Wiktionary talk:Main Page/Archive 3

Name

I recommend that the name or description after "Wiktionary", that is "a wiki-based Open Content dictionary", be changed to something more generally descriptive. The name after "Wikipedia" is, very simply, "The Free Encyclopedia". This is much more accessible to general consumption. A person should not be left wondering what a wiki is after a perusal of the site, when all they're looking for is a definition. It impedes good public image, and it makes the site seem more complicated than it is. The English "free" may not be as descriptive as we'd like, but "Open Content" is likely inscrutable for many. It also uses the word "content" to describe what we're doing, which is the sort of word publisher's like to use to separate the essence of the works from their message ("content"). And it's not even accurate in our context. Not only are the definitions "open" or "free", but its entire construction and presentation including the software, is free and any may contribute. The current subtitle is inaccurate, needlessly complex, and serves to distance ourselves from the public. - Centrx 02:07, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Suggestions

OK people, time for suggestions: --DavidCary 16:45, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Wiktionary: the Free Dictionary
• Wiktionary: all words in all languages
• Wiktionary: the World Dictionary
• Wiktionary: the Super Easy Dictionary
• Wiktionary: Just Words
• ... add new suggested logos here ...

Comments

• I vote for "The Free Dictionary," but anything simpler than what we have would be good. We really should change that. - ElAmericano 02:29, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Fix the logo

I have a problem with the Wiktionary Logo graphic. It shows the pronunciation /wIkS@nry/ ... but I think most people would consider that wrong. Most people pronounce "Wiktionary" with four syllables, i.e. /wIkS@nEry/

A British pronunciation would tend meore to the three syllable version. Eclecticology 18:55, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

True, and I don't want to belittle British pronunciation (I'm looking into British citizenship myself, actually), but the majority of those who visit Wiktionary probably pronounce it with four syllables, so shouldn't that be considered the correct 'official' pronunciation (if it is, in fact, true--one would need a poll)? OsgoodeLawyer 14:47, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey, I'm British and using 4 syllables sounds like the way most people say it to me. Ian

Wik (one vowel) tion (s@ sound) ar (one vowel) y (one vowel)

Fix the logo revisited

Eclecticology correctly mentioned earlier that the pronunciation guide in the logo is incorrect according to US English. As is, the current logo pronunciation description spells out "Wiktionry" (or WIK-shun-ree). It should instead be changed to (WIK-shun-ehr-ee), to rhyme and play on "Dictionary." My apologies if Wiktionary standardizes according to British English!

Good luck, - wiltony

I think the last phonetic symbol in the pronunciation guide is also incorrect: It has to be a tense vovel "i" and not the "lax" one ("ɪ"). Otherwise i think one couldn't pronounce the last syllable. At least in my Longman DCE "dictionary" ends with the symbol "i".

Yes, I came on to the talk page to complain about the IPA and mention that it should be WɪKʃɘnri as ɪ is the vowel in, say, "lie", and i is the vowel in say, "lee". 128.151.92.148 07:31, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

No, ɪ is the vowel in 'lit'. And as is mentioned elsewhere, while we don't standardize on British English, the logo was made by a British person and reflects their pronunciation (in that country the final sound in this word varies between [ɪ] and [i] depending on person/region/etc., but it does seem that [i] is winning out these days). —Muke Tever 20:54, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I was just noticing this myself. The current IPA transcription is definitely British, and I'd suggest the following if we are to change it to a US pronunciation: [ˈwɪkʃəˌnɛɹi] (although the /ɹ/ is the technically correct IPA symbol for the English 'r' sound (approximant), /r/ can also be used, even though /r/ is technically IPA for a trilled 'r'). The OED online gives the following IPA for the pronunciation of 'dictionary', although it is also a British pronunciation: [ˈdɪkʃənərɪ].

I would vote for changing to a US pronunciation, unless there is a standard policy that states otherwise. Incidentally, the wikipedia article on wiktionary currently contains no IPA transcription, (I may add it, simply because the wikipedia article on wikipedia contains such a transcription), but the wiktionary entry for wiktionary contains two transcriptions, one for RP and one for American pronunciation (which is identical to the one I proposed above, except for the /ɹ/). Discussion? Torgo 21:36, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

New slogan

It seems people are still surprised to see non-English words here despite our "all words in all languages policy". Of course we don't actually state that on the main page! Instead we just say "Multilingual dictionary". This doesn't even reflect the fact that Wiktionary is now a set of dictionaries.

Unfortunately I'm not sure how to include both facts in a catchy way. I think "all words in all languages" should be made official our official slogan and put into the graphic and anywhere else we'd use a slogan.

What do the rest of us think? — Hippietrail 22:48, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I like this. -dmh 16:04, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It sounds good; at the least, he's definitely on the right track. I've thought over it myself and it seems like a very good idea. (It also makes the Wiktionary sound more meaningful/significant somehow.) --Al Fox 23:44, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I like it too. Polyglot 00:23, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It's a crazy idea, and that's why people are surpised. The given example of the German word frei is perfect. If someone wanted to look up the definition, why wouldn't they use the translation of the German word? If that definition isn't sufficient, extend it there!

Davilla 09:18, 24 July 2005 (UTC) My extensive comments moved to [1]

You would only look up the word frei in the German wiktionary if you could understand the German language, and new in advance that it was a German word. Similarly a German speaker would look up the word free in the German wiktionary, not the English one. SemperBlotto 09:40, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Then what are the translations for? If non-English speakers are always looking at their own dictionaries to find the meaning of English words in their own language, why do we need translations of English words? As a curiosity for people who don't know any German?

The bigger problem is that information is duplicative. Should German speakers have a set of translations from German to English

• frei = free; liberated; emancipated

and English speakers have their own set of translations of German words?

• frei = not imprisoned or enslaved; not blocked; without; unlimited; for which no payment is necessary

For consistency, any time you make a change in one you'd have to make a change in the other. This is complete silliness. Davilla 14:18, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Dictionaries work in several directions:

• Help for 'difficult' or unusual words for native speakers of a language (native-language entries, e.g. English words on en)
• Help for words of a language for native speakers of another language, or help for translating from a foreign language into one's native language (foreign-language entries, e.g. German words on en)
• Help for translating from one's native language into another language (translations sections)

...So on en: you have German-for-English-speaker entries, English-for-English-speaker entries, and English-to-German-for-English-speakers is done via translations. on de: you have English-for-German-speaker entries, German-for-German-speaker entries, and German-to-English-for-German-speakers is done via translations. For many words, it is true, a lot of the raw translation data will be the same (and this is the premise behind such proposed unifying projects as Ultimate Wiktionary, though for some words the data will not be so easily related across languages. —Muke Tever 20:13, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I just found the Ultimate Wiktionary as well—that is, a description of it (before which the name was meaningless). It's quite exciting. They discuss issues at such depth that I can't even distinguish between the different proposals. I feel like we're in good hands. Davilla 19:08, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

