User talk:Sgconlaw/Archive 2020–2024

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I have noticed that you have often taken a wav audio file and re-uploaded as an oga with a nice standard filename, example.

Is there a fast way that you do that?

I want to use Lingua Libre but it spits out yucky filenames to Commons, example.--Commander Keane (talk) 05:29, 22 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Commander Keane: thanks for your work in producing audio pronunciation files! I'm afraid I have been doing the re-uploading manually, because I'm not aware of any tool that automates the process. Audio files need to be in one of several standard formats to appear properly in the Word of the Day templates. I haven't used Lingua Libre before – is it not possible to manually specify a filename? — SGconlaw (talk) 07:11, 22 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

I asked about the filename here.--Commander Keane (talk) 07:44, 22 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps suggest that users be allowed to specify their own filenames (for example, to be in line with file naming policies at the Wikimedia Commons), and if the file already exists then users can be prompted to use the default name or enter a different name. You may also wish to point out that according to Commons policy pronunciation files are supposed to have a certain format, and that format has to be used for templates at the Wiktionary to be able to use the files efficiently. — SGconlaw (talk) 07:50, 22 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

(or just allow the wotd templates to accept wav files and avoid reuploading and file name debates...? —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 19:34, 22 January 2020 (UTC))Reply

@Suzukaze-c: there's too much variation in the format of Lingua Libre filenames to enable them to be hard-coded into the template. The alternative is to manually specify the audio file names in the {{WOTD}} template. This can be done; it's just less convenient. — SGconlaw (talk) 20:02, 22 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Suzukaze-c, Sgconlaw: would en.wiktionary be ok with the filenames generated by Lingua Libre? I think fr.wiktionary accepts them.--Commander Keane (talk) 01:52, 23 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Sgconlaw: Surely specifying the wav file is easier than reuploading the file? (And we put less burden on the Commons servers creating duplicate files motivated by this arbitrary dislike of LL filenames.)

@Commander Keane: ? —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 02:34, 23 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

Not entirely arbitrary; Lingua Libre was not designed to fit the pre-existing file-naming format for audio pronunciation files at the Commons and so ignores it, and also does not add such files to proper categories such as “Category:British English pronunciation”. But, as I said, the WOTD templates have been written to allow for audio files to be manually specified if necessary. Let me think about whether that’s a better way to proceed. — SGconlaw (talk) 04:13, 23 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Wiktionary:Beer parlour.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Shakespeare Timon.

I noticed that some WOTDs have an audio, others don't. It is weird. Nowhere on the page Wiktionary:Word of the day/2020/February 12 can I find a link to the audio, but an audio appears on Wiktionary:Word of the day/2020/February 12. Also, I just made an audio for hypocorism and want to include it on Wiktionary:Word of the day/2020/February 14. How would that be done? --AcpoKrane (talk) 14:25, 12 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

Same goes for Wiktionary:Word of the day/2020/March 21 (no audio link) and clamber (audio link). --AcpoKrane (talk) 14:27, 12 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

@AcpoKrane: audio pronunciation files need to be in one of a number of standard file naming formats such as En-uk-.oga to be picked up automatically by the {{WOTD}} template. For a full list of supported formats, see the |audio= parameter on the template documentation page. If you don't wish to create a file in one of the supported formats (which I'd prefer), then you have to manually specify the audio filename using the |audio= parameter in {{WOTD}}. — SGconlaw (talk) 18:24, 12 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

OK, I see. I updated the pages. As for the creation of the file in one of the supported formats, I understand that it would be preferable. However, I'm going with the format used by Lingualibre, because it allows audios to be uploaded reasonably fast and efficiently. --AcpoKrane (talk) 18:35, 12 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. — SGconlaw (talk) 18:36, 12 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

Inspired by herd immunity, I'd like to caution against exclusively relying on Wikipedia when adding translations. Wikipedians often use rare, made-up protologisms. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 18:39, 2 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

Ah, OK. Thanks. — SGconlaw (talk) 18:48, 2 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Milton Paradise Lost.

