User talk:ReidAA

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Enjoy your stay at Wiktionary! Ƿidsiþ 08:06, 10 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Hi. 1. Please don't put those weird non-breaking spaces in entries. We don't do this, and if we did want extra space there, it would need to be done in a better way than that (maybe through stylesheets). 2. Not sure that the "sense" you added is a separate sense, any more than "tractor" in "tractor parts"... it's just attributive use of a noun. Equinox ◑ 02:34, 6 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

As to 1., I've been putting in a lot of them, yes, simply to improve the look of those senses that have a parenthetic prefix. Yes, it would be better done in a style-sheet, but (a) I don't know how, (b) I fancy that, as a newbie, I wouldn't have the authority or bravado to do so anyway, and (c) using the grease pit or beer parlour seems unlikely to get things done. As to 2., I was merely (for the first time) copying attributive senses that I had noticed elsewhere. Is there some sort of guidance as to such matter? ReidAA (talk) 02:45, 6 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

Well, I don't see why using the discussion pages wouldn't get things done; many decisions have been made there in the past. I see you're still putting in non-breaking spaces in certain places (e.g. within quotations); I would urge you not to, because (i) this is a hacky way of achieving double-spacing; (ii) HTML in general, and MediaWiki in particular, does not double-space after full stops/periods by general consensus. Just a thought. I do appreciate the good work you're doing by adding these quotations though. Equinox ◑ 13:55, 28 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

About the  s I've been putting in while tidying a bit as I add quotations: I've stopped putting them in after simple full stops, though with a background in formatting writings I strongly believe there should be double spaces between sentences for aesthetic reasons. However, as an act of tidying I've sometimes been putting multiple examples into single lines in which case I've been putting extra spaces between examples. I do this to help the reader, but if you think I should stop this then I will. ReidAA (talk) 23:20, 1 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Oh, and I've also been using  s to keep ellipses in place. Assuming they're the ones in quotations that are objectionable, then I'll stop that practice. ReidAA (talk) 23:28, 1 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Greetings. Since the purpose of quotations in Wiktionary is to show the use of words in a sentence, I have reduced many of your recent quotes to the single sentence actually containing the word being defined. Please avoid putting additional sentences in quotations, as we do not want our readers to be hunting through long tracts of text to find the word being defined. Cheers! bd2412 T 15:32, 23 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

I'll try, but I have been doing this to make plain the sense and context of the target word. Given that quotes are now able to be hidden I had imagined that most readers would keep them hidden (certainly if their density increases, which is what I'm trying to do to make Wiktionary more generally useful) and only bring quotations into view if the examples don't clarify the sense enough. ReidAA (talk) 00:02, 24 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

We put example sentences above quotations, not below them. —Ruakh_TALK 15:02, 23 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

I put them after quotes so that when quotes are displayed an extra line is not used for tag that gets them hidden. In other words so that the user's display is both neater and holds more to read. ReidAA (talk) 23:30, 23 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Also, we put just one example sentence per line. —Ruakh_TALK 15:03, 23 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Again I bring the examples together to improve the reading experience; catenating them, provided there's extra space between them, puts them closer together, makes them easier to read, and fits more into the reading space. ReidAA (talk) 23:30, 23 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

• I second: We put example sentences above quotations, not below them. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:09, 2 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Well, I've started doing so, and "repairing" others, but I think it's very bad for the Wiktionary readers because it takes up at least one more line and usually two more lines. I've set up ask to show this. Of course it might be possible to code Wiktionary's working so that this didn't happen, because of course it would be a bit better to have the examples before the quotes but not nearly enough better to compensate for the extra two lines (in my opinion). But since I haven't a clue how to make the change myself, I started putting the quote before the examples as the lesser of two evils. ReidAA (talk) 10:48, 4 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Simple method is just to remove example sentences when a quotation is present. Example sentences are "pseudo-quotations" and are never better than the real thing. Only better in that it's quicker to make something up than to research it. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:19, 4 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Well, that's not the way my several hard copy dictionaries treat them. They use brief, usually phrasal, examples to illustrate the sense, especially when there are several or many senses (see Collins for example). Quotations, usually one or two sentences, are used to validate the sense along a timeline (see OED for example). This is where the Wiktionary has a great advantage because quotes can be hidden from the casual reader, which allows the quotes to be longer and their source to be more specific (see the brief and usually enigmatic quotations, many from the Bible, that are left in Wikipedia (I assume) from the 1913 Webster's Dictionary on which Wikipedia is based). Furthermore, links can be given to online source text (such as Wikisource) and to biographies of an author. Quotes are not better than examples at clarifying senses; examples should be simple and several and carefully composed to clarify the sense. There are many bad examples in Wikipedia, but that does not make examples poor in principle. They are quite the opposite, especially for non-native speakers. Indeed all senses should have at least one simple example, and they should be carefully chosen and, if appropriate, for several contexts. ReidAA (talk) 10:48, 4 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I generally tend to agree with this, as far as example sentences. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:24, 4 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

• Re: "Simple method is just to remove example sentences when a quotation is present.": I disagree with that method. I find good example sentences preferable over quotations, as quotations present metadata such as the year or even ISBN that are of little interest for the purpose served by example sentences. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:25, 4 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Your habit of including politically-charged quotations is quite annoying. It is being discussed on Wiktionary talk:Quotations#Using quotations for an agenda. Choor monster (talk) 18:41, 23 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

I don't see them as politically charged (I presume your target is the ones I chose from my weekly reading of The Economist which is right-wing but in a very small way), just sentences or paragraphs chosen from my regular reading usually for having an unusual word in them. (Then I use the text for quotes for other words that don't yet have quotes for their sense in the text.) For my part I am offended by the widespread obtrusion of sexual slang senses without any validating quotes apart from occasional links to online blogs but I just ignore them. My view is that quotes should include links to an online source of the quote itself and to its author(s) so that readers can check and follow up. ReidAA (talk) 23:50, 23 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

