User talk:Quercus solaris

These two pages you created have triggered errors. Can you fix them please? —CodeCat 21:57, 12 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Well, this *is* Wiktionary, so they haven't generated any errors in the true meaning of that word but rather just (1) the pedantic treating of nonerroneous differences of preference for how to phrase something as if they were errors and (2) the introduction of true errors during the follow-up (iatrogenic illness, as it were) when another person doesn't entirely understand the value that they are subtracting when they remove or comment out information that is valid and useful in a way that they just don't happen to recognize; and so on. ;-) But anyway, all of the introduced errors and other-people's-preference-accepting are resolved now. Quercus solaris (talk) 14:21, 13 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

We don't just create headings on the fly here. Refer to WT:ELE for proper headings. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 20:16, 27 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

See my edit: here. Refer to other entries as a template. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 21:54, 28 April 2014 (UTC)Reply

"Ha ha, once upon a time this was an open wiki dictionary that invited the public to edit." You've already been asked on this talk page to add stuff properly. If we don't enforce basic norms, it will become absolute gibberish. Don't get touchy. Equinox ◑ 04:08, 5 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

I think this is just mono- +‎ nuclear. I see no need to postulate a separate -nuclear suffix. — Keφr 15:04, 27 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

Also, the morphology category should be added by a morphology template like {{affix}}, not manually. — Keφr 16:36, 27 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

On the first point, I suppose you're right, the more I think about it. I checked some major dictionaries for a suffix entry and did not find one. Are you able to delete the page I created? If so, you have my blessing. I don't know how to do that. On the second point, I suspected as I was proceeding that there was something about automated processes for category tagging that I didn't know, but I did the best I could during the session at hand (during which I was short on time to go off and learn more about that). :-) Thanks for the input. Godspeed. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:26, 2 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Not at all. (Also, there is no semantic restriction to this supposed suffix either; radionuclear is attestable, and it pertains to atomic nuclei.) It could be {{rfd}}'d, but I guess nobody is going to object if I speedy it. Hail Discordia. — Keφr 13:06, 4 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Both have many plural uses easily found in Google Books. Why remove plural? Please restore. Equinox ◑ 00:15, 1 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

You are correct. Done. Thanks. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:51, 1 July 2016 (UTC)Reply

Would it be helpful for me to remove the blue links that have English? Equinox ◑ 18:37, 23 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for offering, but I kind of like them right now. Interestingly, just the simple expedient of being able to dump all those terms into a window, hit "preview", and immediately get to see "scattered red bits swimming in a sea of blue" was really helpful and was a fun data visualization exercise for me. I know that applying that term to it could seem a bit grandiose, but I really do feel that it was legitimately a bit of data visualization for me (more explanation follows). For various reasons, that particular data set provided an interesting test of Wiktionary's comprehensiveness, and I am pleased to say that Wiktionary scored very well on it, because (1) most of them are already blue (which is a big deal by itself) and (2) the only ones that were still red as of the date of that page creation are ones that are not especially low-hanging fruit for new entry, with fairly few exceptions. As I was skimming over the red bits, I grabbed a few of (what were for me) the "juiciest" ones to immediately pluck (that is, to turn blue by entry creation). My plan is that in coming months I can pluck another one whenever I have time or need a mental break from what else I was doing. Which is kind of enjoyable (I say to a fellow Wiktionary contributor, who would understand—while of course many other people would disagree!). Eventually the red in that list will dwindle to near zero, not only because of my own plucking but because of the background rate of continual crowdsourced growth. Cheers, Quercus solaris (talk) 22:14, 23 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

The square-bracket links show blue if there is any entry, regardless of language. If you use {{l|en|word goes here}}, they will be blue for English and orange for other languages (and red for missing). Equinox ◑ 22:20, 23 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Cool. I will switch to that soon. Thanks. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:22, 23 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

That needs to be enabled in your preferences under Gadgets, "OrangeLinks: colour links orange if the target language is missing on an existing page" DTLHS (talk) 23:17, 23 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Thanks! I turned it on. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:20, 23 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