The new slogan should be "The compete dictonary, thesaurus, and lexicon of the English language writtin by the English speeking people of the World"

Special pages: List of Wikimedia wikis

I'm not sure where to put this bug report, since it refers to a "Special page". The links to "mediawiki" and "roa_rup" on Special:SiteMatrix don't redirect to the proper sites. There are probably others that have problems, as well. - Dcljr 02:19, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I suppose that could be reported on bugzilla. The underlying problem seems to be wayward admins deleting redirects. Special:SiteMatrix uses the "cheat" that the default installation is English (as the software was written by native English speakers) and the initialization process of a new wiki is to then redirect those pages (where translation is known.) Moving the pages leaves redirects behind. If someone comes along later and deletes these "English-centric" redirects, the interwiki links from elsewhere (here, or SiteMatrix, or a dozen other places) break. The developers have expressed their dismay at this practice in the past. Perhaps the bug that should be filed on bugzilla is to prevent deletion of redirects...and restore all redirects (outside of NS=0) that have ever been deleted. --Connel MacKenzie T C 05:12, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikimedia

http://en.wikimedia.org http://fr.wikimedia.org

Main Page Design

Has anyone seen the French Wiktionary or the German Wiktionary? Their Main Page is much nicer than the English one. Maybe it's time for a redesign. --206.45.175.119 03:23, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I reckon we should bung Category:All languages on here somewhere --Expurgator t(c) 09:33, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Slovene main page

Please add interwiki for sl: (slovenščina) on Main Page. --Andrejj 10:07, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Upper/lowercase

Wiktionary (at least en:) distinguish Upper - lowercase entries, but not sl:Wiktionary. Why? --Andrejj 10:07, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

The default setting is to not distinguish upper and lower case page names (not just "entries," but all page names in all namespaces, even categories and templates). To change it you need to get the support of the sl.wiktionary community and request it to be changed. —Muke Tever 20:29, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

This page was accessed on . . .

What does that actually mean? The date and time specified seems to change every few days for no obvious reason. SemperBlotto 08:46, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

It's supposed to display the current time. The hedging of the language is probably supposed to suggest that the user may be viewing it through one of our many layers of aggressive caching in which case they will be shown an older time (the time of the cached page). —Muke Tever 20:30, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Other languages

Hi, why are there so many entries missing? how about german "Hauptseite"? --212.201.72.219 13:34, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi, There is no link to Tamil Wiktionary

The link is [[2]] Do the needful Sivakumar 04:37, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Houston, have problem

The link in Catalan Wikipedia links to Catalan Wictionary doing with Mozilla, but to English with Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Pérez 80.58.40.235 22:56, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Where is German?

Why isn't German in the List of other languagers?

It's there under Deutsch (German). The languages are listed and sorted in their own languages. Probably to help native speakers recognize them more easily. Polyglot 19:05, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Interwiki

Could you add an interwiki to portuguese's wiktionary mainpage, please? [[pt:Página_principal]] Thanks 81.193.186.177 13:52, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

We list other Wiktionaries here if they have over 100 entries. If they have over a thousand, they get featured more prominently. If they have over 10,000 entries, I add interwiki links (although I think some others here object even to that.) --Connel MacKenzie [+] (contribs) 15:08, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Regelprozess

Hallo, kann mir jemand den Begriff Regelprozess ins Englische uebersetzen? Gruss und dank im Vorraus

Common

I suggest create a common search box for Wikipedia and Wiktionary. For example, you could look for "Peace" in English Wiktionary and Wikipedia at the same time, and receive the results in the same page (i.e. a Wikimedia search page for wikipedia and wiktionary at the same time). The advantage: time gain (spare time).

I like this concept. I can't see a clear way of implementing it right now, but I do like the idea. --Connel MacKenzie T C 05:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Sentence use

Have any attempts ever been made to put the Wiktionary words into sentences? 68.18.136.28 18:49, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

At all? Yes. Systematically? No. —Muke Tever 01:35, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Slovenščina

On the first page, Slovenščina should be written with šč, not šc. Can you please also add signs: č, ž, š, Č, Ž, Š as special Slovenian signs in MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning and elsewhere? Thanks very much. --193.77.229.131 12:57, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

German wikionary

Hello. I am so NON techy. I found the quick find for words in the English version, but since I am not fluent in German I can't find the equivalent in the German version. IE It list A to Z and if I click on A it goes to a section where I can find Aa words and so on. I would like to find the evquivalent in German, preferably with the English translation of that German word. Please respond directly to my email: FESRIGOHL@aol.com. Thank you.

I think you are asking for Wiktionary:German index? Or http://de.wiktionary.org/ ? --Connel MacKenzie T C 22:38, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Archiving

If no one's opposed, I'm going to work on summarizing the important points that have been made on this page and then archiving all but the most recent posts. I'll include the summary of past subjects under the Archive 2 link. If there's some reason that this is a bad idea, you can revert if you like. I'd just like to avoid the really small scroll bar, which can be intimidating. - ElAmericano 02:04, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

It's now finished. I've left articles that are fairly recent or are still unresolved. - ElAmericano 04:26, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

If only I could do it myself...

Two things:

1. change the interwiki link to the Galego page
2. move :fr up, I believe it slots in just above :nl, cos it has overtaken them all in the number of entries on the site. --Wonderfool 13:27, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
3. Actually after The direction

Time and Date on Main page?

I don't understand why the main page starts out with the current time and date, as if that were somehow important. Who goes to a dictionary to find out the current time and date? Especially if that time and date is off by two days.

Please, fix it!

To sysops: Please, look at interwiki links at main page - they're in wrong order and most of them are broken. Sblive

Other language Wiktionaries get interwiki links when they pass the 10,000 entry milestone. The order they appear on the left column is in order that they passed that milestone. When we had interwiki links for all language Wiktionaries we got complaints. --Connel MacKenzie T + C # 5 22:59, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

concept

I like the concept of Wikipedia and the Wiktionary. Good luck. Peace.

Neat icons

Is there any reason why the French language Wiktionary has nice icons (for example, see here http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/ann%C3%A9e), while the English version has none? Ultra megatron 02:01, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Words in other scripts…

Could someone change this line:

[http://en.wiktionary.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Allpages&from=♠ ♠]

to

[http://en.wiktionary.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Allpages&from=♠ ♠]

With the current line, one gets articles from the & sign… Jon Harald Søby 19:26, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

How do I batch upload?