In the above, by "links to an online source" I meant to a relatively formal source, such as Wikipedia or a commercial publication. ReidAA (talk) 23:54, 23 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for your quotes, by the way. What you're doing is fundamental for the website. From what I've seen, all of them have been well-chosen quotes. --ElisaVan (talk) 22:32, 28 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for your appreciation. I too consider my work fundamental to the kind of facility I feel a Wiktionary can and should become. What I do comes from my daily reading. I feel there should be quotes from across a range of dates, and my modern ones come from the magazines I have long subscribed to, and others from my bookshelves. As to the quotes themselves I try to include URLs for both the author(s) (where there is one) and to the work being quoted. This gives the reader three phases if needed: sense with examples; quotes; background information through the URLs. ReidAA (talk) 10:16, 29 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

You have added a single cause-promoting quote to several pages: diff diff, diff. It is perfectly clear that the words "cycle", "identify" and "authority" can be illustrated using quotes that are not there to advance a particular cause. I ask you to stop adding similar cause-promoting quotes, especially from current news to illustrate a word that has been in use for decades or even centuries. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:46, 29 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

By the way, User:ElisaVan, who has encouraged you to add more of these quotes, is probably thereby trying to make trouble. He is known as user:Wonderfool, and is temporarily tolerated each time he creates a new user until he starts making trouble, after which he gets blocked, and, well yes, the whole cycle starts again. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:51, 29 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

It has been my practice to select for quotation a sentence or two or three with an uncommon word in something I'm reading. Then I look in Wikipedia for other words in my selection that are without roughly contemporaneous quotes and use my selection there. Is this practice what you are objecting to ? If so, please explain the basis for your objection. If, on the other hand, you are objecting to the content as "cause-promoting" would you please tell me what cause this quote from the venerable international highly-respected weekly, "The Economist", you see them (or me) promoting ? ReidAA (talk) 05:12, 30 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

The article is Legal highs: A new prescription. Its subtitle is "New Zealand’s plan to regulate designer drugs is better than trying to ban them and failing". I now admit that my language of "cause-promoting" is a bit strong and possibly misleading, yet you can see that the article takes a particular non-descriptive stance, namely that something is better than something else without saying better for what. Furthermore, it deals in the controversial subject of illicit drugs. Of course, if the word being attested is "drug", the quotatations will quite often deal in the subject. But this is not the case with "cycle" and "identify". The things pointed out make the quotation linking to the article a fairly poor one for a dictionary citation of such words as "cycle", especially given that it does not illustrate the meanings of "cycle" and "identify" particularly well. Put differently, Wiktionary is not a collection of random quotations containing the attested words but rather aims to contain quotations that well illustrate the word. Moreover, the quote is implictly promoting Economist, I believe; to illustrate a word that has long been in use, we do not need to cite modern periodicals with economic interest in being mentioned on as many places on the Internet as possible, especially in a leading free-as-in-freedom dictionary. As an aside, the URL you have entered into the quotations is http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21583277-worlds-biggest-polluter-going-green-it-needs-speed-up-transition-can-china21583270-new-zealands-plan-regulate-designer-drugs-better-trying-ban-them-and-failing-new, and it does not lead anywhere. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:34, 30 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Thanks very much for noticing my bubu. I've fixed them all (I trust) and will try to be much more careful in future (especially as I've bubued twice ver recently). Perhaps it's age-related: I'm into my 80s. ReidAA (talk) 23:36, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

You have further quoted the single article in diff ("easy"), diff ("blacklist"), diff ("ban"), diff ("synthetic"), diff ("fight"), diff ("Sisyphean"). So the single Economist article is quoted in at least 9 (3+6) very common words that have little to do with the subject of the article. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:05, 30 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

So, using this search for the URL, I have found 23 entries linking to the article: adjust, easy, ban, task, fail, synthetic, sell, churn out, Sisyphean, blacklist, recipe, identify, subtly, banned, chemist, authority, few, next to, cycle, window box, hillside, high, fight. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:24, 30 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

@User:ReidAA, please just be aware of how these uses are perceived. Also, please consider using short sentences that can easily be interpreted without reference to any material outside the sentence. Our readers shouldn't have to parse an essay to see how a word fits into a sentence. The more concise, the better. bd2412 T 21:46, 30 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

• My expectation is that, as the use of the Wiktionary as a dictionary builds up, users (not editors) will not see quotations when they bring up a Wikipedia page (only the two wasted lines that shove the quotation tag into the user's face). All they need at first is a list of senses to choose from with simple examples to help them. Even the examples would not be needed if the senses were cleaned up; many long sense lists are scruffy in the extreme (now that usex works better I intend to tidy some up as I add quotes by improving the list structure) and the examples could be hidden like the quotations and only brought into view if needed.
    The quotations should, in my view be regarded (a) as an enrichment that might be very useful for students, particularly if each quotation is linked to good Web pages like Wikipedia's; and (b) as a validation and history of the sense (and eventually outdo the magnificent OED), again using links, which should be formal and long-lasting.
    As for as my using an extract to quote in several (even many) senses, this is a natural way to build up the quotations. As I read I sometimes notice an interesting word being used and I set up a template in a text file for an extract using that word. Then I can very quickly use that template to use the extract as a quote for senses of other words in the extract. But I do not replace existent quotes, nor do I add a quote where there is already a quote of very roughly the same date. When I find a quote I have done in the past that also uses a word sense in the extract I'm quoting then I'll replace it if it's of about the same date and the new quote seems better, but I don't do this for other people's quotes whatever my (sometimes very low) opinion of them. Surely this is a sensible and effective way to build up the Wiktionary's quotation bank ?!! ReidAA (talk) 23:36, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

In diff, you have merged usexes with nbsp. I will be undoing such changes until you show there is consensus for this kind of thing. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:59, 2 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

I don't like your adding "usex|lang=en", but I do not know whether I am in the minority. Thus, I have started Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2013/October#Use_of_usex_lang_equals_en_to_format_example_sentences. I note that "usex|lang=en" is currently only rarely used in English entries in the mainspace, so unless consensus arises to use "usex|lang=en", the status quo ante should prevail, IMHO. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:27, 4 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