I fixed some of them, e.g. Special:Diff/49179837/49216460. – Jberkel 23:36, 25 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Hi QS. I've edited this entry, changing the definition and Usage note in a way which hopefully deals with the distinction that was bothering you. I think a subsense is not necessary (and a bit messy), and "Outside of modern medicine" is not really an appropriate context label. Ƿidsiþ 07:41, 9 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

I like the way you handled the distinction; it is another good way. Thanks for following up thoughtfully. Now that I see the way you handled it, I'm slightly surprised that I didn't think of handling it that way myself, because I've handled similar cases that way before: "X, especially X with Y attribute". It's interesting to think about the various ways that lexicography can handle closely related/overlapping but not identical word senses, including the distinction that some dictionaries make of "sense 2" versus "sense 1b"—that is, two ways to differentiate from "sense 1", but the latter a subset rather than a coordinate sense—and also "X, especially X with Y attribute," within one numbered sense. The difference between that handling and the "sense 1 versus 1b" handling is interesting to me also because humans can easily handle the overlap and ambiguity ("within one numbered sense"), but I suspect that it is challenging for natural language processing, which maybe wants to model the world in terms of "1 versus 1b". Anyhow, regards. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:58, 9 November 2018 (UTC)Reply

Hi. If you create an alt form entry (like mon(o)arthritis) and copy the entire definition etc. this gets really hairy to maintain: we have to think about two pages of definitions, translations, pictures, blah blah. It's better to create a simple alternative form of entry that links back to the first one. Thanks for considering. Equinox ◑ 03:29, 30 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi, Good point. Brain blip. I agree with you that the non-content-forked method is superior. I will convert these sometime. Thanks. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:36, 30 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi. Glosses are case-sensitive. If you write Publishing instead of publishing (for example) it won't work! Equinox ◑ 16:07, 7 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Equinox — Thank you for the tip! I saw them displaying with lowercases despite my capped input and I thought, "Oh, I guess MediaWiki is automatically rendering them that way per a design decision." But I guess you had already fixed them for me! Thanks, Quercus solaris (talk) 16:11, 7 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

You deserve a barnstar for deadpanning this usage note. :^D Minh Nguyễn ^💬 22:08, 10 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Mxn: And kudos to you for having the sharpness to notice. As much as some other editors might conceivably decide to attack the phrasing, there's hardly a more succinct way to convey the point, nor a pedagogically better way. Cheers. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:26, 10 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

I value your edits to this project and I apologize that I and I alone have caused this controversy, but I'm removing the autopatroller right per discussion on my talk. I've made a mess for you and I hope this doesn't discourage you from contributing here. Again, please forgive me for making things needlessly complicated. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:46, 4 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Koavf: Hi Justin! No sweat, regarding autopatrol detail! Thanks for being collegial. I added my two cents/reply at this edit. And by the way, thanks also for being hugely helpful to humanity with the scale of your accomplishments at both Wikipedia and Wiktionary. I remember when I read the news article about your Wikipedian work several years ago, I think it was in NYT or some similarly big digital newspaper. I admire your productivity—you get more done per year than I ever will. It's fun to actually thank you directly, kind of analogous to being a fan at a book signing who gets to spend one minute thanking the author directly. Best regards! Quercus solaris (talk) 19:07, 4 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

How kind. Unfortunately, real life has been keeping me busy for a long time and I haven't been as productive around these projects as I would like to be. I'm glad that so many others decide to donate their time and energy, such as yourself. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:09, 4 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

In diff, you added alternative analysis metr- +‎ -otomy. I think it is not a good idea: it clutters the entry without adding anything of value. Our having -otomy entry in addition to -tomy is bad enough. For instance, morphology is not alternatively described in the entry as morph- + -ology, and I don't think it should, or that we should provide nearly all such -o- entries with these two parallel analyses. We are fortunate enough to have no -oplasty and only -plasty. -oscopy was deleted via RFD. Admittedly, our practice has been inconsistent, but most suffixes do not have their -o variant while they could. I created a RFD for -otomy. Dan Polansky (talk) 08:00, 2 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hi, That's fine, I accept that viewpoint and will adhere to it going forward. Thanks, Quercus solaris (talk) 08:01, 2 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for reducing the usage note in developed country. I think the purpose of the note was fine, but the execution less so. Some notes:

