User talk:Dentonius/2020

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Again, welcome! 2020.08.22. Wiktionary

Welcome, Dentonius! It was nice to see your Greek edits. Happy summer! ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ | 13:56, 22 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Sarri.greek. Thanks a lot. Happy to help. There seems to be a lot to learn but I suppose I'll manage. Happy summer to you too ;-). -- Dentonius (talk) 15:34, 22 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hello! (In response to your note at my usertalk) + I saw your nice links in {ux (Usage examples). There is this policy for not using links within ux or quotations. Frankly, I would have loved them. But in black colour (too much blue can be a bit excessive). When i first arrived in en.wiktionary, I did ask about this. It would be nice if you ask for some guidelines again. Let's see what happens. Perhaps at information Desk, or at Beer parlour, where more answers would be expected. Thanksss ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ | 08:53, 31 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Sarri.greek, it is what it is. Thanks for the tip. I'll revert the Greek entries if you haven't done so already. -- Dentonius (talk) 09:00, 31 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Dentonius, ... why not leave them... See if anyone reverts. I am very curious. ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ | 09:02, 31 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi, it's me. Just wanted to say a couple of things without making that large public discussion longer than necessary :)

1. We had, until a year ago, a regular user called User:Stephen G. Brown (I think he may have fallen ill or died; he has been gone a while for no obvious reason). This guy was a real language genius: he could edit competently in probably a couple of dozen languages or more (specialising in Native American). And of course he worked as a professional translator. And just like you he would regularly object to the deletion (at WT:RFD) of phrases that are self-evidently "sum of parts" to an English speaker, like "shared house" (I'm making up an example here), because obviously that's just a HOUSE that is SHARED by people, but to a translator there is probably one correct way to say this. So: you're not alone in what you are asking, and I do certainly respect the need for translators' dictionaries (though usually in specialist areas like medicine or architecture), but as I said we're not necessarily equipped to cover that stuff yet.

2. Apologies for my assumption that you were a newbie :) Indeed you may have been hanging around for years just reading. When I first became active here (mid-2008) everybody thought I was some other user and there was a lot of bullshit drama.

3. Nice to see some Jamaican Patois being added (or anything unusual! I get excited when we have a Welsh editor). I hope you will stick around to work on that even if you don't entirely agree on the sum-of-parts inclusion policy stuff. Patois is underrepresented everywhere as I'm sure you know.

later, Equinox ◑ 09:20, 24 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi again, @Equinox. 1. I've seen his page and I was amazed at the number of languages he knows. I thought, "wow, is this guy for real?" Wiktionary:Administrators still shows him as active, but then again I don't know how what the inactivity time period threshold is. I hope User:Stephen G. Brown's okay. I agree with you, though. Maybe what I was asking would be difficult with roughly 1,000 editors who are already spread thin. 2. No worries. It's different on this side of things (editing), so, in that regard, I guess I am a newbie. 3. Thank you :-) It won't demotivate me. The community has been around for a long time and I'll just have to work within the framework of what's acceptable here. That thing around mid-2008 must have been hilarious. As for Patwa, yeah, I'll keep contributing. I think it might help people too. For most of us from Jamaica, the main trouble is that we sometimes experience interference between Patwa and English. We have trouble separating at times. Have a wonderful day and thanks for writing :-) - Dentonius (talk) 09:31, 24 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

Right. Always the trouble when two languages are close enough to be mutually understood. Someone asked on here today: was Robert Burns writing in Scottish English, or in Scots? Youch. (BTW we were missing that sense at interference; I've added it but see what you think. Apparently I did positive transfer and negative transfer ages ago, can't remember a damn thing.) Equinox ◑ 09:56, 24 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi, and great work on the Italian entries! I did notice, however, that some of the example sentences you added are a little long. As stated in WT:USEX, example sentences should be "short and simple" because "additional material... may confuse English learners." There's no particular word count for a good example sentence, but I think it would be good to try to shorten and simplify them a little bit :). Another note: it's also customary to bold both the Italian word in the example sentence, as well as that word in its English translation. Also, as a curiosity, how do you come up with the example sentences, given that your user page says you're able to contribute with only a basic level of Italian? Thanks! Imetsia (talk) 14:32, 25 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi, @Imetsia. Thanks a lot. ;-) To answer the last question first: I already speak Spanish well. I'm still formally learning Italian grammar right now so that's why I ranked myself as low. But listening to Italians and understanding them is pretty easy. I can even reply with no trouble depending on the topic. I'll try to make the example sentences shorter in the future. The example sentences come from random public domain sources on the Internet (typically with bilingual versions of their site) where the language was authentically used. I sometimes modify the examples and the translations to make them more suitable for our dictionary. I always bold the foreign language words. Occasionally, I forget though. Are we required to put the English form in bold as well? I haven't done it up to now because the definitions already say what the word is. For example:

1. pork

   Versare l’olio in un tegame e far rosolare il filetto di maiale.