Hi, I have roughly 20,000 words in Ojibwe that I can upload, alrady containing the word, grammatical tags and basic English translation. However, how would I do a batch upload, since I don't have the kind of time to enter each one separately? Once uploaded, the derived words would still need to be linked to each of the associated main entry/entries (which Ojibwe, along with all other Algonquian languages may have 1, 2, 3 or more parts), and each of the derived words will need to be listed in the main entries as well. CJLippert 18:20, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I apologize for not seeing this before now, because this is certainly something that I would welcome. When we added articles for Chinese characters for this a bot was used, and I don't see why that can't work here. My own understanding of the technical stuff is pretty poor, so I'll bring this to the attention of a couple of them who might be a little better at this. Eclecticology 20:48, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Hello, yes. The robot code in question is pagefromfile.py. http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/pywikipediabot/pywikipedia/ would be a good place for you to start if you are familiar with python. Perhaps our talk pages would be a better place to get lost in the details. I don't have as much WikiTime as I used to, but if I can help with these, I will. --Connel MacKenzie T C 22:34, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Directions are here: Using the python wikipediabot 69.148.174.95 14:14, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

How to use wiktionary

How do I look up a word on the wiktionary? I have no clue how to do this. SOS!

• type a word into the search box - and hit the Go button.

Question

till which year Indian Chief Ministers could not unfurl national flag on aug. 15

Philosophy Request

Could we have an appendix for words which are the creation of philosophers. I have posted a few, and there are many more out there. ekstasis is one example, it is taken from the greek version, but is not in any regular dictionary. The definition of words from the philosophal lexicon is an area where wiktionary could easily thrive. Iamnotanorange 19:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

date

Why is the date so prominent on the main page and this talk page? I don't like it. --w:User:Unforgettableid

So that when viewing one of the hundreds of mirrors of the WikiMedia sites, one can tell that the page is out of date. Hopefuly, inquisitive folks then realize that they are getting only a copy and consequently find the "real" site. --Connel MacKenzie T C 08:03, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Of course, given the aggressive caching implemented on Wikimedia servers, the time showing on the main page—particularly for anonymous users—may be somewhat behind anyway. (I don't know how often the caches are updated; viewing Main Page as an anon right now shows me a page about half an hour old.) —Muke Tever 21:01, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Gowed Up

I used this phrase at work the other day to indicate that we might really get things tangled. My boss looked at me wonderingly and asked what I meant. I reflected for a minute to determine how I had heard it used in my family and recalled that my mom might have used the term to describe what happens when the thread in a sewing machine gets tangled up in the bobbin mechanism. I think my dad also used it to describe a machine that was out of kilter. Has anyone else heard/used this word? Where? In what context? (I'm wondering if it came from my Southern grandparents.)

I have heard of growed up but not gowed up

Word of the Day?

How about adding a Word of the Day type thing on the main page? Wikipedia has featured articles and Wikiquote has featured quotes, so why not add a Word of the Day feature here? --Thebends 14:54, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia has many more regular contributors than we have. There is nobody with the time to do the work every day - the closest we have is Wiktionary:Words in the News SemperBlotto 19:15, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand... Wikipedia may have more contributors than Wiktionary, but Wikiquote is also a sister project, yet it still has a quote of the day feature. Does it really take that much effort to say "The word of the day for December 27, 2005 is ......."? --Thebends 14:54, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Are you volunteering to maintain it? When we had this feature before the problem was lack of maintenance. Eclecticology 06:01, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't volunteering, but I could do it if no one else was willing. Honestly, anyone could do it though, it wouldn't be too hard. This is all you'd need:

Word of the Day

The Wiktionary word of the day for November 8, 2024:

Conglomerate, "A cluster of heterogeneous things"

---

It just seems so appropriate that Wiktionary have a word of the day feature because most other internet dictionaries have it. And after all, it would be a seemingly very simple thing to have. All it needs is one, dedicated person. I wasn't here when we had this feature, so I don't know the story of its downfall... --Thebends 14:54, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

When we had it before, I was the one who pulled the plug. I don't think that anyone then or now is opposed to the Word of the Day idea. The idea has also been suggested by a few others in the interim. It was stopped before because the same word of the day would often stay unchanged for a week or more. If you go back far enough in the Main Page history you should be able to see what happened.

If you want to carry on with this it would be tremendously helpful if you became a registered user. If security is a concern please remember that it is easier to trace you through an IP number than through a name that may have nothing to do with who you really are. A big advantage is that it becomes easier to communicate through user talk pages.

Your example looks nice enough, but if you want it to appear on the Main Page it may need to be trimmed down in size. Perhaps too the idea could be developed on a template page that could be linked from the Main Page. Eclecticology 09:21, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

If the actual word and definition are to appear on the Main Page, then it can only be edited by an Administrator - who already have enough to do. SemperBlotto 11:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Nope. It'd be in templates, so anyone could do it. Works perfectly on most Wikipedias. Jon Harald Søby 11:56, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Fyi, we have the word of the day feature on the French Wiktionary. In order to avoid having the same word for a week, we have a table that defines one word a day fr:Wiktionnaire:Mot du jour. Sometimes, we have the same word appearing in two consecutive months, but that's better than having it in two consecutive days. Kipmaster 12:09, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for all the comments. I'm a little confused as to why the Administrators would have to be in on this, though. Is it to prevent innapropriate words? Also, where can I register? --Thebends 14:54, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I just got an account. It is --Thebends 14:46, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for signing up. The reason that admins get involved is because the Main Page needs to be protected. It's the first thing that anybody sees including the potential vandals; that also makes it a prime target for them. I've noticed that Uncle G has devised a bot that automatically empties the Sandbox at the same time every day. I wonder whether something similar could be used to change the Word of the Day on a regular basis. That way a stack of words could be made available ahead of time, and there would be no need for the person in charge of the project to make himself available at the same time every day. Eclecticology 16:51, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

You would only need to edit the main page once to implent this. Just use {{Word of the day/{{CURRENTDAY}}-{{CURRENTMONTH}}-{{CURRENTYEAR}}}}. Jon Harald Søby 16:53, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Eclecticology, your idea of a "stack" of words to update the page automatically is great! How would I be able to contact Uncle G, though? Jon, if you look at the example I posted earlier, you'll see that I've already got that under control, thanks for the advice though. --Thebends 17:11, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I have what is known as a talk page. &#9786. Uncle G 06:07, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I know, but Ec didn't seem to understand it… Jon Harald Søby 17:14, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I think his idea was similar to what Kipmaster said earlier. If you check out the French Wiktionary, you'll see that they have a table of words that makes sure the same word will not be used for weeks at a time. Check it out: fr:Wiktionnaire:Mot du jour. --Thebends 17:22, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I saw that there was a similar (but shorter) discussion about this in the beer parlour. Should this be moved there? --Thebends 22:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh c'mon, please don't do what everyone is doing -- making all sites appear similar. There should be a theme. How about the barely used word of the day or jargon word of the day? Lotsofissues 00:39, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

You means something like

Obscure Word of the Day

The Wiktionary Obscure word of the day for November 8, 2024:

Kook cord, "An obsolete surfing term for a leg rope."