• Avoid using difficult words. quantitation is a difficult word even if attested and documented in dictionaries. Communicate to have readers understand, not decipher.
• I have no idea what "better quantitation" means, not even after reading quantitate, in the sense "To measure the quantity of".
• Avoid excessive linking of words and phrases in the usage notes. If the term is difficult, it is perhaps not a good idea to use it. Some linking may be fine.
• Avoid long complex sentences. This was a single sentence: "Although the terms developed country and developing country remain in wide use as of 2022, some style guides (for example, the AMA Manual of Style in its 11th edition) deprecate the use of these terms because they presuppose or imply that either economic development or human development is a binary concept of haves and have-nots rather than the reality that it is a never-ending/always-changing spectrum of ongoing effort and degrees of attainment; for example, none of the G7 countries is "finished" being developed socioeconomically (as the participial adjective developed implies) or is "better" than "the rest of the world", and many of the countries that some people assert as being developing (or, still more insultingly, third-world) are not destitute, lesser, lagging, primitive, savage, pathetic, or pitiable, as the participial adjective developing sometimes implies and as the adjective third-world almost always implies when not clearly/unmistakably being used in its historical sense (see also Third World § Usage notes)."
  • Remarkable. This does not look like English writing.
  • It looks as an exercise in wordiness, documenting for readers near-synonym lists and alternative ways of phrasing the same. To wit, "destitute, lesser, lagging, primitive, savage, pathetic, or pitiable" has 7 adjectives. And as the matter of fact, "developing" implies almost none of the strongly negative adjectives. Did the source use these adjectives? The gravest objection to "developing" is that the "developed" countries are also developing, not finished. One may come up with the opposite interpretation: "developing" is good since it is still improving while "developed" is bad since it is finished. Arguably, the usage guides are opinionated on the matter, and not very objective.
• Avoid parentheticals. Sparse parenthetical can be fine (but nested ones less so ). Multiple parentheticals in a single sentence are suspect.
• Cut needless words. Instead of "rather than the reality that it is a never-ending/always-changing spectrum", you can write "rather than being a never-ending spectrum", with not much difference in the conveyed meaning.

I think you have a potential to write unique usage notes that other people do not write, but the style needs to be dramatically improved, and in case of doubt, one or two short sentences should suffice. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:32, 3 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

TL;DR: Hi Dan, thanks for the analysis, and although it may seem surprising, I just want to assure that I actually totally "get" all of the above points already (to which you might think "how is that possible when you don't follow them?!"). I actually have an important and valid defense on that point, but I am starting to learn better how to sequester my efforts to shield other audiences from them. Long story short, in the <1% of instances when my writing gets too long, it is because I am addressing an underlying problem that is more complex than a one-line upshot can adequately address. But going forward, you should see little to none of those outliers at Wiktionary, because I am getting better at sequestering them in other places. Any few that you might find somewhere in Wiktionary, from now on, will probably just be the few that I did before I improved on this point (and the developed country entry is an example of that). I'm OK with you just deleting them on sight if you find any more. Regards, Quercus solaris (talk) 16:38, 3 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