   Pour the oil into a a frying pan and sauté the pork fillet.

Without looking at the line in English, we know that the word in bold is "pork" because that's the definition, we're looking at. However, if we're required to bold both terms, I'll happily do so. Let me know. Have a nice day.

-- Dentonius (talk) 14:49, 25 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

Yes, this is the official policy. To reference WT:USEX again, "for languages other than English, a translation is to be given... with the translation of the defined term boldfaced." Imetsia (talk) 15:20, 25 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

Thank you so much for all the examples you add! About υπ' όψιν and describing it as an interjection: I was wondering too. So, I checked the current schoolgrammar (which is otherwise terrible) interjections and it is clear that for Greek, only small indeclinable words or 'sounds' are considered as Interjections. Plus interjective-like-expressions, which may be of any other part of speech. I presusme this is quite different for English. So, mystery solved. ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ | 08:12, 26 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Sarri.greek. Excellent :-) Thanks, Sarri. I just read the morning headlines in Greece. Now it's time for me to study some Greek grammar. A few more examples are bound to come your way in a few as I do. - Dentonius (talk) 08:15, 26 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Dentonius, The Grammar above is for 13-16 year olds, and it is notttt good, too many things omitted. I presume you study #Holton. Now, ... this is the schoolgrammar for little children It is very concise (of course), but oddly it is better -i think. It is written very carefully by one of Holton's coauthors.

PS I am amazed at your polyglott studies! I see that you deal with many languages. irie! (wonderful in Jamaican) ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ | 08:25, 26 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

Respeck due, @Sarri.greek! I smiled when you translated "irie" for me. Cute :-) Gwaan tek yuh time learn di likkle Patwa. Two twos yuh wi good good inna it. :-) You should totally go to Jamaica one day and spend a few weeks. You'd pick up the creole really fast :-) Re: language learning: It's kind of like a hobby that got out of control. As soon as I finish learning one language, I can't resist going after another. I don't know when I'll ever stop. I'll check out your recommendations. When I said "grammar" that might have sounded really high level. :-) Oops! Presently I'm using this book Colloquial Greek. I'm about 51% of the way through. I've found that the Colloquial series is really impressive. They don't water down the information and they don't go overboard with the very advanced stuff. They also have good audio recordings. -- Dentonius (talk) 08:36, 26 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Dentonius The book's audio sounds very nice. Must come to Jamaica - love it! (I am too old for long trips though). But my soul is there. I will learn di likkle Patwa, I promise: I will follow your edits. PS I am neither a polyglot, nor a linguist. I came here by accident: i just did a small edit on something Greek, and ... here I am! ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ | 08:56, 26 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

The quote at banton in the Jamaican Creole section looks suspiciously like an English quote. --Daleusher (talk) 21:06, 9 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Same with balmyard (you even "translated" the quote in English, without changing anything!). badmind, however, looks "weird" enough to me to take it as Jamaican Creole. --Daleusher (talk) 21:10, 9 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi @Daleusher. Those quotes are regular old English. It's very difficult to find book quotes written in Patwa for certain terms. When I hear the word "banton" I only think of "Buju Banton" and when I was younger, I never even wondered what banton meant. It's a word which wasn't in general use where I came from. The English quote explains the term. I duplicated the translation because the template will put up an alert otherwise. Do they actually need to see an example usage or do they just need proof that the word isn't made up? Outside of that, I believe all my entries have examples in actual Jamaican Creole in case people are wondering how they're used. Looking forward to getting some feedback on this. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 21:14, 9 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

I'll go remove the translations and let it display the alert. I don't want people to think that the ones you pointed out are actual Creole. Oh, right.. it won't do that if I change the language code to "en" for those. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 21:18, 9 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Someone was also kind enough to teach me about |termlang=jam. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 06:40, 10 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

bwoy (jam) directs to incubator, @Dentonius - By the way, thank you for the very flattering comments about me -I did what people have done for me when I came here: they explained how things are done-... Now, About Jamaican. I was wondering if it were possible for you to make lemmata at this incubator, linking with interwiki to the other wiktionaries. As tests, as examples: It would be irie!!!
Are there any recordings at commons? c:Category:Jamaican_Patois (similar: c:Category:Greek pronunciation). ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ | 15:43, 11 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Sarri.greek:. Anytime ;-) Do you mean you want me to change the templates on Greek wiktionary so that they use "jam" instead of "en". I'll do that :-) As for me getting involved with the Jamaican incubator, I could... I might... I have a feeling that if any of the other Jamaicans are there, they wouldn't be happy to have my entries. They're promoting a new style of Patwa writing and they frown on the old style. Moreover, I'm not that interested in Patwa as a vehicle for learning anything. I'm mainly interested in helping Patwa speakers to master English. But I'll consider it. :-) Could you tell me why you think it'd be a good idea, though? -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 15:49, 11 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

No, @Dentonius, I did not mean that you should change el:Template:jam-noun: it is your decision and your decision only.

