Uživatel:Dan Polansky/English Wiktionary contribution

My contribution includes the following:

• Czech entries
  • I created over 26 000 Czech entries, usually without inflection and pronunciation.
  • I sometimes added attesting quotations but found it was too much work, and that having basic entries to be expanded later was the key thing for a start. Examples: en:idiom#Czech; en:pseudoargument#English; en:Citations:Afterphilosoph.
  • When a basic entry is created, other people do not need to worry about fleshing it out, and may expand it with the class of information they are interested in. Thus, someone may only do pronunciation and inflection, without having to worry about semantics and etymology.
• Czech rhyme pages
  • I have created over 2 600 rhyme pages using a scripted technique, slightly enhanced manually.
• Czech synonyms
  • I took some systematic effort to flesh out some of the more interesting synonym rings in the mainspace.
  • I often used "See also" instead of synonyms for near-synonyms, which are often much more interesting than true synonyms alone.
• Czech related terms
  • I started a systematic effort to flesh out related terms by using RT hubs based on Latin and Ancient Greek generating terms.
  • Initial design was at en:User talk:Dan Polansky/2018#Czech related terms derived from Latin.
• Minimum attestation via edit summary
  • I started to require myself to provide minimum attestation identification for entries that are not traced to a dictionary, via edit summary. Example: "attested in Author1 1932, Author2 1967, Author3 2013".
  • This forced me to state clearly enough where exactly I saw the word.
  • It provided incentive for providing even 5 or more items since it was so much cheaper than mainspace quoation markup.
• Reference templates
  • I engaged in a systematic effort to ensure that each of a group of languages has a reference template to a good online monolingual dictionary as far as possible.
  • I rolled these templates out in example entries, including certain unit prefix entries.
  • For some languages, I made a limited bot-like rollout in a greater volume of entries, including Slovak, Czech and Polish. This required automated checking that the target page existed.
  • Reference: en:User_talk:Dan Polansky/2016#External links to monolingual dictionaries online.
  • Templates created in 2016: R:PSV, R:EKSS, R:RBE, R:DIO, R:CIE, R:WNT, R:SDTV, R:DSMG, R:DDN, R:Bizonfy HE 1886, R:KTSK, R:DAN, R:BTS, R:Dyer 1924, R:Zamenhof 1905, R:DSC, R:FGSS, R:Islex, and R:HES. Created by me earlier: R:SSJC, R:PSJC, R:PWN, R:TDK, R:SDK.
• Thesaurus
  • I greatly advanced the thesaurus in 2008-2010 or thereabouts.
  • I created en:Thesaurus:entity, en:Thesaurus:animal, en:Thesaurus:person, en:Thesaurus:plant, en:Thesaurus:tree, etc.
  • Created 806 pages in total per XTools report.
  • Outperformed by AdamBMorgan with his 1,063 pages per XTools report.
  • In 2008, I took steps to ensure that the thesaurus remains a cluster thesaurus rather than becoming a redundance thesaurus with a thesaurus entry per mainspace entry.
  • In 2008, I took steps to ensure hyponymy and meronymy were core thesaurus organizing relations rather than being abandoned. E.g. diff, which effectively undid diff.
  • At some point, I made sure each entry has at most one sense.
  • I provided guidance to Daniel Carrero when he was working on the thesaurus.
  • Uploaded a complete wikified thesaurus: en:Appendix:Roget MICRA thesaurus
  • Uploaded a complete wikified thesaurus: en:Appendix:Moby Thesaurus II
  • See also: User:Dan Polansky/History and contributors to the English Wiktionary thesaurus
• Votes
  • I created many votes to improve policies and settle matters.
  • They are listed here: en:User:Dan Polansky/Votes created.
  • I believe votes are ultimately some of the most friendly methods for dispute resolution, if only some people behaved better in them. They make edit warring and mainspace disputes dispensable.
  • Votes can be improved by requiring participants to meet their argumentation duty instead of posting near-blank supports or opposes.
  • I proposed that policy pages be protected to be only editable by admins; and this was implemented. Source: en:Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2009/May#Reverts at Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion.. A minor thing, but basic common sense if policy pages are required to be only modified by a vote.
  • My position is still that each change to a policy should require a vote, even typo corrections. Typos can either stay--they are harmless-or all can be identified via a spellchecking and corrected by a simple 7-day vote, a mere formality.