Further exposition, which you need not read, but which closes the loop for my own analysis, and might possibly be interesting to a few others who might read this page in future: The points above, very good and well-intentioned though each of them is, in certain combinations generate some double bind instructions that don't work successfully in the particular context that my working life is constantly immersed in. A chief example of the double-bind theme is an instruction to "explain (and/or point out) to someone the factors that they are overlooking, or failing to integrate, or even unaware of, but also without forcing them to learn anything, not even a single vocabulary item, and it doesn't matter whether you link the "Big Word" to its definition (as help tip), because if they have to click through on even a single link then you've failed, by that fact per se." But people can't actually learn much under that double-bind version of pedagogy; it only works for the more basic subsets of things that they may need explanations of. (For example, no school textbook can teach any academic subject successfully under the rubric of "introduce absolutely zero new vocabulary, even if it's linked".) Much of my career has been in solving certain problems and also explaining to other people how it was done, for any combination of spreading the capability and/or justifying/defending the solution against counterchallenges. But beyond those facts, what I've started to learn better lately is that that aspect of what I do for a living has to remain sequestered within certain contexts because it is beyond the level that is acceptable outside those, and furthermore, my work recurrently forces me to deal with the outliers and boundary cases, because all of the simpler ones are solved by others without my help, which means by corollary (via that species of filter bubble) that other people see output coming from me (recurrently) that is of an unusual type that they are not familiar with and they "don't know what to make of it" (how to view or categorize it). Thus I am largely (although not exclusively) an engine that churns out a special class of solutions that aren't provided by the other engines upstream, which handle all the normal work. For a long time I was understandably miscalibrated on the aspect of how much I should share, because major reference works contain plenty of the same thing that I do, at least of the basic and intermediate classes, and I've always (naturally) thought, "well, I'm just providing some helpings of that same dish, and also sharing them at the Wikimedia projects (e.g., Wiktionary, Wikipedia) where people can access it whenever they google something." But what I've become more conscious of lately is that there are several classes of this type of effort—the basics class, an intermediate class, and a hard class of boundary cases. And by the very nature of the business world, I deal a lot with the boundary cases and corner cases that other people couldn't deal with, because they don't need me for the others that are easier. The appropriate action going forward is to keep that hard class sequestered within the context of "special help inside the business world, only for people who need it to preempt usage disputes," not any reference work that the public can dip into sporadically for easy answers that require little to no thought or learning. I think I'm finally OK with that fact now that I no longer misapprehend that I would be abdicating the mission of wide access by sequestering thus. And I now understand that all Wiktionary needs to do is either (1) provide a dirt-simple single-line usage tip (where one is applicable) or else (2) just tell its user that a usage caution exists about this term but they will have to turn to additional reference works X or Y to learn what it is. Aside: Too much of my work is helping people who still have questions even after doing that, which explains why I acknowledge synonyms and hypernyms and hyponyms so much, and try to provide glosses and examples so much, because when I don't do those things, people don't get it, plus they then ask about whichever points I didn't already preemptively acknowledge, which just makes a conversation that we already don't have time for (because it is too lengthy) even longer. Counterproductive. For example, reduce the developed country tip to just "be more quantitative", but then people don't get what it means because it's not explained. (But if it were explained then we would be back to multiple lines of text again, but they don't want multiple lines of text. So then, "teach me what you mean but without explaining and without saying more than 5 words." Oh, OK, sure, well that's easy, lol). But I am learning to get better and better at hiding it all since they largely are unable to handle it anyway. Capture it in a knowledge base, for example, and if they ask about it, give them a one-line link saying "already handled here" (and then they are on their own to develop their own counterchallenges if they so dearly value doing so, but of course they virtually never do, once they encounter the true depth or scope of the problem that pops their superficial flawed assumption that the tip of the iceberg were the entire iceberg. "Oh, never mind then, I'm not participating anymore." This is where most truly tricky current usage disputes eventually end up (not the simple long-settled ones). Quercus solaris (talk) 16:38, 3 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

Well, the above contains more examples of what I was trying to point out to avoid. If that's the style that you have consciously chosen for your self-presentation, that's up to you. I think you have mixed in my advice with advice given by someone else. My advice does not lead to any insoluble double bind (contradictory instructions) as far as I can see. It is about avoiding "excess"; it is not all or nothing. Some hard words are fine, some linking may be fine, some brackets can be fine. It is to ponder whether you are writing text for others to read and understand or whether you are writing an analysis for yourself for your later reference. The requirements for the two cases are very different. I suspect that I do not wholly understand some of the things you are saying, but then, I am not a native speaker. On the other hand, I have just surveyed academic literature on compounds and I understood their writing well.

Let me pick just one example: "I was understandably miscalibrated on the aspect of how much I should share": what does it mean? Does it mean "I had a wrong idea about how much I should share"? google:"I was miscalibrated" finds almost nothing; is this idiomatic English?

Anyway, you got the message and there is a good chance the usage note problem is largely solved now, except for what remains in the mainspace to be edited and pruned. Thank you.