We both come from languages with few speakers. It would be nice to do some work for such languages. Jamaican music is international: many people would like to learn Patwa. It is important to see a lemma in the mother tongue, and yes, at all its script versions, why not... (It happens for greek too: older versions of script in polytonic style before 1982.) Why can't we see the lemmata from incubator? Listen-read it-undersand it-say it! ‑‑Sarri.greek ^♫ | 16:05, 11 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Even usage examples have to be attributed if they're taken from newspaper articles or online resources. Please refrain from copying texts from Romanian sources if you a) don't have the authority to do so, and b) if you do not attribute the sources properly. Any copied material can severely damage the project as a whole, so I urge you to be more careful.

On another note, Romanian is written with ș and ț using commas, not cedillas. The decision was taken back in 2011. The vote can be scrutinised here. --Robbie SWE (talk) 10:12, 12 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi, @Robbie SWE. Thanks for writing on my talk page. Sapte ani de acasa, Robbie. Please say "hello" when addressing, people. Which one specifically is a copyright example? Are you talking specifically about the Romania's Got Talent, example? -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 10:32, 12 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Robbie SWE. That one with "Romania's Got Talent" arguably is. But the rest were all "fair use". The translations were all mine too. Why do you think they were copyright violations? And don't be patronising about how to write Romanian. If I left off the diacritics, it would simply have been a mistake. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 10:37, 12 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Okay, I see now that you're referring to the rival versions of the s and t diacritics. Noted. My future Romanian posts will employ the community's style. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 11:23, 12 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Comment: This appears to be a set-up by someone with a personal vendetta (based on an earlier remark in a BP discussion). Whether I'm right or wrong doesn't matter, this warning can be used as a justification for punitive action later. Solution: use quote-book for citations and avoid direct examples (everywhere). The diffs in question are:

• citi
• invita
• lucra
• magician
• scrie
• vedea

-- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 03:57, 13 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Wagwan Dentonius, I appreciate your admiration of my work. I have yet to add much detail to my profile, but I grew up just outside of Boston, MA and don't have an ounce of Yardie blood in my body. Despite being fully white, some of my football (or soccer, not the one with helmets and pads) coaches were from Jamaica and spoke to the players in English with a Yardie accent and in full-blown Patwa with each other. I quickly became curious in the peculiarities of this language that mimicked English but at the same time rolled off the tongue much more smoothly. So far I'd say that I'm only able to hold basic conversation in Patwa with some English sprinkled in, however I am happy to add to the Patwa dictionary where I see fit. Likkle more.

SisyphusOfTheMoors (talk) 05:33, 13 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

@SisyphusOfTheMoors, One love, bredda. Gwaan du yuh ting. Mi glad fi di likkle help :-) If you need any help with anything or have any questions, I'm here. All the people I've met who took an interest in our dialect, or learned it as a second language were good people. I'm pretty sure you're one, too. Tek it easy, boss. Protection!

P.S. Remember to sign your posts with four tildes (~ x4). It's a pretty important custom here ;-)

-- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 05:31, 13 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Dentonius NS Ich merke auch, dass du momentan in Deutschland wohnst. Jetzt haben wir eine weitere Sprache, darauf wir uns unterhalten können. -- SisyphusOfTheMoors (talk) 05:39, 13 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

@SisyphusOfTheMoors Wahnsinn! Ich freue mich auch darüber. Hier auf der englischen Version dieser Site benutze ich hauptsächlich Englisch :-) Who knows, maybe soon you'll have a profile page up too? I'm curious to see what you'll put on it. Bless. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 05:49, 13 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Dentonius Sorry about the toilet paper error. I read somewhere that that was a more literal meaning, however that interpretation has been left behind it seems.