• RFD
  • Long-term, I sought to find reasons to keep entries rather than delete them, e.g. en:master's thesis. I supported THUB arguments for years before we finally codified them thanks to my efforts and those of another great contributor.
  • If one does not need an entry, one is not forced to use it; if one needs an entry and one does not find it, too bad.
  • I cleaned up the RFD header at a point at which I was confused about what RFD vs. RFV was for, based on input from other people. The changes I made remained there for many years.
• English collocations
  • I started adding collocations originally labeled as "attributes" back in 2008. Based on someone's input, I changed the label from "attributes" to e.g. "Adjectives often used with X". As far as I remember, it was my initiative, one, that no one or almost no one seems to have followed on for over a decade.
  • Example entries: en:knowledge. First edit: diff, listing 3 items. Expanded in diff, and then later, eventually resulting in "extensive, deep, superficial, theoretical, practical, useful, working, encyclopedic, public, private, scientific, tacit, explicit, general, specialized, special, broad, declarative, procedural, innate, etc."
  • Description and conception page: en:User:Dan Polansky/Collocation, 2011‎.
• Appendices and Wiktionary namespace
  • Created en:Appendix:Compounds and en:Wiktionary:Compounds.
  • Reported in XTools report for Appendix namespace and XTools report for Wiktionary namespace.
• English etymologies
  • It must have been in 2008 or 2009 that I was entering English etymologies from Century 1911 rather systematically.
  • Relatedly, I was creating Latin and Ancient Greek entries, captured in en:User:Dan Polansky/Verification.
  • Relatedly, I greatly expanded the following appendix, which I like a lot: en:Appendix:English words by Latin antecedents.
• Inclusion of proper names
  • I repeatedly objected to the notion that proper names such as London are not words.
  • I created the passed vote that removed the attributive-use rule, a rule that was being used in RFV to delete proper name entries.
  • I supported inclusion of sense lines of certain individual people in entries like Socrates or Newton, no less than inclusion of a particular city in the U.K. in the London entry.
  • I pointed out that that the rules for company names, brand names and names of fictional entities are needlessly restrictive and fail to lead to inclusion of "all words in all languages". This policy issue remains unsolved, and thus, we cannot have en:Gondor, en:Aragorn, en:Muminek or even en:Microsoft as a proper name per en:WT:CFI, yet we can have a name of an obscure village hardly anyone ever heard of.
• English spelling guide
  • I started to systematically create entries for X-like spelling with a hyphen where the hyphenated version is more common than the non-hyphenated, one e.g. en:Christian-like and en: skull-like, which is fine per en:WT:COALMINE. For this, U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual, proved useful, being fairly accurate of actual practice and in public domain. I created template R:GPOSM/CR for usage notes.
  • To aid in this and related activities, I created en:Appendix:English style guides and en:Appendix:English hyphenation.
  • I created en:four-fold, en:five-fold, etc.
  • I created spelling-guide entries like en:non-Catholic, en:non-Portuguese, en:non-Spanish, en:non-Italian, etc.
  • I made en:one-fourth the main entry instead of en:one fourth; etc.
  • I created en:Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2022/September#Including hyphenated prefixed words as single words
• Protecting users from abuse
  • I helped Purplebackpack89; I criticized him yet defended his rights at the same time. After his pursuer Kephir ceased editing, most of the drama around Purplebackpack evaporated.
  • For long-term Romanian contributor User:BAICAN XXX, I tried to help him edit better, and not be unfairly accused of misconduct. He eventually received an indefinite block with virtually zero evidential substantiation; perhaps he made too many mistakes, but we do not know, and the blocking administrator previously failed to provide convincing substantiation on Baican's talk page.
  • I was trying to protect Razorflame from what to me looked like abuse. However, Razorflame turned out to be an incorrigibly careless editor, who did not know what he was doing and was not learning from his mistakes.
• Protecting mainspace from bad users
  • I used user talk pages to point out to users potential problems that need to be avoided, such that entries need to be attested, and copyright needs to be observed.
  • I did this for Speednat. en:User talk:Speednat#Source of quotations is particularly troubling.
  • I did this for "Pass the Method", but I cannot find the user account. This proved futile.