Hello. Look at this: . I'm not quite sure what you were saying. Using the Wiktionary ellipsis means that any automatic/machine process can identify automatically "this is some skipped text", whereas just putting a dot inside square brackets means nothing, and looks like they actually wrote a dot inside brackets, which is wrong. Can you clarify? Equinox ◑ 11:21, 18 May 2020 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding how automatic processes work in which case please elucidate, but why does a machine process need to have a template to recognize ""? Can it not identify that text string? Also, under what circumstances would a machine process need to recognize ""? At the moment, using {{...}} or {{nb...}} just to generate "" seem like an unnecessary transclusion of a template. Why not reserve the use of those templates for situations when it is actually desired to use the tooltip feature of the templates, like this: {{...|Some text that doesn't need to be displayed}}? — SGconlaw (talk) 12:15, 18 May 2020 (UTC)Reply

Firstly I would like you to drop the "tooltip" idea since (as far as I know) a tooltip is a pop-up text that describes a button etc. in a user interface. Using the {{...}} is not about "tooltips" and is not primarily about enhancing the user experience in the browser. To simplify my typing I will now refer to {{...}} as ELLIPSIS and as DOTS. To answer your questions: we could recognise DOTS, but the Wiktionary convention that was agreed upon was to use ELLIPSIS, so you are breaking the rules, and hurting bot work, by refusing to use the agreed standard. "Under what circumstances would we need to recognise": when we are sorting, searching and filtering our entries by machine, perhaps in ways we haven't dreamed up yet, but it's important to be able to tell "some missing text" apart from "maybe someone actually typed DOTS": again, standards are important, and that's why we agreed them. Regarding transclusions/techy issues, I really don't care, but clearly we are going to optimise the code around AGREED forms like ELLIPSIS and not around non-standard forms like DOTS. It annoys me that you are apparently refusing to follow standards through sheer bloody-mindedness so I will raise this on WT:TR; let's continue talking there. Equinox ◑ 12:25, 18 May 2020 (UTC)Reply

Sure, let's talk there. Also, do let me know where this convention is noted, as I've not come across it before. — SGconlaw (talk) 13:29, 18 May 2020 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Swift Gulliver.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Beaumont Fletcher Comedies and Tragedies.

So you know, I am not going to be adding any more audios to the Wikimedia project. I mean, like, never ever. --Nueva normalidad (talk) 21:47, 21 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Nueva normalidad: ah, OK. Thanks for all your help! — SGconlaw (talk) 21:52, 21 June 2020 (UTC)Reply

Well, out of curiosity, what’s the case? What happened to Wonderfool that made him decide to do so? — inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›}

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Locke Human Understanding.

Browne's quotes are all dated, except for three of them: accubation, cholical and tabidly, which I weren't sure of. I'm considering my Browne work completed. --Nueva normalidad (talk) 17:04, 1 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Nueva normalidad: — SGconlaw (talk) 17:33, 1 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi, I'm taking this discussion off the Grease Pit as the primary maintenance request has been dealt with already (and thanks again for that!).

To answer your last question: basically the Kiwix scraper takes a snapshot of the website's HTML at time T and turns it into a static file (ie it's not mediawiki-based anymore). I don't think that the solution you envision using magic words would work because there is no way for the zim format to generate "new" entries on the fly. For instance, we cannot display categories (there's an ongoign project for us to generate and hardwrite their content before compression). But as I said I've never put my hands in mwoffliner myself: I have therefore asked folks what their thoughts are and I will return with more details if someone can figure out a workaround (even a theoretical one). The other Kiwix guy (talk) 11:36, 3 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

@The other Kiwix guy: ah, I see. Yes, I think the WOTD idea wouldn’t work unless there was some way for the offline program to figure out what the date is when the Main Page is viewed. Anyway, let me know when you find out. — SGconlaw (talk) 11:58, 3 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Dryden Metamorphoses.

Note the Wikipedia article on "Fictional universe", which offers as an example the Victorian England of Sherlock Holmes. bd2412 T 17:13, 17 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

@BD2412: yup, that's what I think the term means. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:14, 17 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Dryden Georgics.

As you know, I've added a lot of pronunciations lately. I'm a Midwesterner, so my accent is General American. I see that some instances of pronunciations that I've added are marked |Audio (US)= and some |Audio (GA)=. I think the latter is preferable considering the diversity of American accents. Similarly, RP is very different from a Glaswegian or Scouse pronunciation, so putting "(UK)" really obfuscates exactly what you're hearing in the audio. Do you have thoughts on this? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:32, 19 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Koavf: yes, I recall reading somewhere that “UK” and “US” should be avoided as it’s inaccurate to say that a particular pronunciation is typical of the whole country. “RP” and “GA” are preferred. — SGconlaw (talk) 04:50, 20 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

Good deal. And I think "(UK)" is fine if you don't have anything more specific--e.g. I can't personally distinguish all the British accents. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:51, 20 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

