User talk:Наименее Полезное

Hello, welcome to Wiktionary, and thank you for your contributions so far.

If you are unfamiliar with wiki-editing, take a look at Help:How to edit a page. It is a concise list of technical guidelines to the wiki format we use here: how to, for example, make text boldfaced or create hyperlinks. Feel free to practice in the sandbox. If you would like a slower introduction we have a short tutorial.

These links may help you familiarize yourself with Wiktionary:

• Entry layout (EL) is a detailed policy on Wiktionary's page formatting; all entries must conform to it. The easiest way to start off is to copy the contents of an existing same-language entry, and then adapt it to fit the entry you are creating.
• Check out Language considerations to find out more about how to edit for a particular language.
• Our Criteria for Inclusion (CFI) defines exactly which words can be added to Wiktionary; the most important part is that Wiktionary only accepts words that have been in somewhat widespread use over the course of at least a year, and citations that demonstrate usage can be asked for when there is doubt.
• If you already have some experience with editing our sister project Wikipedia, then you may find our guide for Wikipedia users useful.
• If you have any questions, bring them to Wiktionary:Information desk or ask me on my talk page.
• Whenever commenting on any discussion page, please sign your posts with four tildes (~~~~) which automatically produces your username and timestamp.
• You are encouraged to add a BabelBox to your userpage to indicate your self-assessed knowledge of languages.

Enjoy your stay at Wiktionary! Vininn126 (talk) 20:25, 2 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hello and welcome. I noticed that you made a bunch of recent edits to add hyphenation to various Belarusian words. However there are some errors there. For example, your edit of the word уласцівасць adds an incorrect hyphenation "у‧лас‧ці‧вас‧ць". The hyphenation rules can be found here. In particular, it's incorrect to hyphenate a word in such a way, that a single letter is left out on a separate line. Could you please pause the mass editing for a while? Also it would be nice if you could go through your earlier edits to review and correct the older mistakes. Thanks. —Ssvb (talk) 23:43, 2 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Добры дзень! Ой, я прашу прабачэння за беспарадак, мая англійская не вельмі добрая, таму мне давядзецца мець зносіны з вамі па-беларуску або па-руску. Я прагледжу свае праўкі і выпраўлю іх, дзякуй за паведамленне і яшчэ раз прашу прабачэння! Наименее Полезное (talk) 23:47, 2 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure if there's a strict written formal policy about this, but all communication with the other editors is normally done in English in the English Wiktionary. How good are your English skills on the CEFR scale? Maybe try the free EF Standard English Test from the Internet to get a rough estimate and put this info into your WT:Babel box? If you feel like your English skills are insufficient, then maybe consider contributing to the Russian Wiktionary instead? —Ssvb (talk) 06:30, 7 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Oh, my English is reasonably level 3, I just wanted to communicate in Belarusian because I thought we could Наименее Полезное (talk) 19:33, 7 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Перанос «шкоднасны»: шкод-насны? Наименее Полезное (talk) 23:58, 2 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

The modern words like падабайка or ноўтбук are NOT present in the Kandrat Krapiva's Explanatory Dictionary of the Belarusian Language (1977-1984), because they simply didn't exist back then. I think that it's undesirable and misleading to list this dictionary in the references section for these words. And any other dead links shouldn't be there either. —Ssvb (talk) 16:09, 9 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

My current interpretation of WT:CFI is the following: we can safely assume that any word present in the Kandrat Krapiva's dictionary generally falls into the "clearly widespread" category and doesn't need any special attestation. But the other words preferably should have citations. For example, that's the reason why I added citations for падабайка and содні. And dead links to Skarnik only make it harder to see, where such citations might be necessary. —Ssvb (talk) 16:22, 9 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Noted! this mistake will not be made again. Наименее Полезное (talk) 16:22, 9 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Genuine question, why are you so obsessed with starting every entry with "From", using "der+", and having "and" with the compare cognates bit?

