and their readings/meanings) based on the 214 radical system. I think we can use this book for Nôm readings and Từ Điển Hán Việt (Trần Văn Chánh, 1999) which provides phiên thiết readings for Sino-Vietnamese readings. KevinUp (talk) 14:38, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've also updated Module:vi. All the readings are now listed under Han character, similar to kanji/hanja used in Japanese and Korean entries. Would you mind taking a look at 鈙 to see if it looks okay? In future, we will have sections like Etymology 1, Etymology 2, similar to what is now being done to Japanese entries such as 如, 者 which has combined readings under kanji and more detailed information under each etymology section. KevinUp (talk) 14:38, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@KevinUp: I'm not entirely clear on what has changed in Module:vi. Is it just that the Han character is displayed at the beginning of both reading lists? If so, that's seems fine to me. As for the entry layout, I wanted a long time ago to use "Character" instead of "Han character" as the heading, since I was concerned that "Han character" would lead to confusion with with "Hán-Việt" even when a character is only used for chữ Nôm. But I don't feel too strongly about it, and perhaps my concern is unfounded given the prominent link to chữ Nôm in the template. – Minh Nguyễn 💬 21:51, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Mxn: Yes. It's just a minor change in appearance to match that of the deprecated {{vi-hantu}} template. On the other hand, I think the term Hán Nôm is more appropriate compared to "Han character" to match that of kanji and hanja. However, other editors might disagree because Hán Nôm is a non-English header. The terms Hán Nôm/Hán tự (Chinese characters used in Vietnam), chữ Nôm (demotic characters used for vernacular writing) and chữ Nho (literary Chinese characters) don't mean the same thing, but are often confused. There's also chữ Hán which is the generic terms for "Han character" that includes simplified Chinese characters. KevinUp (talk) 11:51, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Wyang Any thoughts on Vietnamese entry layout? Han character on top followed by Etymology 1, Etymology 2 with {{vi-noun}}, {{vi-verb}} under their respective etymology. I've noticed Korean entries seem to follow the opposite, with "Hanja" under Etymology 1,2,3. See 樂 for example. KevinUp (talk) 11:51, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the ping. I have no strong opinions on this. I think I have only very rarely edited non-Chinese sections on character pages, and will probably focus on the non-Han script entries for Korean and Vietnamese for now. Wyang (talk) 11:56, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. Vietnamese and Korean entries using quốc ngữ and Hangeul respectively are of higher priority. KevinUp (talk) 12:39, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(樂 is my experiment and is by no means settled. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 21:38, 3 September 2018 (UTC))[reply]
Also, I've recently created Wiktionary:About Vietnamese/references and {{vi-ref}} so we should begin delisting external web references in favor of more reliable publications. KevinUp (talk) 11:51, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

yok and var edit

There is a bit of an edit war going on with the Turkish word "yok". We describe one as a determiner and the other as an adjective. It seems that one of these might be incorrect. Does anyone know what we should do? SemperBlotto (talk) 08:37, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(I pinged a couple of our Turkish-speaking editors to comment at Talk:yok. - -sche (discuss) 17:42, 30 August 2018 (UTC))[reply]
However they are described, they should be described the same way. Neither can be used attributively, which may argue against labelling them as adjectives. However, that is how the Turkish Vikisözlük classifies them both, and so does the German Wikiwörterbuch. Wikipedia calls them “descriptive adjectives”. I’ve also seen them described as (extremely) defective verbs, but that is a bit far-fetched, linguistically speaking. In any case, “determiner” seems completely off the mark. Note that these words can also be used in diverse ways as other parts of speech, like a noun or an interjection, just like English yes and no. [Off-topic. Turkish words like bazı and her are currently described as adjectives. Shouldn’t these be classified as determiners?]  --Lambiam 20:22, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Adding Interface Admins edit

Having no one on the wiki with these rights was a serious problem, so I was bold and added a few.

Please don't interpret this to mean that I'm handing them out to everyone who asks.

What I did was go through the list of admins and make some no-brainer choices: those who have shown a particular interest in and knowledge of the site's jss and css infrastructure, and have worked with it in the past. I consider it a stopgap measure, to be modified or ratified by the consensus of the community.

Now that we have minimal capability in that area, I'm going to stop acting unilaterally and leave it up to everyone else to come up with procedures for adding and/or removal of these privileges. I will, of course, implement whatever the community decides.


Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 02:36, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Chuck Entz: I think you should give it to everyone who asks — everyone who is already an admin, that is. And people seem to have agreed on that point above at #Editing of sitewide CSS/JS is only possible for interface administrators from now, where you haven't commented. Why does Aryaman not have it, for example? —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 03:00, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
We don't have a good means to assess technical competence and good judgment, let alone security awareness (security being the principal rationale offered by our MW overlords). If I were to ask for the powers, it would not be in enwikt's interest to given them to me. I won't ask, but there may be some admins who will ask and should not be given the powers. Mayb some select committee (other Interface admins + Checkusers + Bureaucrats + template editors?) should say yea or nay to requests for the powers. DCDuring (talk) 03:45, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note that interface admins can be assigned temporarily. You can consider a precautionary measure to assign temporarily to all who ask for it, say for a month, until there is an established procedure. --Vriullop (talk) 08:00, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Can you name a single admin whom you would not trust with the powers that they used to have? I can't. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 04:56, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's not about "trusting" an admin to not personally abuse global javascript- you also have to trust that they are responsible enough to not let their account get compromised. We could do something like require Special:Two-factor_authentication to be enabled for interface admins. DTLHS (talk) 17:23, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
So that we have a record of who is an interface admin, we should add interface-admin after each admin's name in the WT:Admin list who has the bit. —Stephen (Talk) 14:10, 2 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I didn't want to be setting everything up unilaterally. It had nothing to do with any reservations about either of those two, or disagreement on any policy matters. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:04, 2 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mecayapan Nahuatl edit

This language used to be called "Isthmus-Mecayapan Nahuatl" but was changed to "Mecayapan Nahuatl" at some point. Why? I can't find any discussion. --Lvovmauro (talk) 09:26, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

diff, I also cannot find this discussion. @-sche DTLHS (talk) 18:25, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I renamed it because "Isthmus-Mecayapan Nahuatl" is so rare as a name for the language that it apparently doesn't even meet CFI (at least, I haven't spotted any books using it, trawling around Google Books), and in any case "Mecayapan Nahuatl" is far more common. In the past, in cases like this where we copied an unused Ethnologue name but another name was overwhelmingly more common and there weren't many entries, I didn't always bother starting RFM discussions. If there's a reason why the name should be changed again or changed back, we can discuss it now. :) - -sche (discuss) 20:06, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Kurmanji" and "Sorani" to "Northern Kurdish" and "Central Kurdish" edit

I have had a request to update some language names across the site, and knowing that this sort of thing is often contentious and nuanced I would like a second opinion. Does anyone object to updating the names as requested? @Calak, I am not questioning your judgment, I just don't know enough about the languages to blindly make bold changes. - TheDaveRoss 21:27, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Check it in Ethnologue.--Calak (talk) 21:31, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ethnologue often uses disambiguatory names which are not common in literature, as seems to be the case here, which suggests our current names are better: I can find plenty of literature about google books:intitle:"Kurmanji", not much about google books:intitle:"Northern Kurdish", and plenty on google books:intitle:"Sorani", not much about google books:intitle:"Central Kurdish". But I'll also ping User:Şêr (who wrote much of WT:AKU and was still active on other projects recently) and other recently-active Kurdish speakers User:Ferhengvan and User:Bikarhêner in case they have opinions. - -sche (discuss) 21:51, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Kurmanji is an accent of Northern Kurdish (in Turkey) and Sorani is an accent of Central Kurdish (in Soran province of Iraq). For example in Iraq, people who speak Northern Kurdish, never use "Kurmanji", they call their accent "Badini". In all scientific books, common terms for these dialects are NK (Northern Kurdish) and CK (Central Kurdish), I don't speak about google books. For example you can check prof. David Neil MacKenzie works, you can find Northern Kurdish and Central Kurdish in his works everywhere. + User:Vahagn Petrosyan and User:Ghybu.--Calak (talk) 23:03, 31 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Currently this seems like a no-go, until or unless I hear from others. - TheDaveRoss 15:18, 10 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"Northern Kurdish" and "Central Kurdish" are purely linguistic/academic names. "Kurmanji" and "Sorani" are much better known and far more used. "Nothern Kurdish" is also misleading as it suggests as if Kurmanji is spoken only in Northern Kurdistan (i.e. Kurdish-populated parts in South-Eastern Turkey) although it is largely spoken also elsewhere among Kurds (by all Kurds of Syria as well as by approximately 2/5 of Kurds in Iraq and 2/5 Kurds of Iran). Also "Central Kurdish" is misleading as it suggests that is "the central" (dominant, official, prestigious, etc.) Kurdish dialect though it is not. --Ferhengvan (talk) 07:15, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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