Most of the ones added to WOTDs of late have been RP, as far as I can tell. — SGconlaw (talk) 04:53, 20 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

Always. Sometimes Australian as well and I am adding GA. Unfortunate that we have so few pronunciations. :/ But that gives us something to do, I suppose. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:44, 20 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

Dude, I did it. I dated all of Category:Requests for date/Dryden. Today was the most intense day of my life, Wiktionarically speaking. OK, I left a few templates without dates, but Dryden is dead to me now. --CasiObsoleto (talk) 23:16, 19 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

And it is a shame to do this every time (every fucking week?), but I have to request a short block. I will undertake my traditional vandalism spree after posting this comment too. --CasiObsoleto (talk) 23:18, 19 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

@CasiObsoleto: just ask if you want to be blocked. No need to make a mess while you’re at it. — SGconlaw (talk) 04:40, 20 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

The current version of this template's display is short, but also remarkably ugly. It includes the printer, which seems unnecessary and is unexplained, and multiple (!) ellipses. Surely there is a better way of presenting this. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:49, 21 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Metaknowledge: it is standard bibliographic practice to indicate the name of the publisher of a work, or if that is unknown the name of the printer, so why is that unnecessary and unexplained? As for the ellipses, if one is using a mouse and brings the cursor over the ellipses, tooltips showing the hidden information are shown. — SGconlaw (talk) 03:32, 21 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

To be honest, I had to click through to the WP article to see that he was a printer, and I didn't even notice the tooltips. I am perfectly willing to let this go and conclude that I'm just being dumb, but it does make one wonder how many readers are going to pick up on something a regular editor doesn't notice. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:40, 21 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Metaknowledge: well, previously there might have been some clarifying words like “printed by” or “publisher” but we just voted against this … Do we need an appendix or guide on citations? Is that something users would find helpful? — SGconlaw (talk) 03:50, 21 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

As for the vote, it's true that it took out "printed by", but I was never convinced of the utility of including the printer to begin with, which surely puts me at odds with dedicated bibliographers. The vote didn't recommend stuffing more information in tooltips, but it didn't ban it either. An appendix seems thoroughly useless, given that nobody would actually look at it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:56, 21 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

Well, if I wonder about some feature of a dictionary I usually start hunting around for a page with abbreviations or explanatory notes, but OK. — SGconlaw (talk) 04:02, 21 July 2020 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Dryden Virgil.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Thomson Seasons.

Hey. Here's a quote for revert from James Thomson apparently from Spring, but not in this version. I'm leaving this one for you, as the faffy Template:RQ:Thomson Seasons has probably got to be used. --Kriss Barnes (talk) 16:33, 6 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

• The tumbling stream / Reverted, plays in undulating flow.

• Resolved. Was actually real easy, not sure how I didn't see it first time --Kriss Barnes (talk) 00:24, 8 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Also, I probably screwed up the Hudibras quote at tip. I'm gonna make a simpler version of that template too, probably called Template:RQ:Butler Hud --Kriss Barnes (talk) 16:43, 6 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Where chapters are specified in templates, they currently produce something like "Chapter x, in ", which is crazy and no one does that. It should produce ", chapter x, …". Maybe it comes from treating chapters in a normal book the same as, e.g., individual titled essays in an anthology of different authors. Ƿidsiþ 13:16, 9 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Widsith: I have to say that I have not encountered a formatting where the chapter appears after the title. See, for example, w:Template:Cite book and the Chicago Manual of Style. Also, it seems an unnecessary level of complexity to have the chapters before the title in the case of a collection of works by different authors, and after the title if a book is by a single author. — SGconlaw (talk) 14:07, 9 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