@SisyphusOfTheMoors, no worries. It wasn't a big deal. We live and we learn :-) -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 18:26, 13 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hey. Would you like to nominate one of your best recent creations for Foreign Word of the Day? I recommend one with quotes, etymology, pronunciation and that might be interesting for the casual reader. Daleusher (talk) 00:46, 17 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi again, I nominated prekeh. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 06:58, 17 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi, thanks for the editing! One query though — surely your addition to φίλο is a misspelling of φύλο ? — Saltmarsh. 09:49, 18 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi @Saltmarsh, thanks for spotting that! You're right. I'll go fix it. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 10:05, 18 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi. OK I promised myself I wouldn't read the politics page, but HEY we grow by learning, or learn by growing, or something. I would like to comment about your suggestion "Keep but sideline ethnic slurs". On the one hand I think we have a lot of very stupid and annoying entries like "nigger cock"??? is that a thing -- equally there is stuff like niggerball which I hope nobody would say today but which is legitimately a real word that was used at some time by somebody... Deleting or removing this stuff is like tearing out the pages from the history books about slavery. Nobody will enjoy it but it needs to be there.

You wrote: "Their footprint here needs to be reduced. Instead of having hundreds of terms related to one ethnic slur, they should all be handled by that ethnic slur's lemma." (You wrote more but I'll ignore it bceause I think the quoted part says enough.) At the risk of sounding like a fucker who just maliciously wants to be surrounded by the n-word, and I promise, I'm not the nicest person on earth but I don't want that -- we do have to *try* to take an objective stance and say "how are we gonna treat such-and-such a word". If a word is offensive then who decides that? For example suppose I'm a transgender woman and I think that "trans" is offensive because it pulls me apart from other types of woman. Do we then pack all those words under trans (what about when it's a prefix trans- instead of the separate word?).

End of the day I think all you can do is educate people as much as you can, and then give them the list of all of the words. I don't see how hiding words will help anyone. And if someone decides they are gonna throw around the n-word, are they gonna not use any sub-variants of that word? Hmm. (Boring postscript: there are also issues if we don't allow words to be "full words" with an entry, but not really what I came here to say.)

THE REAL ISSUE: why you using that awful Wikimedia discussion thing instead of good old textmode? hahaha! OK I'm gone. Sorry. Equinox ◑ 01:40, 19 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi, @Equinox. What's up? Well, I've more or less accepted that they're here. I didn't have in mind every offensive term -- just ethnic slurs, really. What did you think of the politics page, by the way? Was it terrible? Yes, nigger cock is a stupid page. I don't really care if they keep it or not. In terms of their footprint, I agree with Jberkel that it's a lot less work for us with regard to vandalism. You asked, "if a word is offensive then who decides that?" I suppose I can't give any objective criteria for that. But we're all a part of society and we know which words are NSFW. We also know which words would get us in serious trouble if we said them. I saw your example about "trans". Do we have hundreds of slurs which have the root "trans"? Please tell me about the other issues which can pop up if we don't allow some words to be full entries? Have a good one ;-) -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 04:09, 19 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

That's strange, by the way. I use text mode for everything. I tried a few Beta features once but I disabled most of them afterwards. I didn't see where visual editing added much value. I'm not even sure what the Wikimedia discussion thing is. :-) -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 10:33, 19 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Regarding your comment here: I'm going to leave it alone because I don't speak patois and I'm not qualified. Let's just say that you want a different etymology section if the ultimate (or far enough that it matters) root of the word is different. Obvious example would be something like English rose (flower) and rose (did rise, got up from a seat). Sometimes it can get cloudy because if you go back very far you can find connections between the words. Well good luck! Equinox ◑ 20:30, 22 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, Equinox. That helped. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 20:32, 22 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

https://en.wiktionary.orghttps://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Backinstadiums&namespace=all&tagfilter=&topOnly=1&hideMinor=1&start=&end=&limit=500 --Backinstadiums (talk) 16:50, 14 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi, @Backinstadiums. What's up? I see the link above but I'm not really sure what it's about. Could you explain, please? -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 17:03, 14 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

I've added some lexicographical remarks in some discussion sections of entries, e.g. https://en.wiktionary.orghttps://dictious.com/en/Talk:few --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:52, 14 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Here's a thought experiment for you: take the unspoken subtext underlying the whole from me born affair, make it absolutely blatant, crank the hostility up to 11 and dial back the maturity level a few decades, with an equal drop in the level of competence. Then imagine being subjected to that for weeks or months on almost every edit, and when you finally get the attention of the people who can do something about it, having someone who knows nothing about the situation suddenly swoop in and take over the discussion... Chuck Entz (talk) 06:44, 19 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

The discussion led to action. Prior to my participation, Karaeng's messages were being ignored. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 06:48, 19 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