As an aside, did you consider adding {{Babel}} to your user page?

--Dan Polansky (talk) 17:41, 3 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

Ha ha, yes, it is definitely idiomatic English, just not simple English and not dumbed down from its first draft. It is an instance of the class that "I expressed exactly the thought/concept that I wanted to express, as fast as I could and using quite apt vocabulary and syntax, but then did not bother to spend more time making it shorter and ejecting half the thought content and nuance." You are of course right that the upshot is that other people don't have time for reading it. In fact not even I have time for typing it, let alone sinking more time to make it shorter. Thus I ought to just disengage more from WT and WP—dial back my degree of participation. I have started working on implementing that goal. As soon as these discussion threads are over, WT and WP should be hearing less from me, except for dumb simple edits (such as linking a synonym and just writing "syn" in my edit summary). Quercus solaris (talk) 20:09, 3 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

Most people do not care about accuracy of edit summaries; I may be an outlier.

diff said "semantic relations and ontology components", but did nothing of the sort, from what I can see. It should have said "Add usage note", "+usage note", "+usg", or the like.

Another diff says "semantic relations and ontology components—syn". That's kind of excessive, isn't it? Better say "syn", "synonym", "+syn" or the like? No need to tell others that synonymy is a semantic relation and an ontology component, right? Possibly just a matter of preference. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:53, 3 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

TL;DR: You're correct, and it's coincidental that you mentioned it just now, because just recently (before this feedback) I've started laying off that pattern of edit summary. The rest of my commentary (you can skip this part): That pattern of notation evolved in my edit summaries a while back because I had found myself recurrently doing edits that addressed semantic relations and ontology components—most simply, "what is X", "what other words are synonymous with this name for X", "is X a type of Y, or is it the same thing as Y", "how it X different from Y and from Z", and so on. I was trying to show/document that theme and also ward off the criticism (which I received at Wikipedia years ago) that I was not bothering to explain each edit enough, often did not give an edit summary, and so on. So I set my settings to prompt for edit summary and used the browser's autocomplete to fill in the pattern, then tweaked the tail of it for each edit. Recently I decided to stop doing all that, because it is superfluous in net effect and because I am finally accepting that no matter what I do do or don't do at WT and WP, someone is going to complain about it anyway. Speaking of the latter theme, I will probably dial back my WT and WP participation soon. At least, desisting is my theory at the moment. I have had that theory before, only to drift back into engagement again. But I think it may stick this time, because I now have a bit better understanding of the limits of what WT and WP can do for people. Regards, Quercus solaris (talk) 20:00, 3 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

diff: I am not sure this is a good idea. It's witty, to be sure. Is it to amuse editors as opposed to readers? --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:08, 6 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

It is to acknowledge a relevant point among editors while also avoiding bringing it to the users' attention and making them read it. Such commentized notes do have editorial value (referring to the content development sense of the word editorial, not the journalism sense), but not value to most users. Editorial commentizing also serves as the editorial analogue of commentizing in programming: in the latter, the machine is the "user" of the executable but does not need the comments (and does not "read" or even "see" their contents), whereas the programmers use the comments as documentation, education, etc. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:26, 6 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hello. Please don’t use {{lb}} outside of definitions, as it also categorises terms. If you need to add a qualifier to a linked term or page, use {{q}}. The reason for this is that {{lb}} will categorise the page, so your edit categorised spelling alphabet as a dated term. Theknightwho (talk) 19:59, 29 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the heads-up. Will do. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:47, 29 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

I think the only way to eliminate overlap is to have distinct definitions for the different circumscriptions. It's just link taxonomy. Traditional taxonomic names, say, at family rank, are occasionally split into sensu lato and sensu stricto. I imagine this is done to avoid the possibility that an unhelpful name will be required by following strict naming rules. We have lots of entries with definitions with both narrow and broad circumscriptions. Look among entries with "by extension" or "broadly" and "specifically", "narrowly", or "strictly". DCDuring (talk) 22:38, 18 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