In diff, you have removed sense "The butterfly Gonepteryx rhamni of the Pieridae family", while your edit summary said "Quote added". You cannot remove senses like that; if you think a sense should be removed, you have to use {{rfd-sense}} or {{rfv-sense}}. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:55, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for noticing my error, for error it was - unintended and unnoticed by me. You don't seem to have restored it yourself so I have done so. ReidAA (talk) 08:19, 5 October 2013 (UTC)Reply

Hi. I did a merge here because "braided rope yarn" seems to be just "rope yarn that has been braided" (verb), not a true adjective. True adjectives are usually comparable (e.g. "the biggest thing"); past tenses of verbs in "-ed" usually just express a completed action on a noun. Equinox ◑ 04:38, 2 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

If that's the way Wikipedia treats them then I'll follow suit in future. I've done one or two similar additions recently, and I'll try to find and fix them. Thanks for your advice. ReidAA (talk) 04:45, 2 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

How about "fading", as it's not a completed action ? ReidAA (talk) 04:50, 2 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

No, to me that's not an adjective. e.g. "the Sagalassa valida larvae have a chewing mouth" = "a mouth that chews"; it is the typical form of the verb, as in "I am chewing". Appearing before a noun does not automatically turn a word into an adjective; consider "tractor" in "some tractor parts", and see attributive. Equinox ◑ 04:52, 2 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

Then I'll fix "fading". But would it be proper to add the quote to the verb in a separate sense with an attributive context ? It seems to me that it would be useful that way. ReidAA (talk) 05:01, 2 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

AFAIC, the fact that verbs can be used in an attributive way, and in an adjectival position, is part of the grammar. I don't believe it's a separate sense because the actual sense (meaning) of the word is not different: we would be duplicating. If you strongly disagree with this then do raise it in the WT:BP because my opinion might not be the consensus. Equinox ◑ 05:23, 2 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

I only disagree mildly, as is my habit. Cheerio. ReidAA (talk) 05:28, 2 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

Hello ReidAA -- I generally like the quotations you add, but, when using {{quote-book}} please note that the "chapter" parameter produces information that displays before the book's title. A numbered chapter should display after the title, and a good way to achieve this is by using the "section" parameter, as in the example shown below (a modification of one of your edits):

{{quote-book|year=1914|author={{w|Louis Joseph Vance}} |section=chapter 2 |title= |passage=She wakened in sharp panic, bewildered by the '''grotesquerie''' of some half-remembered dream in contrast with the harshness of inclement fact, drowsily realising that since she had fallen asleep it had come on to rain smartly out of a shrouded sky.}}

which produces this result:

• Lua error in Module:quote at line 2956: Parameter 1 is required.

The "chapter" parameter may be suitable for identifying a chapter by name, but please consider switching to the "section" parameter when identifying a chapter by number. -- · (talk) 05:04, 15 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

The point you make about putting the chapter number after the book name is fair enough, but I would have thought that modifying the template code to put it in the right place would be the best way to fix the problem. Coding "section=chapter 2" is very clumsy. However, as a very inexperienced editor I wouldn't be able to do this myself, and I don't know how to get someone else to do it, particularly if you wanted to put a chapter name in a different place from a chapter number. Of course, if you assure me that it can't be done then I'll have to put up with the clumsiness. Thanks very much indeed for your concern. ReidAA (talk) 11:10, 15 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hello ReidAA -- Thanks for your considered response. I do agree that, by rights, the "chapter" parameter should always insert its content after the title (whether that content is a chapter number or name). But I'm not a coder and wouldn't try to touch this template myself. I've seen nasty disputes erupt even among the seasoned programmers here when one of them changes a template, and have come to the conclusion that, unless there's no alternative, it's best not to fiddle with the damn things. It almost always involves opening a can of worms. -- · (talk) 00:28, 16 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

Well, well, in that case I'll adopt your suggestion in future quotes, but going back to make changes in old quotes is a tad too challenging. Thanks again, ReidAA (talk) 02:12, 16 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

On second thoughts, I've just put a request into the GreasePit and will wait to see what comes of that. ReidAA (talk) 04:35, 16 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

Let it be made on record that I dislike what you are doing to the entries in an edit like diff or diff. I fear that my dislike is not supported by consensus, though.

I think the results are rather inaccurate. For instance, "Something to look at, such as scenery" is not "Visual perception".

When I check http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/view, I see you do something quite different from what these lexicographers do. I think you are doing harm to Wiktionary, one that I fear is supported by a couple of other editors.

I think you tend to enter grouppings that are wrong. I would be really happy if you stopped.

I might play the "no-consensus => status quo ante" card and revert your additions, but I don't really want to get into revert wars, and keeping reverting your systematic activity. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:11, 26 July 2014 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your comments. I agree with you in that I've not been being rigorous enough in the sense structuring I've been doing. However I do feel strongly that the senses should be structured, especially when there are dozens of them. The ordinary user needs the structure to be able quickly to resolve a puzzling usage.

My focus is on adding a spectrum of quotations to add OED-style depth to the Wiktionary. My principle is that all senses should be reliably and broadly attested; most are not. As I'm not a grammarian I leave the other aspects relatively alone, even when I disagree with them, as I often do. Of course, when I have a quotation with an absent sense, I add the sense with the quotation, but only if I can find the sense in several of my shelf dictionaries.

I started structuring the senses from a feeling of great frustration, and hoped that other editors would notice what I was doing and would, through whatever community channels they use, agree that the idea was an improvement, and would take the project on, as a community.