This really only supports my point, since the whole idea of the Chicago style is to cite chapters only when they are by contributors to part of an edited book. Then, of course, you cite an individual author and their essay title before the editor and title of the book as a whole. No one, as far as I know, cites the name of a chapter in a regular novel or nonfiction work, and if they do they will not say "in Title". You would work backwards from large to small – book title, chapter, page number. Ƿidsiþ 16:45, 9 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Seems like I read the Chicago Manual of Style incorrectly; I'm not familiar with it and it doesn't actually give an example of a chapter in a book by a single author. I'm more familiar with British citation styles and have not seen one where the chapter appears after the title. Also, the point about the template being rather complicated if the position of the chapter has to change remains. I believe the reference templates here were based on the ones at Wikipedia. Anyway, if you wish to ask for it to be altered, I won't object. You'll have to ask @Benwing2 to assist; the quotation metatemplate has been converted to Lua and that is beyond me at the moment. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:08, 9 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Widsith If you can give me some examples of quotation templates with specific arguments and what they currently look like and should look like, I can look into fixing the module code. Benwing2 (talk) 18:31, 9 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Benwing2: on an unrelated matter, while you're looking into the quotation metatemplate, perhaps you could also look into moving |translator=, if stated, before the author's name. I think this is a request that has been made before. Thanks. — SGconlaw (talk) 18:37, 9 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Sgconlaw Apologies if you asked before; I get various requests and sometimes they get lost in the shuffle. Can you give me an example of a template that puts the translator after the author's name and how it should look, or point me to the previous discussion? Benwing2 (talk) 18:39, 9 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Yes I am more familiar with British style as well (being British and writing professionally for 20 years). The problem is that it is not very common to cite a chapter title in a book by one author; however, there was no consensus in the recent vote to remove such detail, so we have to distinguish such cases from contributions in edited books. The point is that there is a big difference between

2002, Chris Jones, “The Vindications and their political traditions”, in Claudia L. Johnson, editor, The Cambridge Companion to Mary Wollstonecraft, Cambridge University Press, page 42:

Wollstonexraft joined a circle rich in adversarial political experience.

…where it is absolutely necessary and normal that the "chapter" (which is an individual contribution) and its author be listed before the main book title and editor; and:

1813 January 27, , chapter III, in Pride and Prejudice: , volume I, London: ">…] for T Egerton, , →OCLC:

…which is not normal and looks bizarre, especially because of the "in". Here the chapter "title", if used at all, should come in order after the volume and before the page number. Unfortunately it seems like they both use the "chapter=" argument, so @Benwing2 I'm not sure how this could be resolved! However I have little idea of how the coding works so maybe there are solutions.

(Incidentally, on the translation issue, I agree with Sgconlaw that the translator must be listed first: in, e.g., {{RQ:Florio Montaigne Essayes}}, it looks like we are citing Montaigne, but we're citing Florio's English and he should be listed first. Same goes for all such templates.) Sorry for the length of this comment, hopefully it more or less makes sense. Ƿidsiþ 05:41, 10 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Widsith There's no problem resolving this issue because the code that processes the chapter= param can look at other params. So for example it can do one thing if there's an editor= specified and another thing if there isn't. I just need to know what the results *should* look like. Can you format up some examples of (a) what for example the {{RQ:Austen Pride and Prejudice|I|III}} call *should* look like with the chapter moved, and (b) what {{RQ:Florio Montaigne Essayes}} *should* look like with the translator moved. Otherwise I'm not very sure what end I'm aiming for. Benwing2 (talk) 06:08, 10 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

OK, keeping other changes minimal, these two should look as follows: Ƿidsiþ 06:18, 10 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

• 1813, , Pride and Prejudice, London: Thomas Egerton, Volume I, chapter III, page 42:
• 1603, John Florio, transl. Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, London: Edward Blount:

The example with the translator looks fine. As for moving the chapter name or number, how is the template to distinguish between that situation and the situation of a chapter in a collected work (where you agree that the chapter should continue to appear in its current position)? Also, volume should continue to remain uncapitalized, I think. — SGconlaw (talk) 08:10, 10 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

I have no idea! but Benwing2 seems to think it's possible. Not bothered about capitalisation or otherwise of "volume". Ƿidsiþ 10:34, 10 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:sga:TBC.

Hey. As you may have seen, I've been attacking Coleridge quotes, which has been the most unrewarding thing I've done in my whole life. Lots of the quotes come from his "notes", and they are all templated and can be found on this page. Firstly, I'd like to ask you your opinion on how crappy his notes are as citations (IMO, generally extremely crappy). Secondly, if you feel it is worth making a more Sgconlaw-esque template (i.e. one too complicated for me to understand). I kinda want to do away with all quotations that are his mere notes scribbled in a notebook, but keep anything published during his lifetime. --Kriss Barnes (talk) 17:44, 12 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Kriss Barnes: I assume the notes were published somewhere? Have you managed to find a source? Hard for me to judge whether the quotations from the notes are "crappy" or not without a lot of clicks – maybe you can highlight a few entries. The one or two I looked at seemed to be either the only quotation, or one of a small number, on the entry page, so it would not be a good idea to remove those quotations without replacing them with something else. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:54, 12 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

I think they were published in "Literary Remains" --Kriss Barnes (talk) 18:17, 12 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Prior Poetical Works.