I can't stomach the abuse you took on your Keep vote re. "fork" even though I voted to Delete (per Mihia). --Kent Dominic (talk) 10:49, 2 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Thank you, Kent. I appreciate your kind words. -- Dentonius 10:50, 2 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi, I believe RFD discussions are ordinarily closed by administrators. A few months ago, you asked about the "democratic processes" on Wiktionary, and the response was that "RFVs and RFDs are closed by administrators, usually after (at least) a month..." (emphasis is mine). So, in the future, please don't close any RFD discussions and remove the rfd-template from the original entries. Thanks! Imetsia (talk) 16:53, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi, @Imetsia. RFDs are usually closed by administrators. I've been here long enough to learn that anyone can close an RFD. However, only an administrator can delete a page if there's a decision to delete. Don't take my word for it, though. Go check it out. Let me know if you find anything in our rules which contradicts what I'm saying. — Dentonius 17:00, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Ok, sorry, my mistake. You're right that I can't find anything in the rules against non-administrators closing RFD discussions. Imetsia (talk) 17:20, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for that, @Imetsia. I respect that. — Dentonius 17:20, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Dentonius: That said, you're not waiting the customary month before closing RFDs, which is against our usual practice. There are often reasons to close a discussion early, but you are doing so without any need. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:17, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Metaknowledge. Will do. There's one thing I'm not sure of. Is it one month from the start of the deletion process or one month from the last comment? There's kind of a grey area where time is concerned in the RFD instructions. It appears that a duration as short as a week might be possible if there's a certain consensus. But once again, I will respect the precedent and not take action before a month. But your advice on where to count that month from would be appreciated. Thanks. — Dentonius 22:38, 16 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Dentonius: One month from the start. Overwhelming consensus often causes closure before a month, but it's better to avoid that if you're a partisan for that outcome. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:19, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Dentonius: You need to stop closing RFD discussions, because you are not doing so responsibly. For example, you closed the one about nucleo terrestre as kept when you were the only voter in favour of keeping, and there were two in favour of deleting (counting the nominator). You don't get to stamp your opinion over the consensus. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 08:58, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Metaknowledge, I don't understand a few things:

Why did you revert the {{look}} templates? The discussions have stalled for months and other people need to give input. Those aren't closures. It's just asking people to weigh in. Then there's an additional month of waiting before any further action can be taken.

Fay didn't indicate keep or delete but I read his position "Do we need a special planetary sense at core? Because how does one else know how to translate this sense of ”core” into other languages? In some a compound must be kept anyway, Faroese jarðarkjarni, German Erdkern. And we have French noyau terrestre by the way. Fay Freak (talk) 02:59, 18 October 2020 (UTC)" as either "I'm not sure" or a "weak keep."Reply

I'd really like some more feedback on this. Thanks. — Dentonius 09:05, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Metaknowledge, I'm not saying you're wrong but I really need to understand your rationale for reverting the closures. Because the way I see it: the conversations had stalled. The conversations I placed {{look}} templates in were ones which had "no consensus". As mentioned earlier, it extends the time for action by one more month. After which, if nothing has changed, the RFD is closed as "no consensus." The rest of them were situations in which the number of keeps outnumbered the deletes. However, is there anything I should be aware of when counting the keep vs. delete positions? — Dentonius 09:11, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

• Just to get some additional input, SemperBlotto and BD2412, what do you think? These are the closures in question. I know Metaknowledge has a good reason for reverting them, but I don't understand how Metaknowledge's position follows from the RFD rules. From my point of view, I followed them to the letter. I'd really like some clarity on this from all of you. If it is that I'm wrong, I just want to know how precisely so I can avoid the mistake in the future. — Dentonius 09:22, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply
  • nucleo terrestre was a mistake, by the way. It was a bit too generous to interpret Fay's position as a "weak keep". The more I think about what he said, the more it seems like an "abstain" or, actually, I'm still not sure. But given that uncertainty, I shouldn't have treated his position as a keep. — Dentonius 09:33, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Metaknowledge. Did you check every single thing I did? Or did you just rollback everything I did this morning en masse because nobody else made any posts in between mine? From my point of view, it seems that way. I hope you reply. I'm not going to revert what you did, but it smacks of unfairness. Can you, please, clarify? I really hope you give me a response which can dispel these misgivings. — Dentonius 09:41, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

• @Metaknowledge. Can I ask at least one favour? Can you check your revert and, at least, restore the {{look}} templates? We really do need discussions going on there. We really do need to trim our RFD pages. They're bloated. — Dentonius 11:15, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply
  • Or a better question Do you have anything against my addition of {{look}} templates? I'll add them back eventually. But I want to know that it's not something that's going to create conflict. — Dentonius 11:18, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi @Surjection. We're having a conversation about this over here. I pretty much have the same questions about your decision to rollback/revert. Can you read the conversation above and provide me with some answers, please? I'd really like to avoid making the same mistake in the future, if it is indeed a mistake. But I'm not seeing how your position and Metaknowledge's position follow from the RFD rules. I could be wrong but I just want to understand how precisely. — Dentonius 09:56, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

