Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2022-06/Disallowing typos as misspelling entries

Previous vote on the same topic

@Fytcha: Wiktionary:Votes/2019-03/Excluding typos and scannos. PUC – 21:38, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

@PUC: Thanks a lot, I wasn't aware. I'll read into it now. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 21:40, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Even though that vote has not succeeded, I am confident that this one has a good chance. The counterarguments raised in that vote are not particularly persuasive to me. I will address them if they are brought up again in the context of this vote.

I want to add however that I don't quite see why scannos were included in the previous vote. If a word only exists in the Google Books preview function but not in the actual book, we don't treat it as though it even exists (as we shouldn't: it's not part of a durably archived work, it's not even part of any work at all). — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 22:21, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Rewrite

I have made an attempt to rewrite and clean up the whole section:

There is no simple hard and fast rule, particularly in English, for determining whether a particular spelling is correct – possible a less frequent variant spelling – or a misspelling. Published dictionaries, grammars and style guides can be useful in that regard, as can statistics concerning the prevalence of various forms. The criterion for inclusion in Wiktionary, however, is not “correctness”, but actual use.

Misspellings

Only common misspellings should be included. For example, occurence with one r is a common misspelling of occurrence.

Typos are unintentional misspellings. There can be no doubt that the word cojplete seen in the line “Charleston Municipality cojplete includes Tables 14 and 13” is an unintentional misspelling of complete. Typos should not be included, even if they are relatively frequent. That a misspelling is unintentional can often be seen by the fact that the term involved also occurs in the same work in the correct spelling. Conversely, when an author consistently uses a misspelled form, it is a sign that the misspelling is not merely a typo.

Variant spellings

Regional or historical variations are not misspellings. For example, there are well-known differences between British and American spelling, such as gauntlet (UK) versus gantlet (US). Both should be included. And musick, now archaic, was once the most common way to spell music.

Combining characters

Combining characters (like the combining acute accent) should exist as main-namespace redirects to their non-combining forms (like the plain acute accent) if the latter exist.

 --Lambiam 12:07, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

@Lambiam: We do not seem to follow the combining-character policy any more (i.e., that they should redirect to their non-combining forms; e.g., see ◌́ (which uses a combining form and is not a redirect); @Theknightwho). J3133 (talk) 13:05, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

@J3133 @Lambiam I separated these out because they're frequently different things used for different purposes, and merging them doesn't really make very much sense. I hadn't realised this was policy, but I don't think we should be treating them in the way that we are. Theknightwho (talk) 13:08, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Not everyone is aware of every policy. The editors who voted (unanimously) in favour were of the opinion that they are merely two ways of representing the same character, any difference being only meaningful to typesetting software. You may have an argument that these are instead “fundamentally” different things, but I doubt that they are frequently used for different purposes.  --Lambiam 13:52, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

The combining-character policy will be left as-is by this vote (except for the small visual change by Lambiam). I do not want to combine the removal of it into this vote.

@Lambiam: I used your proposal, thanks for that. I did however tweak it quite a bit. In particular, I did not like your definition "Typos are unintentional misspellings." because misspellings are also in a way unintentional (apart for intentional misspellings, the author tried to spell the word correctly; the failure of this aspiration is unintentional), so I've changed that back to the previous, clearer definition. Tell me what you think about my changes.

Fine. I’ve done some further minimal tweaking.  --Lambiam 14:16, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

I also want to add that I will change Wiktionary:Misspellings accordingly if this vote passes. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 13:41, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

@Fytcha How do you feel about also excluding mistaken Unicode character usage? Just because it's possible to find three examples of people mistakenly using Latin alpha in Greek words or actual Greek letters in IPA doesn't mean that we should have multiple entries for them. It feels like a natural extension of your point about typos, but it's a point that I've seen come up in arguments a few times ("Can we attest this particular Unicode codepoint?").

One example that springs to mind is A- (the prefix) being distinct from A− (the academic grade). Until recently, A- had a bit about it often being used as the academic grade due to Unicode mix-ups, but literally no-one has ever actually intended to write "A hyphen" as a grade. It felt like a silly misunderstanding of what we're actually trying to achieve here. Intention is the key point here. Theknightwho (talk) 13:54, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

@Theknightwho: A- uses - (the hyphen-minus); likewise, -1 (jiǎnyī; using 減 (jiǎn; to subtract)) would be moved to use − (the minus sign)? J3133 (talk) 14:04, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

@J3133 Issues with specific examples don't really affect my point: I've seen this come up several times. In any event, if something's used as internet slang that's quite different from it being (mostly) handwritten. Theknightwho (talk) 14:07, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

@Theknightwho: My point was - is a hyphen-minus, not a hyphen, as you claimed. If -1 is not moved then your proposal is inconsistent because “no-one has ever actually intended to write”, modifying your example, “hyphen one”. J3133 (talk) 14:10, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

@J3133 Hyphen-minus was always a compromise character (though, as Unicode say, you shouldn't use the name of a character to determine its use). What matters is the identity of the character that people intended to write, which arguably comes about in a different way with -1 and A−. One has only ever existed in an online format using a specific codepoint, while the other has not and has only ever used hyphen-minus due to codepoint limitations. Theknightwho (talk) 14:18, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