Discussion moved to Talk:mixen.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Kingsley Hypatia.

Another one I couldn't find a date for... Walter Scott's Hunting Song --Quotedude56 (talk) 21:00, 26 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Landor Imaginary Conversations.

Discussion moved to Talk:chaperome.

Discussion moved to Talk:exemplary.

Discussion moved to Talk:event.

Hey. I'm going to dedicate the rest of my life (probably not so long...) to emptying Category:Requests for date/Edmund Spenser. I haven't been able to find a good website for easy searching of the original Faerie Queen, however, so it hasn't been as fast as I want. You know of a good place to search? What I really need is something like https://www.shakespeareswords.com --Java Beauty (talk) 20:16, 3 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

Not sure if you've been asked this before, but I'll ask anyhow. Would it be possible to fiddle with {{quote-book}} (or {{temp|quote-meta}]???) to categorize entries by author, so carmagnole would go into Category:Requests for date/Charles Compton Reade. --Java Beauty (talk) 21:02, 9 September 2020 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Marlowe Jew of Malta.

Hello Sgconlaw, I was wondering if you could help me build a similar template like {{WOTD}} at the sw.wiktionary or otherwise help me style up the main page. Thank you (please ping me on reply) --Synoman Barris (talk) 08:01, 3 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Synoman Barris: sure. What would you like to call the template? Then we can copy a version of {{WOTD}} over to sw.wiktionary and start working on it. — SGconlaw (talk) 09:12, 3 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, I would like to call it Template:NLS maybe from the Swahili translation “Neno la Siku”. Other templates that are necessary in maintaining a dictionary may also be useful over there. Cheers --Synoman Barris (talk) 10:47, 3 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Synoman Barris: well, apart from transferring {{WOTD}} over to sw.wiktionary, there will be quite a few pages and templates that will need to be created or edited to get a Word of the Day project working, so let's start slow and see how it goes. — SGconlaw (talk) 10:59, 3 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Okay, so when do we start? --Synoman Barris (talk) 11:26, 3 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Synoman Barris: why don't you start by creating Swahili versions of "Wiktionary:Word of the day" and "Wiktionary:Word of the day/Nominations", and I will look into the templates. — SGconlaw (talk) 12:27, 3 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

On it! Cheers --Synoman Barris (talk) 14:06, 3 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, I did a bunch more audio. A handful of easy ones appeared in the to-do list. --Daleusher (talk) 19:11, 3 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Daleusher: thank you! — SGconlaw (talk) 19:23, 3 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Drayton Poly-Olbion.

When you're hiding user names, don't forget to hide the edit summary of your revert, since the rollback tool always gives the account name of the user who made the reverted edit. You can do that even when your revert is the current edit. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:26, 21 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

OK, thanks for the tip! — SGconlaw (talk) 05:28, 21 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi. Looking at our entry slantindicular, the date is given as 1842 December 1, although nobody added the 1. That's probably a bug in the template, and you are the oly one skilled enough to fix it. Candle-holding servant (talk) 22:01, 25 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Candle-holding servant: the |date= parameter cannot take just a month and year; |month= and |year= have to be used instead. This isn’t a bug in {{quote-book}}; it’s just how wikitext’s {{#time}} function works. — SGconlaw (talk) 22:20, 25 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

A'ight, sweet. Fixed Candle-holding servant (talk) 22:28, 25 October 2020 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Beaumont Fletcher Comedies and Tragedies.

Just FYI, there's a difference between the the perciform suborder Gobioidei (aka the order Gobiiformes) and the cyprinid subfamily Gobioninae. The type genus of the first is Gobius (apparently a second declension Latin noun) and the type genus of the second is Gobio (apparently a third declension Latin noun). Just to reinforce the difference, Gobius belongs to the subfamily Gobiinae of the family Gobiidae.

This may seem trivial to you, but I was actually shocked to discover that our category system had Category:en:Gobies as a subcategory of Category:en:Cyprinids. Gobies are primarily marine fish, while gudgeons are freshwater fish related to minnows and goldfish. No one who knows anything about the actual fish would confuse the two.

Please don't make changes to the hierarchy of our taxonomically-based set categories unless you're quite familiar with the taxonomy of the organisms involved. Whenever I make such changes, I spend some time reading up on the taxa involved and the groups they belong to. With DNA information becoming widely available in recent decades, the taxonomy of just about everything is changing radically, so I don't trust my personal knowledge on the subject. You should be even more careful.