• Where there's no consensus and more than a month has passed after the placement of {{look}}, the page is kept by default. My main question regarding "consensus" is this: is it a simple majority situation or something else? — Dentonius 09:59, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

The RFD rules state "A request can be closed when a decision to delete, keep, or transwiki has been reached, or after the request has expired." When it comes to all of the closes I reverted, none of them had a case of "expiry" (because you had closed them as having chosen to kept the entry; expiring votes cannot be closed that way), nor a "decision", as they lacked the ocnsensus to actually keep the entry. (Note that unless otherwise stated, starting an RFD is an implicit vote to delete.) In terms of pure numbers, most of the votes were even, and many didn't have that many votes in the first place, even though it is an English RFD and thus the number of voters should be expected to be higher (that is solved by {{look}}). There is also the added note of possibly having a vested interest, as all of the closes were to keep the entry not too long after you yourself had voted to keep them (in some circumstances, it was your vote that made the numbers to delete/keep even). That is not how to responsibly close an RFD. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 10:01, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Surjection. That sounds reasonable. What about placing the look templates? I had a bunch of them rolled back earlier. Isn't it okay to place the look templates when there's no consensus, when a conversation has stalled, and there's been no action for months? — Dentonius 10:06, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

In my edit, I did replace the closes with {{look}} templates (note that I didn't revert all of your closes in RFDE). — surjection ⟨??⟩ 10:19, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

• And another question, where is the actual "expiry" written? I can't find any references to an actual expiry date for RFDs. — Dentonius 10:08, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  Under Time and expiration. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 10:19, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  "Time and expiration: Entries and senses should not normally be deleted in less than seven days after nomination. When there is no consensus after some time, the template {{look}} should be added to the bottom of the discussion. If there is no consensus for more than a month, the entry should be kept as a 'no consensus'. In practice, however, some discussions drag on for a long time. " <= This is what I understood the case to be. I asked because I'm wondering if there's some other document somewhere which has more to say about it. — Dentonius 11:12, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  The keywords are "no consensus". (There's also the aforementioned matter of optics when closing, especially as keep, after having recently voted keep and with no further discussion.) — surjection ⟨??⟩ 11:20, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  @Surjection. Is this a reasonable position: I won't count my "keep" vote when I'm tallying up. If there's a simple majority for a "keep" (bearing in mind that there's an implicit "delete" vote, which I think I'd been doing in any case), would it be okay to close as "kept"? Is it also okay to close as "no consensus" a month after the "look" notice was placed if the votes are even? (That's what the RFD instructions say). Thanks for your patience, by the way. I really want to do this the right way. — Dentonius 11:26, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  And Surjection, if you can, can you take a look at these and tell me if reverting everything was justified? I'm certain that there's a lot there that could have remained, especially the look tags. — Dentonius 11:47, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  I don't think it's fair just to look at the proportion - as I was talking about before, there should also be reasonable weight put on the number of votes. There were some closes you did that had a clear consensus for keeping, so you seem to at least partially have the correct idea. Most users tend to either vote in discussions or close them, rather than doing both (there are some exceptions, such as when there aren't that many people active in editing a specific language, for example). "No consensus" after {{look}} has failed to have an effect for a longer period of time is generally reasonable. I don't currently have the time to go through every RFDN close that was reverted (there are a lot more RFDNs than RFDEs, and usually the former are more complicated to sift through), but I might do so later if nobody else has checked them by then. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 11:54, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  I agree that the number of votes matter. But wouldn't that be more relevant for determining when to delete? It makes sense that before pages are deleted, there's a sort of "quorum." However, isn't it a bit different when the rules have been satisfied and there's no decision to delete? Wouldn't favouring the status quo be what we'd expect? Not deleting our pages if there's no consensus for that? In that regard, why should pages hang around in RFD when it's clear that the community doesn't seem interested in deleting them? Thank you for all your answers so far, by the way. You've really helped a lot. — Dentonius 12:07, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  RFD isn't just about a "decision to delete", it's also about a possible decision to keep. Thus it is important that even if the immediate effects of "keep" and "no consensus" are identical (for a request to delete an entry), they are still kept as separate concepts. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 14:58, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