I don't understand what you're saying. This is an ecyclopedia (or in this case, a dictionary), not a fashion show. The idea isn't to provide information in a "themed" way, but in an informative way. Some people are interested about words and would benefit from a simple Word of the Day feature. Just because it doesn't interest you doesn't mean it won't interest someone else. If it finally works out and it really bugs you, just try to disregard it. As for all the sites being similar, they should be to allow for easy use. People come here to learn, not to be entertained. Sorry if this sounds cocky, I didn't mean to make it like that... --Thebends 03:58, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually I'm sure it won't interest anyone else. If 9 out of 10 top dictionary sites have a word of the day on the front page, the last one catching up will not pique anyone's interest. Sadly no one visits Wiktionary. Maybe we want to be entertaining. Lotsofissues 21:14, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

• I've created a word of the day :

{{Word of the day}}

• I will volunteer to run this, All I need are submissions...and maybe one volunteer to help me out. Iamnotanorange 18:32, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I see what you're trying to point out, Lotsofissues. But I think it goes without saying that the word of the day be a hardly used/unusual word. I mean, simple words like "Elephant" or "Happy" wouldn't be used. Saying "Obscure" word of the day is a bit redundant, as the word will be obscure anyways. Iam, you should talk to Amgine/^talk about your example. It looks nice, but there may be some size and "theme" issues. The idea, I guess, is to make the WOTD box match all of the other boxes on the main page. Perhaps you could try out different colors? I don't know, wasn't my idea... that's just what I'm hearing. --Thebends 21:41, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

definition

Please help. Many years ago I was told of a measurement ...a kugle or possibly a koogle, as being infinite. All I can find for the definition is a reference to a Jewish pudding. I have looked in dictionaries, encyclopedias etc with no luck Can you provide the definition of this type of measurement? Or where it orignated? jirby@w3ins.com

Do you mean a googol, meaning the number ten raised to the hundredth power? -Anon

A new main page is nigh

I'll have a go at redecorating this Main Page too, seeing as I remaked the Community Portal too. The rough draft is gonna be at User:Dangherous/Main Page. I hope to see it implemented upon my return (generally is around 4 days) --Dangherous 19:47, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

On the new page, can we post this?

edit · refresh · view Word of the day for November 8

set about v

Used with the adverb sense of about. (transitive, archaic except chiefly Northern England) To circulate or spread (news, a rumour, etc.) Used with the preposition sense of about. (transitive) (archaic) To plant trees or other vegetation in (a place). (passive voice, archaic) To encircle or surround (something) with other things. (UK, informal) To attack (someone); to set upon. (intransitive) To start doing or to devote oneself to some task; to set upon.

← yesterday | About Word of the Day • Nominate a word • Leave feedback | tomorrow →

Iamnotanorange 18:28, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I reckon that template is too big for the main page, that's why I kept it off My main page. It's a shame I know. But I think to be on the main page it probably needs to be reduced, and shouldn't dominate the main page. Sorry, but we'd probably be better off with a smaller template (I used one conditionally at Template:day8, and have featured it like as followed

<big><center>The [[Wiktionary:Word of the Day|Word of the Day]] is [[{{day{{CURRENTDAY}}}}]] </center></big> --Dangherous 00:00, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I can easily shrink it vertically by not putting all the definitions or the etymologies. I'll look into a horizontal shrink. Iamnotanorange 14:31, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Kurdish wiktionary

Why isn't the Kurdish dictionary http://ku.wiktionary.org among those wiktionaries which have 10 000+, but among the 1000+. The Kurdish Wiktionary does have more than 10 000 entries.

It has been added now. --Connel MacKenzie T C 03:09, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

And its place should be changed also on www.wiktionary.org

m:www administers that, I think. --Connel MacKenzie T C 03:09, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Slovak wiktionary

Slovak wiktionary [3] has 521 entries, so it should be listed in 100+. --Kompik 12:41, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

It seems to have been there already, when I looked just now. --Connel MacKenzie T C 03:10, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

www.wiktionary.org

Just out of interest, who looks after [www.wiktionary.org Wiktionary.org?] --Wonderfool 00:06, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

• m:www. Uncle G 05:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Problem with {{Wiktionarylang}}

I notice that in the text inserted by {{Wiktionarylang}} on the front page, there is no -- separating Icelandic and Low Saxon:

slenska (Icelandic) Plattdüütsch (Low Saxon)

Fixed. Eclecticology 07:55, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

wiktionary navigation is in another langauge just a notice... people will get confused.

See WT:BP (at the bottom). Jon Harald Søby 16:30, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Interwiki links on Main Page not in alphabetical order

Somebody please fix this. Ncik 16:31, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

They are on my main page!

They were supposed to be listed in the order they passed the 10,000 entries mark; presumably those with higher initial rates of entry will have more entries at a later date. Their order therefore was an approximation of current size. --Connel MacKenzie T C 03:01, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Simple English

The Simple English Wiktionary now has 100 entries. Gerard Foley 18:12, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

This is the wrong forum, but I'll say it anyways: I don't see the use of a Simple English Wiktionary. There is very little readable text in a Wiktionary, e.g. most of it consists of different entries etc. Here, all commons English words, simple or advanced, have their own entries, and many very advanced words do too (hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia). What I mean is, it would be hard for those who would need a Simple English edition to use this one instead. Just my two cents. Jon Harald Søby 18:37, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Some time ago (using the name Simpleton) I formatted EVERY word in that Wiki into a decent standard (it didn't take long!); then started to add simple words. However, after a while it was obviously a total waste of time - the effort needed would be enormous before it was at all useful. So I gave up and came back here. SemperBlotto 18:54, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it still has a value, but I have no intention of getting seriously involved with it; I just have too much to do here. To succeed it needs one person to take charge, and to make it truly a resource that can be used by a new speaker of English. The Cyrillic letters that someone has recently been adding are of absolutely no use to a person trying to learn English. Personally, I think that writing a smple English project has a lot of special difficulties, not the least of which is making sure that more complex words are not a part of the definition. Eclecticology 22:14, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I am one of the other people who is becoming seriously involved in the Simple English Wiktionary, and I also was disappointed that it doesn't have a link on this page, even though it has more than 100 entries. Please add it, admins. Whether you think it is useful or not (view my user page there for my ideas on its usefulness), if it has more than 100 entries, and *someone* is working on it, it should be here, right? --Cromwellt|talk 03:24, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

That is correct; I have just added it. We don't have the criteria "someone working on it", but only "if it has more than 100 entries" as the other is too subjective. Good luck, and please keep Eclecticology's warning (above) in mind as you proceed. You may have a larger challenge than you realize. --Connel MacKenzie T C 04:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for adding it! I actually knew that the 100 entries was really the criteria, I just thought that some wiktionaries that have been completely abandoned might not merit inclusion, even if they had more than 100 entries. But if that's not correct, fine by me! Thanks for the kind wishes, and we will definitely keep the warning in mind. Happy editing! --Cromwellt|talk 20:33, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Navigation

Hello. I just wondered what has happened to the navigation links. They aren't in English anymore. Is it just my browser or is this happening to everyone else? --Think Fast 23:40, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