  • I did this for ReidAA. After another editor mentioned on ReidAA's talk page that disputes should be solved in the mainspace more than on a user talk page, I did exactly that, after which ReidAA left the project.
  • I did this for Æ&Œ/Pilcrow/Romanophile. This proved futile. This case is an occasion to reflect that really anyone can edit, and nearly anyone can become an admin no matter how outrageous their behavior, except for myself. On a psychiatric level, the admin vote for Romanophile as if approved his gross insult against me, turning the insult to be de facto as if sourced from Wiktionary editorship at large.
  • I asked Razorflame to stop editing in too many languages given his pattern of mistakes. I was blocked from starting to collect evidence and build a case against Razorflame on my talk page.
  • I did this for PaulBustion87/PaulBustion88/RJR3333/FDR, after multiple admins failed to effectively intervene. Much later, I spotted another user account Leucostictes and pointed out that it is probably the same person.
  • I pointed out to Hergilei what mistakes should be avoided, having noticed a pattern of dangerously careless or uninformed editing.
  • There were other user talk interactions.
  • This kind of use of user talk pages may seem impolite to the Anglophone culture, but I view it as essentially kind, unlike many unfair blocks that people get. It gives people plenty of opportunity to correct course, and know what is wrong with what they are doing.
  • I sometimes used needlessly strong language; the same essential point can often be brought across more indirectly or less in the form of an accusation. For instance, I could write "FYI, entry X is now at RFV; you can help us collect attesting quotations if you wish", making the tone as friendly and non-accusatory as possible. OTOH, the project should ideally have a template text for the purpose to help people like me who care about information accuracy.
• Admin
  • Somewhat off-topic. First edit on 31 December 2006.
  • A nomination: en:User talk:Dan Polansky/2009#Admin?, July 2009, from Ruakh, seconded by DCDuring. I declined.
  • A semi-nomination: en:User talk:Dan_Polansky/2009#social class, September 2009, by DCDuring. I declined.
  • A nomination without talk page notification: en:Wiktionary:Votes/sy-2010-02/User:Dan Polansky for admin by Razorflame. I declined.
  • Another: en:User talk:Dan Polansky/2016#Admin by Daniel Carrero. This lead to failed en:Wiktionary:Votes/sy-2016-08/User:Dan Polansky for admin; whatever the merits of the opposition, especially the post by -sche is in bad form, to say the least; it probably constitues libel; when Daniel Carrero asked -sche to give at least one specific example as evidence, there was no response.
  • Another: en:User talk:Dan Polansky/2017#Renomination for admin? by PseudoSkull. I declined; the 2016 results spelled doom.
  • Another: en:User talk:Dan Polansky/2021#Admin by Dentonius. I was away at the time.
  • I omitted nominations by Wonderfool sockpuppets; they can be interpreted as attempts to stir drama; while not necessarily so, one never knows with Wonderfool.
• Glossaries
  • It must have been in 2008 that I was cleaning up and setting up glossaries.
  • Example: en:Appendix:Glossary of Christianity
  • Arguably, they are not a big deal: they could be produced by a bot from the mainspace, but only provided each definition would have a tag that would pick it for a glossary.
  • A glossary makes it convenient to acquaint oneself with some of the most relevant terms pertinent to a subject without having to click through a host of pages.
• Praise of my activity
  • "Dan gets a lot of flak for things which I don't think he deserves. He is possibly the best force for good on this project that I have seen yet, and I'm amazed that nobody's thought to help improve that before. — ObſequiousNewt — Geſpꝛaͤch — Beÿtraͤge 05:38, 29 August 2016 (UTC)", from en:Wiktionary:Votes/sy-2016-08/User:Dan Polansky for admin -- must have been in reference to my systematic creation of reference/further reading templates
  • "Hi Dan, always (ok, not always, but pretty much often) when I look up who made the article about the Czech word in the English Wikipedia, it is you - and they are often interesing entries! Can you tell me how many Czech entries have you added into the en/cs(/...?) Wikipedia so far? :) Thank you and go on, please! --Jiří Janíček (talk) 17:53, 6 November 2019 (UTC), Prague", from en:User talk:Dan Polansky/2019
• Logo
  • I created File:WiktionaryEn - DP Derivative.svg. Admittedly, this was trivial: I just dropped the tiles.