Using "af" instead of "prefix" or "suffix", that's fair enough — even the categories of suffixed or prefixed terms suggest using "af" — but from where did you get the idea that starting etymologies with "From" or using "and" for the cognates are necessary? I don't ever recall this being a required convention for Russian, Ukrainian or Polish. In fact, I'm not sure there is such a convention. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 16:12, 31 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

Learn what? That actual references should be lumped together with dictionaries? If you're so obsessed with following the Polish formatting, why don't you look at mały, mniejszy, and mało, where THEY SEPARATE REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING? Always complaining about me "ruining" the entries, when you're ruining the References section by having a numbered list collate together with an unnumbered list. And if you try - and trust me, I've tried - you cannot combine the <referencеs/> section by trying to number the dictionaries with #. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 03:33, 15 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Who said I'm copying the Polish formatting? You should open your eyes more. And btw, I know what I'm doing with my own language. Наименее Полезное (talk) 11:11, 15 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hello. I noticed that you tend to be adding rather verbose full definitions for the senses of the Belarusian words under {{gl}} templates, many of which look like direct translations of the full definitions from Skarnik. But my understanding of the Wiktionary:Style_guide#Types_of_definitions policy is that glosses of the non-English words preferably have to precisely pinpoint one of the senses of the corresponding English word.

If my interpretation of this policy is correct, then a Wiktionary contributor is supposed to wikilink an English word. Then go to that English word entry to verify whether all of its senses are really applicable. If only some of them are applicable, then provide glosses in the Belarusian word entry in such a manner that a Wiktionary reader can clearly match the Belarusian glosses with the corresponding English senses from the English article. In other words, we shouldn't just translate Skarnik, but instead attempt to link to the existing Wiktionary senses of the English words. Or at least do this whenever it is possible. Some words can be indeed tricky. --Ssvb (talk) 11:38, 18 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

This diff of the супрацоўніцтва entry is a good example of it. --Ssvb (talk) 12:32, 18 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Oh yes I understand what you mean, I still have some difficulties in characterizing some words, thanks for letting me know about it, I will make improvements. Наименее Полезное (talk) 16:20, 18 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

I see that you keep taking the Belarusian definitions from {{R:be:Skarnik}} and just doing your own translation of their text into English via Google Translate. For example, you added the "air flow in a horizontal direction" gloss for вецер, while the wind article from Wiktionary suggests "real or perceived movement of atmospheric air usually caused by convection or differences in air pressure". And цалаваць got the "to touch with the lips to someone, something, expressing a feeling of love, gratitude, grace when meeting, saying goodbye, etc." gloss, while the Wiktionary kiss article has it as "to touch with the lips or press the lips against, usually to show love or affection or passion, or as part of a greeting".

I'm not a native English speaker, but the "to touch with the lips to someone, something, expressing a feeling of love, gratitude, grace when meeting, saying goodbye, etc." sentence spat out by Google Translate somehow sounds awkward to me. ChatGPT suggests rephrasing it as "To touch someone or something with the lips, expressing feelings of love, gratitude, or grace when meeting, saying goodbye, etc." and Google Gemini suggests "To press one's lips to someone or something as an expression of love, gratitude, or reverence, often done upon greeting or parting". This all is partially related to the discussion from User_talk:Insaneguy1083#Jumping_between_L2's and maybe @Vininn126 or @Insaneguy1083 have some opinion on this matter.

Either way, just translating Skarnik via Google Translate to populate the Belarusian entries in Wiktionary is problematic. There is always the copyright aspect and the resulting translation quality is also questionable. I still think that we can simply reuse the definition texts from the English articles. So the gloss for вецер should be "real or perceived movement of atmospheric air usually caused by convection or differences in air pressure" or some shortened version of it. BTW, the Belarusian article for падэшва takes advantage of {{senseid}} in its links to the English word sole and that's ideally how it should be. --Ssvb (talk) 22:29, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Some more examples:

• This diff adds glosses, which are the exact Google Translate outputs for "Які ашалеў ад злосці, раз'ятраны, разлютаваны" and "Які адлюстроўвае крайняе ўзбуджэнне, шаленства" definitions from “раз'юшаны”, in Skarnik's Belarusian dictionary (in Belarusian), based on Kandrat Krapiva's Explanatory Dictionary of the Belarusian Language (1977-1984).
• This diff adds a gloss, which is the exact Google Translate output for "Жоўтае тлустае рэчыва, якое ўтвараецца на сценках вушнога канала" from “сера”, in Skarnik's Belarusian dictionary (in Belarusian), based on Kandrat Krapiva's Explanatory Dictionary of the Belarusian Language (1977-1984).
• This diff adds a gloss, which is the exact Google Translate output for "Які не парушае правіл рэлігійнай маралі" from “праведны”, in Skarnik's Belarusian dictionary (in Belarusian), based on Kandrat Krapiva's Explanatory Dictionary of the Belarusian Language (1977-1984). Moreover, the diff unreasonably labels the word as obsolete simply because this was prescribed by Skarnik (the communist authors of the dictionary had a clear anti-religion bias).

...and so on. Again, this all has potential copyright and translation quality issues. --Ssvb (talk) 23:14, 2 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Of course we should give glosses and definitions as they are perceived by natives. Doing it in natural English can be tough. I think checking the English definition on Wiktionary would certainly be a good place to start, and to try and keep things simple. Vininn126 (talk) 09:10, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Yes, they should be given as perceived by natives. But "air flow in a horizontal direction" was not a good gloss for wind and its choice looked like a low effort edit, which caught my attention. I think that harmonizing the Belarusian entries with the definitions from the English articles and also with the articles of the Polish, Russian and Ukrainian cognates would improve the quality of the Belarusian glosses.

By itself it's not a big deal if it were just a single edit of this kind. But a bigger problem is that such low effort direct copypasta from Skarnik (automatically translated via Google Translate) appears to be systematic in many recent edits. It confuses me to see that @Наименее Полезное complained about the usage of Google Translate by @Insaneguy1083, but engages in exactly the same activity. I would be less concerned if such output of Google Translate was at least reviewed by a native speaker and adjusted to reflect the current reality, but so far all of this looks like merely a mechanical replication of the content from Skarnik. The information about the allegedly obsolete status of the religious sense of the word праведны is incorrect in Skarnik. There's even a more recent dictionary from 2002 at https://verbum.by/tsblm/praviedny, which shows that the religious sense of "праведны" is okay and it's the other sense that is dated/obsolete.

That said, there are good aspects of @Наименее Полезное's edits too. Please don't see my comment as entirely negative. --Ssvb (talk) 19:49, 3 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Note: I have never used such a thing, I use my own knowledge of English. Наименее Полезное (talk) 18:05, 9 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hi, I see that you have added a quotation and this is a good thing in general. However one difficulty is that Kandrat Krapiva's works are still copyrighted and won't enter public domain until 2042, so his quotations have to be handled carefully. Wiktionary relies on "fair use", which is a United States law that permits using short quotations. And I believe that the Belarusian laws have something similar as well, but I'm not a lawyer. Now the problematic part is that you are linking to a third-party website, which hosts the whole work, thus infringing the Kandrat Krapiva's copyright. That third-party website can be potentially taken down by Kandrat Krapiva's heirs if they dislike something and Wiktionary may also get dragged into the crossfire. So we shouldn't link to such third-party websites.

For comparison, Google Books can find quotations, but doesn't allow anyone to read or download the whole text. So the copyright holders can't claim that Google competes against them and eats their lunch. In this diff, I changed the quotation to link to Google Books. In general, it's better to prefer public domain quotations from Wikisource, because they have none of these shenanigans. --Ssvb (talk) 21:18, 6 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thanks again for showing where I should improve on my edits :) I will definitely start to get better about this aspect Наименее Полезное (talk) 21:25, 6 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

WT:ABE#Quotations is supposed to explain how to create quotations for Belarusian words and this guide can be improved if anything isn't clear. --Ssvb (talk) 14:40, 14 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

There was the same problem with your quotation for шланг (šlanh). I fixed it in this diff. Once again, the problematic element of your edit is that you linked to a third-party website, which hosts the whole work, thus likely infringing the author's copyright, which won't expire until 2057. This is only legal on an off chance if the owners of that website specifically asked and had been granted permission from the author's heirs. --Ssvb (talk) 19:57, 6 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

Oh so sorry, I had just forgotten about that, thanks for letting me know Наименее Полезное (talk) 21:24, 6 October 2024 (UTC)Reply