• Just don't close any more RFDs. Don't try to be better — just don't do it. Stick to something where you can actually contribute to the community instead of making a mess (I would recommend you create more Jamaican Creole entries, because those were actually quite helpful). And please stop pinging me incessantly. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:11, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  Metaknowledge, I will continue doing both. As a member of this community, it is my right and I will insist on it. I will also become better at it. It appears that your mass revert from this morning contained mistakes as well. Nobody's perfect, Meta. I came across a quote once by one of the top guys who warned that he didn't want admins or sysops to feel that they were better than the other members of the community. You might not like my style but I expect you to act fairly given the charge you have. Live up to your username. — Dentonius 19:33, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  It's not your right to close RFDs. You are being disruptive and wasting others' time, and if you continue in that manner, you will be blocked. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:37, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  What a piece of work you are. The mindset you're bringing is toxic. 212.224.228.153 20:32, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  Metaknowledge, what do you mean it's not my right to close? This is something every member of the community is entitled to do. Most here don't do this and they leave it up to the admins. The reason we have such huge RFD pages is because people are failing to close as kept. Why are you trying to intimidate me? What are you suggesting? You're going to find a way to block me for doing something which I'm allowed to do? — Dentonius 20:43, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  Here's a blast from the past, Meta: "However, I've seen editors who start out polite and good-natured, get promoted to admin early on (with my support vote in tow), and then turn out to be rather nasty, using their big buttons when discussion would be more appropriate. I really don't want to do that again, as bully admins are nightmarish to deal with."

  Here's a better blast from the past: "I hope this user gets a chance to block me someday." ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:47, 19 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  There is no such thing as a right or entitlement for users to close votes. Very few of us close votes regularly and if the closures are problematic admins would be bonkers not to tell us to piss off. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:47, 19 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  LBD, you're right. My wording wasn't quite accurate. However, I think readers here understand what I meant: all of us in this community can make the decision to close if we believe the criteria have been fulfilled. You yourself used that one week period after a closure to reverse it and I thought that was okay. You were within your rights. It says so plainly in the RFD rules. — Dentonius 08:54, 19 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  IP, I think it is highly inappropriate to make comments like that, in particular when they are added anonymously. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:47, 19 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  @Dentonius, I rede you to follow Metaknowledge’s suggestion and to proceed with creating entries considered useful. I don’t create or request to undelete entries I find useful either but those which I expect anyone is somehow likely to find useful here. If so many people demand deletion it makes it appear likely enough that anyone won’t reckon the entry fit for anything, further you misheed that the editors just have to have certain reasonably predictable limits lest everything go, and such limits must also be formulated stupid enough to be grasped by reason often enough, a paradox! Unless you are able to formulate predictably reasonable new rules your reversal requests stay meedless, and I am shook of the fact that you continue with them despite that you needs be aware of the necessity of such a requirement and would be able to excel in patching the disputeless destitution in fields we have undercovered. I don’t even want to open this website any more because it’s only Dentonius rewinding the decided, very disappointing. Fay Freak (talk) 12:14, 19 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  Fay, I will try to be extra careful. I understand that I'm playing with fire. My viewpoints are, at this juncture, in the minority here. This hobby of mine... I love it. It gives me a lot of satisfaction to contribute on this Wiktionary and others. Nevertheless, I, and a few others like me, feel restricted in how we can contribute. Unless we speak up, we'll never be heard. — Dentonius 12:21, 19 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

   @Dentonius: Of course you are restricted. But there is no need to feel it. Nature oppresses? There must be apprehension anyway of what should and what should not be entered. Realistically one rarely confronts this limit, because there naturally is a filter, but you search the confrontation when the field is already left – being always for keeping is hardly on the correct line, sometimes the stalworthest fighter has to retreat or go back. There is nothing to speak up or be heard either as you do not have criteria that can be apprehended but your position is only opposition. The tanks have already crossed the lines and you camp in your hideout and perform to achieve a façade of hope in a hopeless situation. The homeland wants to believe in your resistance plans but they must seem impossible. Better adapt to the new situation. Fay Freak (talk) 14:01, 19 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  @Fay Freak:: Yes, the tanks have already crossed the lines and we're camped out in our hideout. The situation appears hopeless. The enemy is formidable. Yet, the Coromantee within me pushes me forward and urges me to never relent. For if that noble people had given up in the face of that global military might which dominated them, oppressed them, brutalised them, savaged them, then I, today, would have no chance. That ancient blood of resistance flows through me. So I, now, must sound that abeng so that my kind will know that the impossible can become the possible when we believe. — Dentonius 15:39, 19 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Surjection. Sorry for all the questions, but there's a really important one I forgot to ask: Looking at salto di qualità, for example. You checked it and determined that it was a valid close. Do we then remove the RFD tag immediately from the page entry? — Dentonius 20:08, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I should have removed it and did so now. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 21:06, 17 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