Anyway, I apologise for my carelessness and will be more careful until I no longer feel I have to do it. — ReidAA (talk) 22:40, 26 July 2014 (UTC)Reply

By it just above I meant sense structuring, not carefulness. And by the way, my criterion for sense structuring is when the number gets above 9. Also by the way, the slang senses seem to be proliferating and they're mostly without quotes or examples. You've probably got a way into the community; do you think they would agree to set up a slang dictionary (there's plenty of precedence, Partridge for example) with two-way links between the two dictionaries? For one thing this would make oldies like myself much more comfortable, since most of the new slang senses are sexual. — ReidAA (talk) 23:57, 26 July 2014 (UTC)Reply

My main problem is that you are forcing the structure mostly with only little regard to semantics, just to get any structure at all. The resulting structures are implausible to me, and do not match the structures that I can find in modern online dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster.

Furthermore, the grouping headings are not clearly labeled as grouping headings only. In fact, sometimes they are attested senses. The result is a mess. For instance, in stage, "A phase." is a sense with its own quotations and nested subsenses, while "Of a journey or route divided into phases" is not a sense and is not even defined as a noun phras but rather as an adjective phrase.

Finally, the resulting structures are not objective or inter-subjective: I do not see how disagreements about them can be meaningufully resolved using evidence and referencing. They are a whim of one editor, which is quite bad for what is to be a wiki. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:30, 27 July 2014 (UTC)Reply

What I try to do is to get groupings of senses that would make it easier for users to find the sense they need. In stage it seemed to me that "one of the sequential areas making up the game" was a simply a kind of phase, so I subsumed it where you found it. In "Of a journey or route divided into phases" I brought together senses that seemed to me to all be related to staged travel. I take your point, however, that my "sense" is actually a heading. Nevertheless I feel, on the basis of many other similar cases, that such grouping is useful to users. So, maybe I should put such headings into italics? And/or label/context it as a heading? I seem to remember noticing senses in italics from time to time, but couldn't figure them out. Seemed to be about non-gloss senses, if I remember correctly, whatever they are.

What worries me more about the structuring is the changing of their sequence, as I had noticed, in usage notes and a few other places, editors referring to senses as "first" and "third" and the like. Does this also mean that new senses should be added at the end of the sense list? If so, then this denies the possibility of useful, logical sequencing of senses even. — ReidAA (talk) 11:19, 27 July 2014 (UTC)Reply

A note on the sequence of senses: there is no consensus in Wiktionary in which sequence senses should be ordered. Some people prefer chronological order (oldest first), placing obsolete senses as the first ones. Other people prefer order by frequency, myself included. What you are doing is yet another order, which you call "logical". Evidence of consensus or its lack is at Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2012/December#Support ordering senses oldest first, even if obsolete. The discussion does not really take what you are doing as a separate option, AFAICS, but it is a separate option. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:31, 3 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

I would like to propose, with no intent to create any pressure at all, if you would consider editing this page offline for a while, so that the number of edits descreases. Each edit creates a copy of the page in the database, and the page now has over 200 KB; thus, each edit adds 200 KB to the database. What I do is I create a new .txt file, edit it, and preview it in MediaWiki without saving. After I have collected an interesting number of changes, I save it. Again, this is just a proposal; there are many people who do not care about the number of edits per page at all. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:57, 15 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

I'm sorry about the unanticipated side-effects of my small edits. On this computer I used to do long ones, but it became erratic in its responsiveness. So I've been having to use another one while that one was being fixed for me. But the replacement PC has hardware problems that cause an utter crash ("page error in non-paging area") sometimes quite frequently. Now I'll be able comfortably to do long edits again.

As for editing offline, I'm afraid I've never used Mediawiki. I guess I could copy the source code into a .txt file on my own machine but I suspect that testing as I go along the changes I make would become a lot more difficult. And mightn't there be a problem of my copying the file into the Wiktionary: a danger of overwriting changes someone else has made meanwhile? I think someone else is occasionally making changes like mine up at the front end of the alphabet. That's why, when I decided to knuckle down to fixing up the abbreviations file, I started at the tail end of the alphabet.

As to the expanding database, wouldn't it be better to put the code for each letter of the alphabet into a separate file? Then the saves would be much smaller. I could try to do this myself but, as an unskilled editor, I would be helped if you would separate one letter (should you agree with me) to show me how it can be done. By the way, wouldn't there be an automatic deletion of such back-ups after a year or two? — ReidAA (talk) 02:41, 16 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

I did not realize you would not know how to edit it offline and preview it in Wiktionary without actually saving using the "Show Preview" button. Let's not complicate it, then. As for mergining your changes with those of other editors, that would only need to be done if anyone else actually edited the page, but that was recently not much the case, as per revision history. Again, don't worry about it, then. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:14, 16 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

I have created a template {{MW1913Abbr}} which I have used at sluice. The idea is to speed up the process of providing bibliographic details and, possibly, fuller quotations, by providing a section link to Wiktionary:Abbreviated Authorities in Webster. Right now the template has limited functionality, but it would be easy and probably desirable to add a message that appeared in the entry line of quotation and a request category along the lines of {{rfquotek}}. It would almost certainly not be practical to link to individual names.

Also a similar link to Wiktionary:Abbreviated Authorities in Webster could be added to {{rfquotek}}.

I didn't want to go further without input from you. DCDuring TALK 13:31, 11 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

@DCDuring My worry is that this only gives a link to the start of the table for the initial letter. Many of the initial letter sections are very long. I tried to put in HTML names within a section, using <a name=Po> to start with, but I couldn't get it to work. Maybe you can. Even then the user might have to go down a bit. — ReidAA (talk) 06:14, 13 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

@ReidAA My thought was just to improve access, getting the user to a place in the right appendix with a table header, not to make a professional programmer's ultimate solution to a problem that few users have. A message such as that of {{rfquotek}} might attract a few more users, but not many at all. Would a category help you or is it more straightforward to use Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:rfdate, Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:rfquotek, etc to find likely problem entries? Another approach is to process the wikitext XML dump to produces lists of likely problem entries. You would have to be able to characterize them in ways that allow a Perl script to pick them out by means of regular expressions in the wikitext. Or are there so many that lists don't help? DCDuring TALK 06:37, 13 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

@DCDuring What you are offering is somewhat beyond my limited Wiktionary understanding. I reckon what you've already done is enough for me. By the way (and not relevant to the topic in hand), would you know how I could get rid of a very very annoying help panel that weeks ago started displaying at the top of my edit window and is still there even now as I key this in? — ReidAA (talk) 09:30, 13 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

@ReidAA Just take a look at Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:rfdate. It is a list of all the pages that use {{rfdate}}, which is used to request the date for quotations. Such quotations also often miss other bibliographic information as the title of the work and full name of the author, let alone, page, or a link to source material for additional context. The quotations also sometimes lack helpful context. Those pages often have only the author's abbreviated name, so a link to the abbreviated authorities page is helpful. Would you want to work on these?