No, it's not your browser. Something is wrong with them. Someone started a section about this at the Beer Parlor, but so far I don't think that anybody has been able to fix it. The only thing that I see in English in the nav. is the "Requested entries". --Dijan 23:44, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Was this ever resolved? Is the MediaWiki software using the browser's locale settings now? The javascript trick used to substitute "Requested entries" is quite monolingual (obviously.) --Connel MacKenzie T C 04:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Interwiki links

Hi,
Would it be possible to add an interwiki link to the Hebrew Wiktionary? The link should be: http://he.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A2%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%93_%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%A9%D7%99
Thanks, 62.0.121.75 20:42, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

While it is possible, it is our practice to wait until a Wiktionary has 10,000 entries in the main namespace before adding a left-column link. The Hebrew Wiktionary is listed as "1,000+" and following that link takes me to the main page of it. --Connel MacKenzie T C 02:57, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Navigation again

Now the navigation links have line feeds between them, making them take up twice as much vertical space as necessary. Or is that just me (IE5.0 on Win2000Pro)? - dcljr 19:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't earlier versions be locked for editing ?

Hi, I discovered the Wikipedia/ Wiktionary recently and I think I can safely say that it is probably the most important and worthwhile site on the entire Web. By pure chance I viewed the entry for 'grass' on the 23rd of Jan. in the English Wiktionary and found that it had been vandalized (it has since been repaired). In viewing the history tab one of the more powerful aspects of the Wiki became apparent in that the vandalism could easily be repaired by reverting to the previous version, the correct information could easily be recovered. I looked for a 'revert' button but found none. I then viewed an earlier version with the intention of copying and pasting it to a new version. I was astonished to find that the earlier versions were editable which means that a slightly more determined vandal could deface all the versions of an entry and thereby distroy the information for that entry PERMANENTLY (excluding backups of course). I can think of no reason why earlier versions should be editable. Am I missing something? Surely any given entry should have one and only one definition. This definition could evolve over time and indeed could even ping-pong between two or more disagreeing opinions which could be discussed and debated. Ultimately though, one would hope that the defintion for any enty should in the long term converge to a concensus opinion. So it seems crazy that earlier versions of an entry should be left open for editing, I can see no useful reason for this but I do see that it exposes the Wiki, increasing enormously the potential damage which can be caused by vandals. Am I missing something? Is there any reason why earlier versions are left open for editing? Certainly they should be viewable, but not ,in my opinion, editable. Can anyone enlighten me ?

When you click [Edit] on an earlier revision, the results of your edit become the new current version. You cannot edit the contents of the earlier revision, you can only "promote" the older version to being current.

Sysops are given the [rollback] feature along with [protect] and [delete]. For you to revert an entry, simply select the historical version you think is correct, click [edit], make no changes to the contents then enter "rv" as the edit summary and save.

I think many problems would be avoided if users were automatically given the [rollback] capability after one week of contributions with no rollbacks nor deletions. But I don't think the current software has the capability to add "estabished user" or "super user" as a user role at this time. --Connel MacKenzie T C 20:07, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that our visitor's analysis is correct. I just logged out and looked at the material as an anonymous contributor. I opened an old version of the Main Page. It replaces the "edit" tab with a "view source" tab. If I click on that I get the usual edit box, but I can't save the changes that I make. Connel, have you had a different experience with this? I can't imagine that the developpers would leave such a big security hole. Eclecticology 23:50, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

The visitor wasn't talking about pages like Main Page which are locked in the present (given that their example was grass). The reference appears to be to the large and prominent warning given when editing a prior version of any page: "WARNING: You are editing an out-of-date revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since this revision will be lost." The user took "editing an out-of-date revision" literally, it seems, which is not the case, as Connel explained above. —Muke Tever 17:34, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Other scripts revisited

The first two entries under "Words beginning with letters in other scripts" look exactly like the English letter "A" (they are in Greek and Cyrillic, respectively). Could we use the "title" attribute (or similar) to indicate these scripts when you "hover" over the links (in a grphical browser)? Or maybe include lowercase letters, too (which makes sense, since we're now case-sensitive): "Α α ...". That still wouldn't help for Cyrillic, which looks the same as English: "А а". But it's probably a good idea for the other scripts, when appropriate. - dcljr 20:59, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I have copied that portion of the Main Page to User:Dcljr/Sandbox. This will allow you to experiment with the rudimentary approach that we already have. Please note, for example, that Greek words beginning with an accented letter are in a completely different part of the list because of the Unicode order. Eclecticology 22:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Quick index

Words beginning with: A a B b C c D d E e F f G g H h I i J j K k L l M m N n O o P p Q q R r S s T t U u V v W w X x Y y Z z Symbols and non-English, Latin-based alphabets: ! 0-9 À–þ Ā–ž Other scripts: Α–Ω α–ω А–Я а–я א–ת ﺍ–ﻱ अ–ह . . .

Well, I've gone through and realized that the first two are the only scripts (currently in the list) that really distinguish between lower- and uppercase. Oh, well. Here's an alternate version I've started on. See the source code (edit this comment) for the various language names (in HTML comments); it would be great if these could show up in "tooltips", as described above. You'll notice (perhaps) that I gave up at Devanagari, but basically what I was doing was going through Special:Allpages and adding a new entry every time I recognized a new script being used (but only when there were enough articles present to make it "worth it"). The main idea here is to tie the list a little closer to what people will actually see when they follow the links, and at the same time to "disambiguate" some of the symbols used. - dcljr 23:02, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Yoink, we'll have that on the new main page I think. --Dangherous 23:05, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'm working on this further at User:Dcljr/Sandbox. Will post to Wiktionary Talk:Main Page/Redesign 2006#Quick index when I have a complete "first draft". - dcljr 23:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Keep up the good work! The only other modern script that has separate capital letters is Armenian. Georgian has them, but not for everyday usage. I would suggest separating symbols from accented Roman letters. There are some other symbol sections later in Unicode (mathematical operators, dingbats, etc.), but I don't know how many of those symbols merit a Wiktionary entry. I know that Unicode uses the prefrred American term "Latin" to refer to the alphabet we commonly use. I still tend to prefer the more British "Roman". This has the effect of reserving "Latin" to refer to the language. I see that you have shown the script names in the edit, but commented them out. Would it be a good idea to make the script names visible? Maybe with more sophisticated software we could have an upper limit to what is shown in these ranges, but that can wait for another day. Eclecticology 01:31, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

What about words in the Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics (UCAS) range of UniCode? (Granted, UCAS covers 4 broad categories of scripts mushed together -- sort of like Roman, Greek and Cyrillic all crammed together as a single code-range.)CJLippert 23:09, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I won't complain about including these. Eclecticology 09:21, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

graphic for create account?