I would value your input at the project page neverendum from me born (redux). I was and am trying to ensure that both the English and Jamaican Creole entries are kept, but I failed to notice at the time that I used a different version of a publication already used for the English section and someone took advantage of that. Someone else who is a native speaker of Jamaican English and Jamaican Creole would be the person best equipped to decide which quote is closer to which and whether the other cites I put under English are indeed mostly Jamaican English. (Also, it turned out that the Jamaican Patois entry is very easy to attest in newspapers.)
I also noticed your edit at Dutch decolleté; the phonemes in the IPA transcription were good, but the syllabification and hyphenation were very English-like and not usual for Dutch. You can use Woordenlijst as a reference for hyphenations (you can also use it for gender, but it often sucks hard at that). ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 18:32, 19 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

• @Lingo Bingo Dingo. That's strange. Somehow, I overlooked this. Thanks for the tip. As for the "from me born" situation, has everything already been taken care of? — Dentonius 12:49, 23 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  Unfortunately, there has been no progress at all with the from me born RFC. My instinct would be to remove Rubin/Comitas from the English section and to also move Channer to the Jamaican Creole section, but leave the other cites in the English section. In any case, I'd appreciate a native speaker's judgement on what best fits where and I also think I overtranslated Patois never to English "never" (the Wikipedia article says "did not" is sufficient in most cases). If you think more should be moved to the Jamaican Creole section, please ping me and I'll look for more cites that may be English. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 14:40, 23 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Is there any logical reason why you would keep tabs on how Wiktionarians vote? Don't you find that kind of behaviour intimidating, especially when the purpose is undisclosed and the information obtained is used to "prove" a point? I'm really struggling trying to understand you, so please explain yourself. --Robbie SWE (talk) 17:55, 22 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

I was talking to LBD about the inclusionist-deletionist spectrum. I thought he was probably a centrist. LBD said he's closer to the inclusionist side. After having seen quite a few users post a lot of very interesting analytics tools, I decided I'd make one. Here's a list of tools which people here use to analyse all this public domain data:

• meta.toolforge.org
• sigma.toolforge.org
• wikiscan.org
• xtools.wmflabs.org

I really hadn't thought about how others might perceive the data. It's just a simple script which counts. Is it against the rules? I'll happily remove the page if it is. — Dentonius 18:05, 22 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Speaking only for myself, I don't think it's much of an issue. I don't think it's a very useful metric, but I don't see the harm. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 18:12, 22 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Publicly tabulating how users vote in what has become, in lack of a better analogy, a battleground forum, is not only insincere it also does not disclose the true purpose of such a tabulation. I respect that some users don't mind, but in the spirit of full transparency, all users should be made aware that a fellow colleague tabulates their actions in the RFD Forum and is inclined to use it against them in present and future arguments. --Robbie SWE (talk) 18:21, 22 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Robbie, how should I disclose this to the others in the interest of transparency? What should I do? — Dentonius 19:42, 22 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

It happened. I never thought the day would come when you didn't vote keep in an RFD discussion. Congratulations, I guess. Kilo Lima Mike (talk) 22:40, 28 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

• Puppet Master, I'm surprised you're paying attention. Wait until you find my "delete" vote. That'll knock your socks off. This username (Kilo Lima Mike) is your most interesting yet; I like it. It seems to me that there's a (sweet) positive meaning behind it if I've guessed what it means correctly. Try to hang on to this one if you can. — Dentonius 05:21, 29 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  There's no sweet positive meaning. Just that my name is Miguel and I was born in Lima. Kilo is just part of the nautical alphabet Kilo Lima Mike (talk) 09:56, 29 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  Bravo Zulu. Over and out. — Dentonius 10:23, 29 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi. You probably didn't know about these, but we used to "harvest" words from newspapers, one of them being Jamaica Gleaner - we have a couple of pages at User:DTLHS/tracking/Jamaica Gleaner/20171126 and User:DTLHS/tracking/Jamaica Gleaner/20171216. Maybe you could use local knowledge to get some of the terms defined. Maybe fermentory is a Jamaican term... Kilo Lima Mike (talk) 11:01, 29 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

• This is really cool. Thanks! I'll eventually get around to adding entries from this. Are there more like this? How were these words harvested, by the way (manually? scraper?) — Dentonius 11:11, 29 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

  You'll have to ask User:DTLHS those kind of questions Kilo Lima Mike (talk) 12:11, 29 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Scraping but I have to do a lot of manual filtering to get things that might actually be words (Spanish is easier than English in this regard). I'll see if I can get it running again. DTLHS (talk) 17:36, 29 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, DTLHS. That would be awesome. — Dentonius 17:40, 29 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

To be fair, your Spanish lists include lots of shit, too, D. But don't let that put you off Kilo Lima Mike (talk) 17:46, 29 December 2020 (UTC)Reply