In some instances, a semantic relation reflects the difference between (1) a taxonomy instantiated as an entirely hierarchical tree albeit with narrow-versus-broad differences on each branch or leaf (which is what biological taxonomy by ancestry and heredity resolves to), and (2) other ontology (with Venn overlaps that do not resolve solely to hierarchical structure because concepts overlap in other logical ways — adoptive parents, stepparents, godparents, cousins, and friends, in addition to biological parents and grandparents, to speak figuratively). In other words, it is the same reason why many relational databases have relationship maps that do not resolve to purely hierarchal trees, as old hierarchical databases would require. Which naturally reflects some aspects of reality. I'm fine with the result at piston engine, although one thing that is very much worth pointing out is that if ontologies and semantic relations are to be both machine-readable (in the classic non-AI way) and consistently accurate (unambiguous and never wrong), then it is always safe to put something at the "coordinate terms" level if there is any hypernymous noun or noun phrase that is invariably truly hypernymous, and then use qualifiers to tell human users (as an added bonus, on the next logical level) that in many instances the relation is even closer than that. For example, a piston engine and an internal combustion engine are always (invariably) cohyponymous beneath the hypernym of engine, so it is always (invariably) true and safe to place them in the "coordinate terms" category (in a way that even the dumbest machine or human can comprehend and not get wrong), and the fact that most internal combustion engines are piston engines (and most mentions of ICEs refer instantially to piston ones) can additionally be noted with a qualifier (or not, if people refuse to do it). I am fine with putting things under cot or hypo in cases where the cot-vs-hypo difference depends on the narrow-vs-broader sense distinction, and noting by qualifier that "sometimes synonymous" or "sometimes coordinate" etc. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:31, 19 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

It looks like you've only done this once, but let me make it perfectly clear: translation tables are only allowed in English or some Translingual entries. People who add translations to one page aren't going to look for all the other pages that mean the same thing. Worse, if someone adds the same wrong translation to multiple pages, it's entirely posssible that those correcting it on one page won't fix the other pages. All of that means that none of the pages are as complete and correct as they could be. Think about the chaos that would result if every entry linked to at water/translations had its own version. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:44, 12 November 2023 (UTC)Reply

Makes sense, thanks. I certainly appreciate the principle of not content forking whenever it can be avoided. I hadn't realized that translation tables are solely for English or Translingual in EN.wikt (whereas NL terms would have transl only in NL.wikt), but it makes sense, I now realize upon thinking consciously about it. I can't remember what drove me in that single instance to experiment with non-EN → non-EN transl, but I'll make sure not to repeat, now that I know better. Quercus solaris (talk) 05:11, 12 November 2023 (UTC)Reply

..the "more readily available at Google" HTML comment. Which manages to pack "1. fuck WT:CFI" and "2. do your own homework" into a small bullet of "f-you". Man you are audacious. Equinox ◑ 02:44, 29 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Equinox Ooh, in dead seriousness, I'm sorry for coming off in a way that I totally didn't mean to. Really. I gave the commented-out link as a way that (in my intent) not only shows the size of the sample that I was working from but also provides a hyperlink to make it easy to get there (i.e., "don't have to take my word for it; here's what I'm working with"). It seriously was not a jab at all (I mean that). That's what any of my commented-out corpus searches are meant to provide, never any implication of "JFGI". Not at all. I apologize for coming off wrong. I will seriously try to be clearer with those in future. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:58, 29 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Haha. No problem. I was born angry. I like you even if we disagree. Equinox ◑ 03:03, 29 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Ditto! :-) Quercus solaris (talk) 03:07, 29 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I will take this conversational moment to beg you to be concise, and think of the poor uneducated reader who is looking up a word. I don't like it when you write a little mini-blog that could be equally stated with Related-Terms and See-Also. Yes, I know you're smart and there can't be many people on the planet who can tell "leucostasis" from "leukostatics" or w/e. but you do tend to cross the line into blogging. No offence. Having said that, there are people who repeatedly get stuff wrong and you will never be one of those. THE FACTMAN. Equinox ◑ 03:11, 29 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Bless you sir. I'm getting better at extracting the extract and bottling it up. You have my commitment to continuous improvement. Which sounds like corporate platitude but is meant sincerely here. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:22, 29 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