When I try to create a new account ([4]), there's no graphic where it says to type the words that appear. Can someone fix that? -69.134.218.108 21:06, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, if the CAPTCHA image is not displaying for you, I think the short answer is to use a different browser. I'll leave a link to this conversation on bugzilla. I was not aware that the capture-characters feature was already turned on. --Connel MacKenzie T C 00:12, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4816 has been filed. Please add any information you can to that bug report (such as browser, OS, connection, etc.) --Connel MacKenzie T C 00:26, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Please note that the entry on bugzilla indicates that blocking cookies caused the image to not appear; allowing the cookies fixed the immediate problem. --Connel MacKenzie T C 04:54, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

nunca jamás

what is the difference between nunca and jamás. I can't find anything other than they both mean never. Do spanish speakers have a preference?

I know they are not interchangeable, at lost not in many contexts. In some contexts, nunca may also be translated as "ever". — Hippietrail 22:49, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• okay thanks, I went on wikipedia and got a complete answer there. [5]

Spanish main page

Please add interwiki for es: (Spanish) on Main Page. Laurentis 14:23, 8 February 2006 (UTC)Laurentis

Sorry, Spanish is listed on the "Over 1,000 entries" section but doesn't get an interwiki link until over 10,000. --Connel MacKenzie T C 06:57, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

In an act of boldness, I've added all the "over 1,000s" as interwikis, mainly because the redesigned main page is now longer. Comments? --Connel MacKenzie T C 22:40, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Roma Language?

Why none of that? --FlareNUKE 08:58, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

We list language entries, not mere dialects. If I misunderstood, then please elaborate. --Connel MacKenzie T C 22:38, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Roma(Romany) is the language of the "Gypsies". --69.140.0.220 18:27, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Uniform data formats (give a bot a chance)

I don't know if anyone else has trouble with this, but the pages in wiktionary are not uniformly formatted. For example look at the SAMPA for 'run' and 'man'. I won't burden this post with examples, but no two pages are quite the same. While it is easy for a person to parse, a bot has a terrible time. It also is rather demoralizing for the programmer who is never sure if they have covered all the possible variations. Any chance we could put together a uniform standard so the wikis can benefit the automated portion of the open source community? Maybe a data entry form rather than free verse html?

People go around normalizing stuff often. The side problem is that different people have slightly differing views of what best practices are, so those that desire uniformity will have a difficult time. There's an emerging project (‘WiktionaryZ’, the quondam ‘Ultimate Wiktionary’) which is more rigidly structured; you might look into it: Blogspot Meta —Muke Tever 16:11, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Dear User:80.68.8.112 please sign your entry with "~~~~" so people don't think it's me again. Are you parsing the rendered HTML or using Special:Export/pagename? Assuming you are using the XML output, languages are usually at heading level two (e.g. ==English==) but that's about as far as the hard-and-fast rules go. Even that gets contested a couple times a month. Definitions are numbered (much of the time) with "#" (sometimes "##" or "###") even when there is only one entry. You can glean the languages list from User talk:Connel MacKenzie/todo and a list of most of the third level headings at User talk:Connel MacKenzie/todo2 (this cleanup list is refreshed after most database dumps.) Note that "part-of-speech" heading can be level 3, level 4 (subordinate to ===Etymology=== when there is more than one.) Note that template syntax (e.g. {{slang}}) means the contents (e.g. Template:slang) are inserted into the entry in-line. Pages in the main namespace that contain a colon are 99.8% pseudo-namespaces, e.g. Appendix:Surnames. Remember to search for upper AND lower case first-letters when doing an external lookup. Note that the "inflection line" - the line immediately after a "part of speech" heading (e.g. ===Phrase=== or ===Noun=== or ==={{initialism}}===) will usually contain all inflected forms of a word - usually as a template. Note that for inflections, there are (at least) three competing sets of templates currently...with parameters out of order, no less. Translation sections are grouped under a related words sub-heading (not a "heading" syntax, strictly speaking) that include key words from one of the preceding definitions. Very few of those headers are ambiguous (less than 10%.) There are also three competing formats for labelling misspellings: "#redirect" (uncommon) "*Common misspelling of...", or a language header first, then "*Common misspelling of ...". Note that many entries have only "obsolete" or "archaic" definitions...and if it was archaic in 1913, it probably isn't a terribly meaningful definition now. Note that there should be separate entries here for each inflection (e.g. houses and house.)

Whew. I haven't gotten all that off my chest in a while. --Connel MacKenzie T C 02:40, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

How Can I be Administrator of Sindhi Main Pqge Designed by Me?

Dear Sir,

I have designed Main Pqge of Wikitionary in Sindhi at

http://sd.wiktionary.org/wiki/Main_Page

How can I be Administrator of the SINDHI MAIN PAGE? so that only I can EDIT the MAIN PAGE.

Ahsan Ahmad Ursani

m:Requests for permissions. But it seems you've already found it. If no response in a reasonable amount of time, try bugzilla. —Muke Tever 23:21, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

More than a dictionary

This site says Wiktionary is *not* an encyclopedia. However, where would be a better place to put the histories of each word, their derivations, and other encyclopedia-types of information? Obviously that sort of information doesn't belong in an encyclopedia, and I think is should belong here. Fresheneesz 23:00, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The Etymology section can contain most of that sort of info; and possibly the Usage notes section, too, where relevant to usage. - dcljr 22:53, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Organization of content in articles

The organization of content in articles looks abismal to me. Wouldn't it make more sense to list every language the word occurs in at the top, and a small summary of meanings - then link to a main page? As it stands, a new user of this site like myself would find the language labelings ambiguous and unexplained. Not only that, often, word definitions are repeated for every language they occur. Also, a couple pages i've seen have Proper nouns listed in a couple different languages, when they are *names* and are obviously part of all languages. Does anyone else have a problem with the way articles are written, or is it just me? Fresheneesz 23:00, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that relying on the auto-TOC is imperfect. I don't see how to overcome those problems with the current MediaWiki software. Proper nouns I disagree though; often names are translated differently. --Connel MacKenzie T C 22:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Main page revision

Since white type on a black background is always more difficult to read, it might help if the writing in these boxes were a few sizes bigger. Eclecticology 08:44, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Moving comment to Wiktionary_Talk:Main Page/Redesign 2006. --Connel MacKenzie T C 22:28, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

100,000+ definitions' Wikipedias

On the main page, it would be better if the Wikipedia who reached 100,000 definitions were obvious like on http://www.wiktionary.org/. What do you think about this ?

Perhaps. With only two, I think it might be considered unnecessary vanity. --Connel MacKenzie T C 22:33, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Especially since this is one of them, so we wouldn't link to here, leaving only the French. - TheDaveRoss

user accounts

please merge wikipedia/wiktionary user accounts.