@Theknightwho In handwriting and mechanical typesetting, though, there is no physical distinction between hyphen and minus; the two are represented in exactly the same way (a short horizontal line partway between baseheight and capheight), and the separation of hyphen and minus is itself an artifact of computing. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 18:05, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

It's not - it comes from typesetting. Semantically, we treat them as different things as well. Theknightwho (talk) 18:07, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

@Theknightwho: Thinking strictly in terms of parallels, I am under the impression that mistaken Unicode character usage is more akin to misspellings than it is to typos. Somebody who uses a mistaken Unicode character once in a work is likely to use that same mistaken character all throughout that work, which is not the case for typos. At any rate, I think it is better to create a separate follow-up vote for that concern. Granular politics is superior. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 14:52, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

You're correct, though I do have a response to what you just said. We'll see how this vote goes and then go from there. Theknightwho (talk) 14:53, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

GBooks URL

@Fytcha FYI that Google Books URL doesn't open cleanly (for me in Australia). It might be better to link to something on Wikimedia Commons instead (like a scanned book that supports a Wikisource text). This, that and the other (talk) 09:50, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

I found [1] [2] by looking through [3], but they're not the best examples... This, that and the other (talk) 10:03, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

@This, that and the other: That example was provided by @Lambiam. Wikisource sounds like a good idea, I'll look through that transclusion page too. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 10:06, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. The GBooks example isn't even that great, because it's not obvious that "complete" is the only possible correct word in that context. This, that and the other (talk) 10:20, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

@This, that and the other: I've looked through quite some hits now. My findings:

• (most common) Missing characters (e.g. "o" instead of "of", "alway" instead of "always") (there sometimes is a space instead, so it's likely a typographical or mechanical error, not a human error)
• (also very common) Transpositions (e.g. "dffierent" instead of "different", "reprseented" instead of "represented")
• Linebreak mistakes (e.g. "funda-damental" instead of "funda-mental")
• Misplaced spaces (e.g. "for mof" instead of "form of")
• (rare) Wrong characters (e.g. "exteem" instead of "esteem")
• (very rare) Multiple mistakes (e.g. "winch" instead of "which")

I wish there were a really clear example of a wrong character being used; the single one I found ("exteem") is not that conclusive either. While x and s are adjacent on the keyboard, they do have some resemblance in sound. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 11:42, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I found similar - the WS texts are old, and the kind of typos that are found in typeset texts of that era are different in flavour from typewriter-era and computer-era typos. "reprseented" isn't a bad one imho. Other option is to just make up an example sentence, like "After many years of effort, the work was cojplete at last". This, that and the other (talk) 00:48, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

@This, that and the other: I've removed the example right before the vote started because it also didn't show a preview on my end. If the vote passes, I think we can still retrospectively add an example in there without another vote as an example is not a change in policy. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 01:03, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

How to edit

@Fytcha I am a bit confused of what to do, how to edit. This is how I understand in brief the instructions "How to handle spellings" after the explanations on what "variant spellings / misspellings, misconstructions - mistakes and errors" are

• normal entries: Variant spellings, etymological or proposed spellings (as in a dictionary), simplified spellings (as in a language's older and contemporary rules) and spellings with special or combining characters have entires at main namespace (examples from some languages, not only English:...)
• general principal: No error or mistake appears at main namespace.
• no page at all: Mistakes are unintentional typos or scannos. The writer is aware of the correct form.
• redirects: Some mistakes are very frequent = they have a redirect (they do not appear at SearchBox, or at the index of a language) We just fascilitate a predicted mistyping by a user.
• at namespace:Errors Errors are the result of a misunderstanding. The writer is not aware of the error. There has to be a page explaining what the misunderstanding is. Errors do not appear at Search, or google searches as "wiktionary.entries". They have their own namespace.
• normal entries: Some 'errors' have been repetitive for generations and thus became legitimate spellings, included and explained in dictionaries (examples:...)

Sorry for not providing examples. I have always wished for a special namespace for errors, because i often get confused when i see them at searchbox. ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ I 17:09, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

@Sarri.greek: Firstly, it is important to note that, even though a lot of text gets changed, this vote effectively only changes whether we include typos. Everything else is left as is. As to the question of what goes where:

• Correct words / variants: normal entries while potentially using {{alternative form of}}, {{alternative spelling of}} etc. to avoid duplication
• Misspellings: either entries that point to the correct spelling using {{misspelling of}} or nothing at all if the misspelling is not common
• Typos: no entry at all

Your characterization of what a typo is ("The writer is aware of the correct form.") is close but not 100% accurate. On the one hand, the writer could also have intended to write an incorrect form (e.g. occurence) and slipped up in the process thereof (e.g. by writing occjrence), which is still a typo. On the other hand, somebody who intentionally writes stronk for comedic effect likely knows what the correct form is but this still doesn't make stronk a typo. The distinguishing feature is that what the writer intended to write is not the same as what the writer has actually written. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 17:40, 22 June 2022 (UTC)