PS: Wiktionary would be stillborn by now without you. Thank you for helping to save humanity from itself, or at least taking one hell of a crack at doing so. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:25, 29 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

That's my boy ❤️ RED HEART EMOJI Equinox ◑ 05:21, 29 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

you might want to see if anyone else agrees with us in Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2024/April#disambiguation_of_links_to_Wikipedia

Cheers! --173.67.42.107 23:56, 17 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

I've come across "pseudocardinal" in a number of different texts, but I've never come across the word "anticardinal" (as far as I can remember). However, neither are common words. Do you have any particular basis for making anticardinal the main entry? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 20:56, 22 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

In that instance, the basis for the choice of directionality was that the anti- prefix is the one normally used with antipopes and antibishops, which are semantically coordinate with anticardinals. I am not an expert on ecclesiastical history and its terminology, so this wasn't a deeply held conviction. But a theme that I am well versed in is combing out hypersynonymy by using {syn of} or {syn} or {nearsyn} when doing so is applicable and is in some ways more clearheaded than merely ignoring (or not even thinking of) the semantic relation. For example, in many instances (including this one), as I am moving around through Wiktionary, I find that Wiktionary has an entry for both terms but one or both of the entries doesn't yet even link to the other. In the course of making them (rightfully) link to each other, I will apply {syn of} when doing so seems valid in the instance. But I am mindful of preserving the nearsyn status when doing so is prudent. Quercus solaris (talk) 21:08, 22 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

OK, thanks for the clarification. I agree with your overall approach and appreciate that you're taking the effort to do this! I think the reason pseudocardinal is used more often (in my experience) than anticardinal is because, unlike an antipope or antibishop, they weren't actually claiming a position in opposition to the legitimate office-holder, because cardinal is an honorary title, not an office. So, barring any evidence that shows that pseudocardinal is less common, I'll make it the main entry. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:32, 23 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

Sounds good. Thanks! Quercus solaris (talk) 04:29, 23 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hey, I saw you added an antonym relationship between these two entries. As a native speaker, I'm conflicted about it. While both terms are associated with opposite ends of a spectrum, I feel their usage context is quite different. A Zettelkasten is primarily the physical box, whose purpose is organizing references/information found in literature during research, especially notecards. A Zettelwirtschaft is on a more abstract level, independent of its physical container, and chiefly associated with either hard-to-overlook paperwork (lots of forms, printouts, documents) or disorganized notes accrued in e.g. school or university. The other extreme to this is typically regarded as "only a few documents" or "information condensed and ordered in a straightforward way". If you have a Zettelkasten organized in an idiosyncratic way, or spread across more notes than seemingly need be, that could be a Zettelwirtschaft of its own. So they don't really feel antonymous enough to me. But I don't know if you had a more specfic reasoning. ] (talk) 21:00, 3 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