Something along these lines is being planned. Please sign your talk page submissions with ~~~~. --Connel MacKenzie T C 09:22, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Word of the day

edit · refresh · view Word of the day for November 8

set about v

Used with the adverb sense of about. (transitive, archaic except chiefly Northern England) To circulate or spread (news, a rumour, etc.) Used with the preposition sense of about. (transitive) (archaic) To plant trees or other vegetation in (a place). (passive voice, archaic) To encircle or surround (something) with other things. (UK, informal) To attack (someone); to set upon. (intransitive) To start doing or to devote oneself to some task; to set upon.

← yesterday | About Word of the Day • Nominate a word • Leave feedback | tomorrow →

I've been keeping this up as best I can. If we could add it to the main page, it would be great. Would you like me to change to color? I can match the blue if you'd like. Iamnotanorange 18:46, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

The last time it was discussed, I think someone said we should have about six months prepped. I'll be very happy with this when a full year of entries is in place (that way, we don't have a problem if a day is accidentally missed.) Not everyone likes that shade of blue, but for consistency yes, it probably should match. Does your current WOTD fit nicely anywhere on the page? It might take a little shoe-horning in, to get it to look right. --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:05, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the response Connel, there is no real space on the front page for anything the size of the WOTD. The only thing that really fits the front page would be full-width boxes, not anything less. The WOTD would look bad as two, full width lines running across the screen, but I think that it would be possible to condense some of the boxes on the front page. I'll look into changing the color.

Iamnotanorange 00:57, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Someone deleted the "Redesign" page - I've restored it so you can play around with it and show what sort of rearrangement(s) you mean. --Connel MacKenzie T C 01:54, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I deleted the redesign page. And I've managed to squeeze {word of the day} onto the page, and it's fits nicelt, thanks to Iamnotanorange's work on Template:wotd. --Dangherous 15:48, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I tried removing the table width (400px) from Template:wotd because it made the Main Page look very unbalanced at 800×600 reolution (especially since I still haven't fleshed out the "Various other scripts" section — I'll try to work on that next week). Unfortunately, it didn't work out the way I'd hoped (on IE6, anyway) so I reverted it. I'd say the width probably can be removed in the template as long as we set the widths (as percentages or maybe in ems) in the Main Page table code. Would someone else like to work on this? I'd rather not try right now because I can't easily check the results in resolutions above 800×600. - dcljr 16:30, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I did a lot more shoe-horning, and it looks fine now. — Vildricianus 20:39, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that looks better (not perfect, but definitely better). Thanks. - dcljr 23:20, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

It's good to see that someone finally got this off the ground! Good job. Thebends 15:42, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

• Hey guys, thanks for doing all that work! I'm so proud. It looks great!

Iamnotanorange 21:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

couldn't the world of the day be a random word and its 1st dafaintion

WOTD support pages need attention

To those who have been working on getting the WOTD feature up and running, congratulations and thanks, but you should really check out the various "support pages" linked to from the main template: Wiktionary:Word of the day needs a complete rewrite to reflect how WOTD is now working; Wiktionary:Word of the day/March 2006 needs some instructions, even if they partially replicate those (that will be) at the previous page; and finally, Wiktionary:Word of the day/Nominations needs checking (I've been working on it a bit over the last couple of days). - dcljr 00:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I've done a little work on Wiktionary:Word of the day. Is everyone else away on Spring Break? (I am, but I still can't stay away from Wiktionary and Wikipedia. <g>) - dcljr 17:09, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Dude, there's not that much to say about WOTD really. Good luck trying to say more than "every day we put this new cool word - why not suggest some more, they'll appear on the main page soon" --Expurgator t(c) 17:25, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, dude, you're basically right... but before I started making changes, the instructions on Wiktionary:Word of the day made absolutely no sense. And the other two pages linked to from the template (visible, after all, to everyone who sees the Main Page), weren't very "user friendly" (the Future page probably shouldn't even be linked to in the WOTD template). It seems that the feature was added to the Main Page without much thought to how the "backend" was going to work. - dcljr 22:57, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Take down the AOL user disclaimer

That 15 year old jackass kid LOVES front page attention. Sure it will cause a few users to be confused, but the cost of feeding this idiot's ego is too high.

128.54.58.113 15:22, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

::That 15yr old "jackass" is a legend. Good vandals deserve credit for their vandalism (and also deserve to be found out and told off too - He'll be tracked down soon and punished, I was in my days as a vandal, but now I've learnt that it's really not worth vandalising a wiki, hence I've quit the vandalism lifestyle and am now just a bit of a cheeky stirrer) --Expurgator t(c) 17:25, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I had the same complaint and reworded it some time ago. --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:43, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Protected page

I think we should reprotect the main page, but we can leave the subpages protected. It's to stop the bot from adding unwanted interwiki links (and to stop me from messing it up, ;) ). --Expurgator t(c) 23:14, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

A better option perhaps is to change all boxes into templates which can be semi-protected, leaving the Main Page itself fully protected. — Vildricianus 08:56, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I like that concept. --Connel MacKenzie T C 08:47, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Do you want something like this? And then I assume that links to the subpages will go on the top of this talk page. --Expurgator t(c) 09:01, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes please. It's now online. --Dangherous 20:18, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Awesome. — Vildricianus 20:25, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

• Hrm. I thought it would be even more templatized actually. I'm not sure if that would be a good idea, at this point. Right now, I am remembering an eloquent argument made for semi-protecting the Main Page in the first place - that small incremental changes are the essence of Wiki, and prevent drastic overhauls. If we keep this version (just to prevent User:RobotGMwikt from adding incorrect interwiki links to it) we should be ready to unprotect it at the slightest request, then reprotect it afterwards. --Connel MacKenzie T C 22:50, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Did you mean just a copy-page like Wiktionary:Main Page, with the Main Page then containing {{Wiktionary:Main Page}} ? Also an option of course. — Vildricianus 08:41, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Not quite. I meant the wikisister formatting should probably be in a template, not on Main Page...and my goofy footer thing, that no one really liked. --Connel MacKenzie T C 05:27, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Hoosier

why is the etymology of this word in wikipedia not wiktionary?

Because no one (such as yourself?) interested in the term has entered it here yet. --Connel MacKenzie T C 05:24, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

simple english

there should be a link to the simple english wiktionary that is not hidden in with the other languages, so people that know only a little english will go there. Why would they look in other languages when they don't know the simple english excises?

I'm not sure that would be a good recommendation, at this point in time. The very limited number of entries available on simple: so far would probably cause much greater confusion to someone just learning the language. --Connel MacKenzie T C 05:23, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Main Page

Could someone please tell me how you got the "tab" at the top of the Main Page to read main page instead of article? Is it a MediaWiki message or what?