Maybe I need to understand how you pick the entries you work on. Some here simply pursue their whims. Some get lists from the web or other external sources, sometimes keying them in themselves. Many work from wiki-generated lists, either in the form of categories (often "cleanup categories"), of "what links here" pages, or of search results. When the lists are not sufficient in focus or need to be supplemented by other information special lists can be created offline from the dumps containing all of Wiktionary's content. Which methods do you use?

If I can figure out a way to help you make more effective and/or enjoyable use of your time contributing to Wiktionary, I'd be happy to do so. Let me know if I can help. DCDuring TALK 12:32, 13 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

In edits like diff, you are replacing {{context}} with {{label}}, with the summary "Tidy". This is a bad practice, IMHO. First, is there a consensus for this sort of replacement? If yes, we can produce objective evidence of the consensus existing, and run a bot. Second, this replacement is nowhere a tidying, so the summary is inaccurate. Many years ago, at least one editor was replacing "from" with "<" in etymologies, and called it "cleanup" or the like. Later, when we set up a proper poll and a vote, we found that users preferred "from". What the editor was doing was dishonest and unproductive. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:20, 20 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

I was merely following what seemed to me to be a common practice, one that had the advantage of being shorter. I have also, on somewhat similar lines, been replacing {{usex}} with {{ux}} and in this case also using the {{ux}} where an example had no template.

In both these cases I saw an advantage in having the en parameter immediately following the template name rather than trailing lengthily and awkwardly at the end of the heading or example. I was also felt that I was "tidying" by promoting uniformity where there seemed to be a variety of practices.

However, acting on your advice I will immediately stop both practices, and quite happily because it will allow me to spend much more time on adding quotations. May I presume, however, that it would be alright for me to use {{label}} or {{ux}} on those relatively rare occasions when I restructure senses or add an example? — ReidAA (talk) 04:09, 21 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

It is one thing to be adding label as part of newly added definitions, it is quite another thing to be replacing "context" with "label".

I don't see why you should be converting anything to label when you restructure senses (an offense big enough in itself) or when you add an example. If you believe there is actually a consensus for converting "context" to "label", make sure you produce objective evidence of there being the consensus, and we can run a bot. The minimum standard for producing such evidence is starting a Beer parlour discussion. Wiktionary is not a sandbox and not a kindergarten; it is a non-profit collaborative project to build a dictionary.

How did you arrive at the conclusion that the use of label instead of context is common practice? I looked at the dump using Windows command line and found this:

• Running 'find /c "{{label" enwiktionary-20140728-pages-articles.xml' yields 17,441 occurrences.
• Running 'find /c "{{context" enwiktionary-20140728-pages-articles.xml' yields 456,675 occurrences.
• Thus, there are about 26 times more occurrences of {{context}}.

This argument with "promoting uniformity" is nothing but ridiculous. Not too long ago, we had neither "usex", nor "ux". Our formatting of example sentence was fairly uniform, following WT:ELE. Then someone comes along, and claims to promote uniformity by first introducing a deviation from a common practice, and then aligning Wiktionary with that deviation. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:42, 22 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

Alright, already. I'll give up restructuring senses as well as using {{label}} and {{ux}}. But I'm not giving up my opinions that uniformity and brevity are proper objectives and that dozens of senses in illogical sequence (and often of mixed but unacknowledged etymology) is forbidding for the ordinary Wiktionary user, especially if they're not familiar with English. — ReidAA (talk) 00:43, 23 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

I support converting to {{label}} and {{ux}} and I think it's fine if you continue to do so. —CodeCat 00:56, 23 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

Yes, you support, but have not produced evidence of consensus. Right now, label and ux are tiny minority of what is being done in the mainspace. Manually performing conversion instead of establishing consensus is just silly. --Dan Polansky (talk) 01:04, 23 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

Sure, if you support uniformity, just replace all uses of "label" with "context" and you are going to get there much sooner. Actually, your edits moved us away from uniformity, and since they were manual and unable to achieve bot volumes, they would keep doing so for the foreseeable future. --Dan Polansky (talk) 01:16, 23 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hi. We have {{...}} to create an ellipsis. This will work better with the software. Thanks! Equinox ◑ 04:54, 2 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I know, and I use it except under special circumstances. For example when it should be followed immediately by a comma or full stop (period) or other punctuation. Another example, when the ellipsis is at the end of a quotation or similar, and so should not be split for aesthetic reasons, in which case I encode &nbsp;
Maybe you or someone else could encode say {{..,}} to leave off the following blank, and {{,..}} to replace the preceding blank with   (that's dot dot comma and comma dot dot}. That would be great. — ReidAA (talk) 05:11, 2 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

Second thought on my suggestion: comma dot comma should combine the two. And thanks for getting in touch with me. I only hope you can help; it's been a problem for me for some time. The last time the issue was raised with me, and responded much as above (as I remember it) the response was merely that it would be easier for me to type - no &s needed — ReidAA (talk) 05:21, 2 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