@PhoenicianLetters Aha, thank you, I will gladly take your advice about it. My German was never fluent, even at its best, and now (many years later) it is further diminished. Therefore, I would suggest moving the word from "Antonyms" to "See also", on both of these pages. I will make that change soon, unless you object to it. Thanks, Quercus solaris (talk) 21:07, 3 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Works for me! PhoenicianLetters (talk) 21:26, 3 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi Quercus, my apologies, I didn't mean to press rollback on your most recent glossary edit. However, I did intend to revert it with a proper edit summary. Long explanations should not go in the glossary lest the page becomes too long. Instead, it is better to move explanations to dedicated pages; in this case we have Wiktionary:Obsolete and archaic terms (which may need a rename). The glossary entry would be more manageable if it had a more prominent link to this page. Thanks! This, that and the other (talk) 23:58, 26 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi, thanks for the message on this edit. Per this discussion, the bot sorts nym lines according to their order on Module:nyms/documentation. It looks like {{alti}} isn't mentioned in that list so I must have just added it to the end after looking at a sampling of existing entries. I don't have a preference, but the bot's been sorting nymlines this way for about 2 years now so I think most entries currently have alti after other nymlines: ABV, adipocere, antimarijuana, bodybuilder. In fact, I could only find five (apocalypse, clock face, gas lamp, pyrena, skosh) that don't have alti after other nymlines and that's just because the bot didn't sort those entries because it didn't recognize {{mer}} as an alias of {{mero}} (if you know of other entries, please let me know - I may need to adjust the bot to handle them). I fixed the {{mer}} handling that so the next time the bot runs (early June), it will sort those remaining pages with alti after other nyms. Again, I have no preference either way and it's easy to change the order the bot sorts. If you do have a strong preference, I can temporarily make the bot stop sorting {{alti}} and we can open a discussion in Beer parlor to see if there's a consensus one way or the other. JeffDoozan (talk) 16:06, 24 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hi — Personally I think putting alti first (when it exists at all) is the right way to go, but honestly, at the moment I'm not feeling enough metapedian quotient to push for it or to do polling. So I'm fine with leaving things as the bot currently does them. I'll undo my recent undo. Thanks for bringing the data — you had more info about it than my own anecdotal experience had given me. Thanks for your bot work! Quercus solaris (talk) 16:20, 24 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@JeffDoozan: IMO, it would be logical to sort the templates and the corresponding ====Sections==== in the same order. The way the sections are sorted, that'd mean putting alternative forms ahead of synonyms, etc. I once heard someone say, and I tend to agree, that the order the sections are sorted in intuitively follows how 'close' things are: you have the word/definition itself, then alternative spellings of that same word/definition, then other words which mean the same thing, etc, on down to things like hypernyms (and eventually translations, which aren't even in the same language). In any case, it seems odd to have inconsistent orderings for templates vs sections. If neither of you feel like starting a BP discussion let me know and I can start one. :) - -sche (discuss) 17:19, 24 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree, -sche — well put, thank you. That's the way I'd sort things, too. I'd support it at a BP discussion if you care enough to make one. I skimmed a little at the earlier (2023-07) BP discussion that Jeff linked to, but I didn't scrutinize it closely. I may do so later if the spirit moves me. Quercus solaris (talk) 17:24, 24 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@-sche, that sounds reasonable. I have no objection to changing the bot to sort alti before synonyms. For now I'll have it ignore anything with alti and later adjust it to follow whatever consensus comes out of Beer parlor - please go ahead and start that discussion. For reference, alti is used on about 3,000 pages and sorting before other nyms will affect 264 pages. Here's a random handful of pages with alti sorted after nyms that would need to be re-sorted: Jan STFU aSDH at ease bonġu boomer daddy long-legs spider dog fur ensistään fumarole għawa housebreaker itäläinenkaale porte-avions riimunnaru tin wdym бідолаха بغداد 厥功甚偉 JeffDoozan (talk) 18:18, 24 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

You know you can create user subpages, right? For example User:Quercus solaris/Glancing blows. Would this be structurally worth doing, I ask myself. 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:3047:5F1F:BE0D:3B50 23:18, 31 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Please don't replace IDs that are used as anchors for linking or transclusion without checking Special:WhatLinksHere and fixing the other entries that use them. When you changed the senseid at falconet, I had to fix a module error at falkonet. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:07, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Doh! I'm sorry I forgot one again. You're quite right that I need to make sure that I can't/don't forget. I will redouble my effort on that. Quercus solaris (talk) 17:37, 5 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

"Sometimes you've got to cough up a coin (in a nonexpectorant way) for the bell to ring (in a nonexpected way)."

I can't explain why, and I'm sure it doesn't matter but this passage inspired some scattered schizotypal chatter:

If you suspect that it is you for whom the bell tolls, as in your life-expectancy is expected to expire It may be auspicious to bring a coin to cough up, specie to expectorate, specifically pack a savory snack composed of Charon's Obol. Or else I am wishing you well seeking tariff to hell, see yourself seeking shilling to help secure a ship straight down to sheol You'll spelunk for spare sterling shekel in a superstitious sabil unless you spew your silver spit stash to supply the styxian sailor's soaked salary stipulation the damned demand due settled for soggy, salty solidus fee price slathered in saliva

2600:1700:4678:E5D0:7474:737D:5306:5FFC 11:03, 13 July 2025 (UTC)GaryMericanoAintGotNoWiktionaryAccountReply