Thanks, --Adam7davies 14:47, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

This is a javascript hack in MediaWiki:Monobook.js, search for "Main page tab no longer says article". Kipmaster 16:04, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Link to Sindhi Wiktionary

Kindly include a Link to Sindhi Wiktionary as well among others on left of the Main Page. Aursani 13:58, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Hello, welcome back! Sindhi is listed as "over 100" articles, in the {{wiktionarylang}} section. Interwiki links (in the left-most column) are added when you've passed the next milestone. I'm glad to see you are making progress! --Connel MacKenzie T C 05:20, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciations

I have noticed that Wiktionary has no pronunciation guide. I recommend using a universal pronouncing guide, such as X-SAMPA for all the words in all the Wiktionaries. Then a universal pronouncing guide for all the Wiktionaries could be developed. -Walter Ziobro

Wiktionary uses the two main standard pronunciation systems: IPA and SAMPA. See WT:ELE#Pronunciation. Rodasmith 23:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

IPA is a phonetic alphabet, not a pronunciation system. The same goes for X-SAMPA, for that matter, although SAMPA is a set of pronunciation systems. However I think the idea of a universal pronunciation guide for all Wiktionaries may run into trouble; IMHO one of the important parts of a pronunciation guide is to encode differences that a speaker of one language needs to speak the other and any differences in the speaker's first language that may need to be encoded: that is, say, an ideal Spanish pronunciation key for English speakers might look somewhat different from the ideal for Chinese speakers, which will certainly be different from the ideal for Spanish speakers (though the usual option is to be lazy and use the last, which is generally the phonemic representation of the language as-is). —Muke Tever 23:38, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Change the logo

THe logo represents 'Wiktionary' with a British pronunciation. However, even so, as others have aptly pointed out, it is incorrect as the last vowel should be a high front vowel [i]. Also, as around 70% of native English speakers in the world speak American English, it would be appropriate to represent the American English pronunciation in the IPA transcription. Thus, [wɪkʃəneɹi] would be appropriate as well (unfortunately my unicode IPA font doesn't work on this site). It does seem odd to transcribe British English when it represents a minority of native English speakers.

No, it's not incorrect. As the English SAMPA standard says, "The vowels /i:/ and /u:/ in unstressed syllables vary in their pronunciation between a close [i]/[u] and a more open [I]/[U]," and it uses /i/ as a symbol showing that the actual vowel may be either [i] or [ɪ]. In any case, statistics on native English speakers are misleading, as the English wiktionary is for all English speakers, not just native ones (the non-native speakers being perhaps even more interested than native English speakers in having a guide to English words written by English speakers ...). In any case, appeal to numbers has never helped solve any regional usage issues (cf. the colour/color fiasco). —Muke Tever 00:00, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Please see the current Beer parlour conversation about creating a new logo, and the sample logos on meta:. --Connel MacKenzie T C 06:59, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

java popup for wiktionary

I modified a bit of javascript from Websters (http://www.m-w.com/button/) to work for wiktionary. To use it, I made a bookmark (of anything) and then changed the location to this code:

javascript:Wi=document.getSelection();if(!Wi){void(Wi=prompt('Type word for Wiktionary:',''))}if(Wi)location.href='http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/'+escape(Wi)+' '

I put it in my Personal Toolbar Folder and named it "Wiktionary". When I click on the link, a box comes appears that I can type a word into. Carriage return or clicking on 'Ok' instantly brings me to the relevant page.

This works for SeaMonkey but probably will work for any browser.

This is such a useful way to access a dictionary that I suggest you place the code and instructions similar to the above in a convenient place on the main Wiktionary page.

Tom Schneider Frederick, MD tds at fred.net

Thank you. That works in Netscape 7.1, but not in IE 6.0. Please note: that is JavaScript, not Java. Java is a beautiful programming language, while JavaScript is a source of never-ending frustration.  :-)   For IE, the code looks like this:

javascript:Wi=document.selection.createRange().text; if (!Wi) {void(Wi=prompt('Type word for Wiktionary:',''))} if (Wi) location.href='http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/'+escape(Wi)

For lynx...still working on that one.  :-) The Wikipedia irc scripts seem to work well, though. --Connel MacKenzie T C 06:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Link to Sindhi Main Page

Kindly include a link to the Sindhi Wiktionary's Main Page too. Aursani 14:47, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

There is a link to "sd:" in the "100+" section. --Connel MacKenzie T C 14:49, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

front page looks like *$&*£&%

the whole look of it wouldnt be so bad if you used a MediaWiki:Monobook.js hack to get rid of the h1 header. but otherwise, oh dear god. And Wikipedia looks so nice! I expected better. You really need to sort out that "slightly neglected wikipedia portal" style you've got going. the blue isn't so nice. --w:User:Alfakim.

Blame me for the Main Page (or rather the Poles, I designed this version of the Main Page. We think it looks nicer than the old one though. --Dangherous 10:56, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

'Tis perfect. Without the header would even be better indeed, but already, we're miles ahead of WP. —Vildricianus 13:14, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

M'afraid I must disagree. Would be happy to put together a better version somewhere. WP has got it very much better than this trust me. I am completely unbiased; I came here and didnt really know what was going on. every other Wikimedia sister project has a good front page but this one... sort it out guys. --w:User:Alfakim--131.111.8.97 15:17, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Then why don't you work on a new version yourself? We have enough things to do to bother about such grievances. —Vildricianus 15:27, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Footer Issues

<u>''From'' ''e''<i>n</i>.''w''<i>i</i>''k''<i>t</i>''i''<i>o</i>''n''<i>a</i>''r''<i>y</i>.''o''<i>r</i>''g'', '''w'''<b>w</b>'''w'''.'''g'''<b>n</b>'''u'''.'''o'''<b>r</b>'''g'''/'''c'''<b>o</b>'''py'''<b>l</b>'''e'''<b>f</b>'''t'''/'''f'''<b>d</b>'''l'''.'''h'''<b>t</b>'''ml''' licence.</u>

What is with this at the footer? I don't understand it. Is it supposed to be like that, or is it supposed to be a link?

A link to itself? No it is goofy to avoid site copies without backlinking to en.witktionary...so that visitors to improper mirrors (that strip all "Wiktionary" references, replaced with their site name automatically) still have a clue where the material actually came from, and how to edit it, here.

I added that a while back, and agree that it is quite goofy. Perhaps an URL-encoded HTML reference would be better? --Connel MacKenzie T C 23:39, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh I understand now! I was confused by how it was coded, but it was done that way on purpose for good reason. Thanks Connel MacKenzie! --DanielBC 04:30, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Whoa, what changed?

WT:GP#Main Page

Sesotho

Please add Sesotho "st:" (http://st.wiktionary.org/wiki/) under 100+ list for 'Wiktionary in other languages'.
Thank you!
--JAKoli4 10:22, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks like Vild was happy to oblige, and then some :-) ([6]). Rod (A. Smith) 22:22, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes, forgot to mention it here. I claim to update the thing once in a while. — Vildricianus 23:00, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Swedish Wiktionary has passed 10 000 articles

The Swedish Wiktionary has passed 10 000 articles, but as Wiktionary:Main Page/Otherlang is protected, I am unable to update the information. --81.231.179.17 12:12, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Congrats! — Vildricianus 12:42, 27 June 2006 (UTC)