I have just been informed that you (Equinox) have just reverted my trailing ellipsis in plat. I don't think you can have read my message here above, or perhaps I haven't explained my motivation clearly enough. So maybe I'd better spell it out for the simplest case, that of the ellipsis at the end of a quote.
Just putting {{...}} at the end results in several complexities. Usually it should also be immediately followed a full stop (period). However the {{...}} puts a blank space back and front which makes the trailing full stop look very wrong when it's not juxtaposed to the ] and also it might sometimes be split off to the following line of the display, depending on the width of the user's window, which looks downright stupid. Also, the blank space in front will similarly cause the ellipsis to be split onto the following display line by itself when the user's window is of a width to cause this. It would look very much better were the blank space preceding the ,"framed":false,"label":"Reply","flags":,"classes":}'>Reply

I hadn't looked at this. I see your reversion problem. Anyway, I hope you feel better soon. Thanks for upping the quality of the entries. DCDuring TALK 00:26, 7 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

You should be blocked for repeated making of changes not supported by consensus, increasing the mess of disunity of Wiktionary. In diff, you are replacing "context" with "label", the latter being rarely used in Wiktionary, using the edit summary "Tidy". The edit summary is outright wrong. This you repeat doing again and again, despite previous protests. If I were an admin, I would block you. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:50, 4 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

If you look at Template:label you will see it documented (not by me) as a replacement for {{context}} and "exactly equivalent" to it "except that the language code is mandatory and is passed as the first parameter". Furthermore, Module:labels documents itself as supporting both {{context}} and {{label}}. If they are not both to be used, why are they both documented? In any case I prefer {{label}} because

1. it codes the language up front where it's easier to deal with,
2. label describes the varied naure of the heading much better than context, and
3. the code is shorter.

ReidAA (talk) 09:50, 4 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Facts are, "label" is rare as I proved to you before in another thread and there is no consensus for its serving as a replacement. A documentation page can be written by anyone without a consensus; Template:label/documentation was created by CodeCat, a user with an extended track record of mass editing without consensus, an editor who pushes "label" to be used but so far has failed to produce anything remotely resembling consensus. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:56, 4 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

And my three reasons for preferring it are blockworthy? Why? — ReidAA (talk) 10:47, 4 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Performing replacements from a high-frequency template to a low-frequency template without consensus and in the presence of opposition is a blockable behavior. Preference alone does not matter; other editors have other preferences. Some editors prefer "m" for being short, some prefer "term" for being clear, as per Wiktionary:Votes/2014-08/Migrating from Template:term to Template:m. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:51, 4 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Dan, stop harassing and threatening other editors. —CodeCat 12:40, 4 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Is there any sentence above that I made that is inaccurate? Which one? --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:45, 4 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

That's not relevant. —CodeCat 13:07, 4 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

• I don't think that the behavior in question approaches being blockable. It seems like what one would expect at a wiki: users voting with their keyboards for one way rather than another, when there is no express restriction or deprecation. Moreover I think that a block threat for non-blockable behavior is just bullying. DCDuring TALK 10:02, 5 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

  I have been reticent and mostly did not undo all those placements of "label". If I were not, I could also "vote with my keyboard" in the mainspace and simply revert back. I can easily identify the entries edited by ReidAA and systematically "vote with my keyboard" by restoring "context". Such a behavior is unproductive and silly. Editors should behave like adults, get together and decide which practice to use without edit warring in the mainspace, like we did at Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2011-02/Deprecating less-than symbol in etymologies, a vote which you have irrationally obstructed, DCDuring. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:14, 5 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

  A block threat does not fit with your pose of rationality. It's just bullying to get your way. DCDuring TALK 10:38, 5 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

  I am not an admin, so there is no threat that I would block anyone. I am declaring my stance that a particular behavior is block-worthy, which per se is not irrational in any way, especially when that claim is accompanied by explanation and justification. There is, in general, nothing irrational about (a) there being people with blocking power, and (b) there being people without blocking power making claims about what is and is not block-worthy accompanied by explanation. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:45, 5 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

  You are being rational in the sense of using means to achieve your ends, but bullying is not conducive to group-process rationality, which is just a little bit more important than any particular goal you might have in mind. I don't think that legalism (eg votes) is particularly conducive to a productive environment either but at least that is worth discussing. DCDuring TALK 11:37, 5 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

  I see no instance of bullying (bully#Verb). Again, I have no blocking power. My repeated use of talk pages instead of edit warring in the mainspace should be commended, but apparently is not. WT:VOTE shows plentiful evidence for how productive, transparent and fair our votes are. Your attemp to troll place names and people names out of Wiktionary was contained using a vote (after which you set out to turn Wiktionary into a copy of Wikispecies), just like your attempt to keep Wikisaurus as a trashbin. You are well recognized by me for what you are, DCDuring. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:51, 5 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Can you please stop putting "th" in superscript where it has already been entered otherwise. As far as I know there is no consensus to do so, in which case you should leave other editors' formatting intact. (Personally I think the superscript looks good in pen and paper but bad on computer screens.) Ƿidsiþ 08:30, 4 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

The point of doing it is to stop widows. When the th is made a superscript the space in front of the following c. can be removed, thus stopping it from being shown on a line by itself, which is very distracting and ugly. There was a discussion of widowing and there seemed to be agreement that it was worthwhile to try to avoid them. — ReidAA (talk) 09:07, 4 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

I don't understand. What appears on a line by itself? Why can't you remove a space after the C? Ƿidsiþ 09:36, 4 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

If, say, 15th c.) appears near the end of a line of the display (and remember that users have different width windows at different times) then if the window is a little narrower the c.) will appear by itself (hence called a widow) on the next line. And if you write 15thc.) to avoid the widowing then its meaning becomes obscure and it looks stupid. Of course you could code 15th&nbsp;c.) but I have been thoroughly lambasted for using &nbsp; within the Wiktionary. — ReidAA (talk) 10:43, 4 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Historical rules from typographical print are not usually applied to computer texts and often look silly there (and harm things like search engine spidering). Equinox ◑ 18:23, 4 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

It also doesn't help, because having no space before the C still looks wrong even with the TH in superscript. Ƿidsiþ 05:41, 5 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

I support the request by Widsith: 'Can you please stop putting "th" in superscript where it has already been entered otherwise.' --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:09, 5 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Couldn't the objective of avoiding widowing be accomplished by templatizing 19th C. as {{C.|19|th}} or {{C.|19}}, either of which produce 19th c., ie, a hard-spaced version of "19th C."? Does this cause any particular problems?

