Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2022-11/Should unidiomatic phrases be included if there is consensus for likely utility to readers?

Rationale

I have added option 2 to remove the mention of "usefulness" and leave the criteria unspecified.

Why the passage should not be removed but rather improved as required:

• Yes, the passage got into CFI without a vote, but the requirement that all sum of parts (SOP) terms should be deleted also got into CFI without a vote. If the passage gets removed, CFI will fail to track consensus and actual practice even worse than it does now.
• Experience has shown to us that we want to make exceptions in a reasoned manner. Exceptions applied in the history include translation hubs (translation targets), "set phrase", "term of art", free variable (also prime number and normal distribution), WT:LEMMING, low numbers (thirty-six), a small number of fractions (two-thirds), etc. Even deletionists sometimes invoke deliberations or criteria for keeping that are worded not in terms of CFI. Deletionists have repeatedly supported deletion by invoking criteria also not covered in CFI.
• Some of the ad hoc reasons have been codified (WT:THUB), but some not. Waiting for codification is impractical.
• The passage is the only CFI analogue of W:Wikipedia:IAR. It codifies certain flexibility.
• The passage is rather weak. It does not force editors to vote in a certain way in RFD; deletionists can still vote to delete SOP phrases as they wish.

--Dan Polansky (talk) 07:54, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Wording of option 2

I do not insist on my wording of option 2. Proposals for other wording are welcome. If we won't find an agreement, someone may add option 3, but chances are we will be able to figure out some acceptable wording. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:54, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

If I had my druthers, we would explicitly ignore !votes that go like, “Keep, it is useful to readers.” Rather than narrowing the usefulness loophole, option 2 expands it, inviting all kinds of specious arguments, including (next to usefulness) such non-reasons as Keep, clearly in widespread use” and “Keep boring story, for only one of several meanings of boring applies”. If there is to be an option 2, it should be limited to just the first sentence.  --Lambiam 13:02, 11 November 2022 (UTC)