If someone is willing to take the trouble to find these display problems (and they are problems), I would think we would want to help and not throw non-wiki-like roadblocks up. DCDuring TALK 09:56, 5 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

• REPEAT CAN YOU PLEASE STOP DOING THIS OR GET CONSENSUS TO DO IT. Ƿidsiþ 16:49, 14 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

  @ReidAA, Equinox Could you please look at and use or state objections to {{C.}}, explained above and in its documentation? DCDuring TALK 22:04, 14 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

My opinion is that this kind of superscript is dated and ill-suited to computers and that nobody should do it, template or otherwise, unless they want to ape an archaic style. Equinox ◑ 22:07, 14 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

@Equinox Is it the superscripting or the non-breaking character that is archaic? So, no objections to the non-breaking space. Do you know of some CSS or HTML way to keep all of {{defdate}} on one line just by changing {{defdate}} itself? Or does it take Scribunto/Lua? DCDuring TALK 22:28, 14 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Well, I would also question the relevance of widows-and-orphans rules in an age where a window can be resized to the user's preference. But consider the widows-and-orphans settings in e.g. Microsoft Word: they are not special markup inserted between words or items in a paragraph (which would frankly be a hideous mess, considering the amount of adding, removing, and copy-pasting that goes on); rather, they are a style applied to entire paras or documents. That is why IIRC I suggested CSS. I don't think HTML alone would be helpful since HTML is not supposed to deal with presentation in the way that CSS is. Googling "css widows orphans" finds some stuff but I haven't really got time to comb through it when I place so little importance on the result. Equinox ◑ 18:32, 15 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

It is quite possible that no single screen/frame/window width setting would solve the problem if there were multiple widowing instances that were visible at the same time. What word-processors control is at the level of paragraphs and pages, not individual lines. Hyphenation control is somewhat related. Users need to use hardspaces for the kind of thing we are addressing. As for messes, what our browsers have to deal with is already a hideous mess. I don't thing CSS works for this, but I would be happy to hear how it could workand to do some work on it. It matters to me for some presentation of Hyponyms and Hypernyms on taxonomic entries, now riddled with hard spaces. DCDuring TALK 19:14, 15 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

• I have created a new template {{defdt}}, that is a non-breaking variation of {{defdate}}. Using it eliminates the widowing problem with spaces in {{defdate}}. There is also a template {{nowrap}} that does not allow any line-breaks at any of the ordinary spaces within it. It is OK unless the content is more than the frame can take. (Both {{defdt}} and {{nowrap}} use a CSS property. DCDuring TALK 00:44, 16 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

  Good job! Ƿidsiþ 07:05, 16 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

@DCDuring, WidsithGood job, indeed! Might I suggest that you add a defdtc that deals simply with the very common and by just having one or two arguments the merely give the century numbers. This would allow the wording or formatting to be changed as consensuses change.
  On the original question of superscripts, I cannot agree that they are archaic (and certainly not ugly) but merely suppressed by the primitive nature of the typography of early computer based character sets. Superscripts are now widely used, for example in reference triggers (links) in Wiktionary and Wikipedia, and add an air of delicacy to an otherwise plain and boring narrative. — ReidAA (talk) 10:23, 16 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

It's a matter of taste. I prefer them, Equinox dislikes them. I can across a style sheet for a CSS wiki that seemed to like them and also to like hard spaces where you were putting them. But we don't have a style sheet and seem to have trouble getting agreement of such a thing or even simpler or more important things. So I'd rather not stir up even more disagreement. No one has thought that getting rid of widowing is bad, but have objected to specific means. Templatization can work in some cases; hard spaces may be needed in others. Let me know if you see a pattern.

I'm not so sure about more structure for {{defdate}} and {{defdt}}, but I'll look into it.

The only caveat about {{defdt}} is that very long content isn't broken up when perhaps it should be. DCDuring TALK 10:44, 16 October 2014 (UTC)Reply

Hello ! I reverted your excellent edit at evenlong solely because the entry is Modern English ( post 1500 ). You quote falls into Late Middle English as is not applicable to the entry for English evenlong. Leasnam (talk) 07:29, 3 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

@Leasnam   Isn't this rather arbitrary? There are several hundred quotes for Malory, so are all those to be gone over and a modernised version to be substituted? The quotes I have been using are from the University of Michigan's online Morte Darthur and most of the original Webster quotes are identical or very similar to theirs. Moreover many of the Malory oquotes are solo; does this mean that the entire entry should be deleted? And aren't other quotes from the Webster 1913 original, such as from Tyndale's Bible translation, and Spenser's Faerie Queen very similar to the Malory quotes and therefore to be expunged?
 Examples are intended to help the user understand the preceding sense. That's why they're supposed to come straight after the sense. Quotes are primarily intended to attest the origin and continued usage of the sense, as wonderfully illustrated by the OED, which the Wiktionary has the potential to take over first place from. The two advantages that the Wiktionary has are (a) the ability to store more and longer quotes, and (b) the optionality of quotes that allows them to be hidden from the ordinary user. As an additional help for the user, obsolete and archaic senses can be so labelled, and many are.
 On that basis, quotes should be made available for the entire span of the sense, and if that goes back into Early English, why not? However, this discussion has put a further possibility into my mind: maybe I could put a superscripted link to the modernised Gutenberg version in the RQ:Mlry MrtDrthr template. How would that be? — ReidAA (talk) 02:16, 4 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

Would you use a French quotation to attest a usage for English change? Or a Dutch quote to help an English learner grasp a particular sense of English land? In the same way, here at Wiktionary, Middle English is treated as a distinct and separate language from English, just as much as French and Dutch are. We would not expect to find Middle English citations in an entry labelled 'English', nor likewise quotations from Chaucer in the entries of Old English hīeran, oft, and mann. Also the cited spelling (euen longes) is much too divergent from the page title to attest 'evenlong'. Had there been a Middle English entry, I would have simply moved it there, because, quite honestly, it was excellent work! Why not create a Middle English entry for it? But back to the main, Middle English language does not belong in English entries, and should not be cited as any standard of how one should use the term in Modern English. Leasnam (talk) 09:17, 4 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

@Leasnam   I can't agree with your reasoning. English is a language that has developed continuously and is still developing. The divisions between Early/Old, Middle and Modern English are far from clear, arguably non-existent. As an incomplete analogy, a human goes through stages: Infancy, Youthhood, and Adulthood. Along the same lines, Dutch is a first cousin language and French is a second cousin language. In my view dialects of English are siblings, though the role of various Scots dialects has become a political issue.
  And, as I mentioned above, it's the examples that are important to the English learner; the quotations are important to the historian or linguist. On this basis it seems to me that ideally the entire path of development of an English word (or phrase) and its senses should be attested. Certainly there is room in the Wiktionary to do so. Examples should of course be in Modern English, but I see no reason why quotations should be constrained. — ReidAA (talk) 05:08, 5 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

ReidAA, You are right. Your citation does belong here at Wiktionary, at the entry euenlong/euen longes; but not at Modern English evenlong. Your citation will confuse the English Language student in China or Brazil who is trying to figure out what "evenlong" means. This is how it is done at Wiktionary. Other dictionaries do it differently, I know, but this is one of the things which distinguishes us and sets us apart from them ;) Leasnam (talk) 05:38, 5 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

@Leasman   As far as evenlong is concerned, my feeling is that the sense should have been labelled archaic or obsolete, which is the way a lot of similar senses are labelled. If so, and given it is old(ish?) English, then no such language student is going to get to it. So maybe you would want to get rid of the entry altogether? But for the use of people with good English then they might get to it if they were trying to read old English texts or quotes and, if the dictionary is to compete with the superb OED (which labels it obsolete and has it with two other senses and quotes ranging from 1387 to 1565), then it needs the page.
 One thought that occurs to me is that it might be a good idea to add to quotes provided by the University of Michigan the same text in modern spelling such as provided by Gutenberg. — ReidAA (talk) 10:13, 6 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

@ReidAA I cannot agree with you that a Modern English learner will never stumble upon this word (see the translated into Modern English quote already on page)...it happens. And when it does, such learners, and even native speakers need a reference to know what this word means. They do not need the quote in Middle English. That is what the Middle English entry is for. If a linguist wants to indulge in the history of the word, he/she can utilise the etymology information linked to those entries and see quotes there. What you did originally, ReidAA, was you removed the English translation and substituted the Middle English original for it, when the English was perfectly good and needed. Had you even simply added the 1485 text only to what was already there I probably would have left it alone. Leasnam (talk) 15:11, 6 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

@Leasman   Well what you would agree to is much what I was suggesting. Indeed I had seen the point quite a while before but I was so far through the Malory quotes that I was wrongly letting it go.
 Suppose I resume my Malory efforts and put in two extended quotes with links, the first from the UMich site, the second from Gutenberg. Then when I have finished them I go back and add the Gutenberg quote/link to ones that have only Umich quotes. Do you see any problems with that (apart from the time lapse)? This won't fix all the quotes as there were quite a few that had no corresponding text in either UMich or Gutenberg. — ReidAA (talk) 03:38, 9 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

@ReidAA, I think that would be fine, so long as it follows after the modern quote, and would certainly add a great deal of value to the entry. Leasnam (talk) 14:55, 9 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

@Leasman   I had got the strong impression that quotes were to be in ascending order by dates, and the date of the transliteration would be later than that of the original. Otherwise, yes, I'll resume Malorying. Thanks for your patience. — ReidAA (talk) 21:39, 9 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

I normally order dates ascending, but in this instance I would order by relevancy, then date ascending. Since this a special addendum, I think it should come after all modern quotes (in this case, just the 1), unless somehow nested within it (like a reverse translation). I dont know how you might work this, as I've not seen it done before, but see if you can make it work...(?) Leasnam (talk) 03:12, 10 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

@Leasman   See evenlong for a trial. I'm not altogether happy with it. I had no luck trying to put a bullet in front. Maybe a <small>...</small> around it. I haven't time at the moment to try these, but I'd appreciate your feedback. — ReidAA (talk) 10:03, 10 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

@Leasman   I've just put in a bullet and the small. If you're happy with the effect I'll improve the modern quote, especially by adding the editor's name as (s)he is responsible for the spelling, and let you know. — ReidAA (talk) 07:33, 11 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

I basically agree with Leasnam on this, but I'm no expert. I just think normal users don't see Middle English as English. In fact, many don't see some passages in Shakespears and other EME as English. Widsith might agree with ReidAA. I'm not sure who else to involve in the discussion to resolve this case and the issue in general. DCDuring TALK 06:12, 5 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

@DCDuring I think the Wiktionary should strive to provide a service for all possible users, not just normal ones, whatever they might be. — ReidAA (talk) 10:13, 6 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

I do agree with ReidAA. Enforcing a division between Middle and Modern English makes absolutely no sense when there is a continuum of texts written throughout the whole period. Doing so is exactly the same (as DCDuring implies) as treating Shakespeare as using a different language. It is different, but showing those changes is kind of the point of a historical dictionary. This issue has come up before, and the principle that was established is that ‘Middle English’ citations can be used to support a ‘modern’ English entry if the word survived into modern English. Ƿidsiþ 10:22, 24 November 2014 (UTC)Reply

And by the way, I don't consider Malory to be Middle English. I consider it early modern English. It is certainly a world away from Chaucer. And Le Morte Darthur probably dates to around 1480, which is actually *after* the cut-off point of 1470 that's widely used in Wikipedia. But the arbitrariness of this distinction is pretty clear with such cases – you could call it late Middle English just as accurately. Ƿidsiþ 10:26, 24 November 2014 (UTC)Reply