Feel free to ask me about anything related to taxonomy. I'm not an expert, but I know how and where to look things up. @Metaknowledge knows far more about aquatic organisms than I do, but I don't want to volunteer them for anything without asking first. Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 04:06, 12 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Chuck Entz: oops, I see where I went wrong. I thought "Category:Gobies" was in the entry gudgeon because the goby is another name for the gudgeon, but it seems that the reason why that category was there is because gudgeon is also a name for fish of the family Eleotridae, which are called sleeper gobies. Looking at "w:Goby", it seems that this is an imprecise word that can be used to refer to fish from a number of different orders, which is presumably why "Category:Gobies" has "Category:Fish" as a parent category rather than a specific order. If that's the case, is it a good idea to even have "Category:Gobies"? — SGconlaw (talk) 11:24, 12 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Very few vernacular names, except for some lengthy, artificial-seeming terms are precise. Taxonomic names may be somewhat volatile, but they are relatively precise. DCDuring (talk) 12:11, 4 April 2023 (UTC)Reply

Your change to the category description for Category:Stone fruits was technically correct, since anything with a drupe can indeed be so described. However, when someone refers to "the stone fruits" as a group, they're almost always referring to plants in the genus Prunus, as evidenced by this Google search, and this book. I've edited the entry at stone fruit to reflect that. If you think about it, no one who looks up plum is more likely to want to know about ivy, and walnuts than cherries and apricots.

I should preemptively ask that you not change the description of Category:Berries, although under the botanical definition blackberries, strawberries, mulberries and perhaps the majority of what are now in Category:en:Berries are not berries, but pumpkins and bananas are. Likewise, apples and strawberries aren't fruits, but apple cores and the seeds on the surface of the strawberry, along with sunflower seeds and kernels of corn/maize, are.

Sarcasm aside, if you want to change a category description in a way that will substantially alter its membership, bring it up at some place like the Beer parlour so it can be discussed. What you did is akin to reorganizing an entry without changing the translation tables. Granted, there's lots of overlap in this case, but it's still bad practice.

I've created Category:Prunus genus plants to avoid the ambiguity and to cover things like cherry blossom that aren't stone fruits in your sense. I've created/named literally hundreds of such categories, but this was not one of my better ones- so I decided it was better to avoid a dispute and fork off my own category. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:26, 14 November 2020 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Talk:furibund.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Shakespeare Kyd Edward 3.

Discussion moved to Talk:subtle.

Hey, do you usually protect WOTD pages against editing and moving by IPs? I didn't see any protection on recent WOTDs and soon to be featured WOTDs. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 17:36, 1 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

I recall @Chuck Entz updated our abuse filters, so that's now unnecessary. I only temporarily protect the entries themselves (if I remember to do so). — SGconlaw (talk) 17:38, 1 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

What exactly does the abuse filter do? Does it prevent edits by IPs and new users to WOTDs or does it flag such edits? ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 18:10, 1 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Lingo Bingo Dingo: the discussion is at "Wiktionary:Grease pit/2020/June#WOTD and FWOTD Abuse Filter". I think it prevents edits from being saved, but you'll have to ask Chuck for details. — SGconlaw (talk) 18:14, 1 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Thank you! ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 18:20, 1 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hello. I wanted to know how you do the job of extracting quotes from Google Books or any other similar online sources. In most cases, it is not possible to copy the needed text for want of such an option. So I am forced to just manually type them, trusting to my memory. Obviously I do verify the typed text, but the whole process is not only tiresome but also kills valuable time; this also reduces efficiency in that one could have added more quotes but for the manual job. Thus, if you employ some other method, please let me know that! Thank you. — inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 09:38, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Inqilābī: well, until recently I just used to have two tabs open on my browser, one with the source text from Google Books/the Internet Archive/the HathiTrust Digital Library, and the other with the Wiktionary. I then looked at the passage in one tab and retyped it in the other tab a portion at a time. I'm afraid it wasn't more sophisticated than that. Recently, I found an app that allows me to hook up my tablet device to my laptop and use it as a second screen, which then allows me to do the retyping more easily as I no longer have to switch between tabs. What you could do is either to use a two-screen setup, or perhaps to set up two side-by-side windows on your computer (though I tried that and didn't like it because each window was rather narrow). — SGconlaw (talk) 09:45, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Okay, noted, and thanks! So I see, howsoever we do it, we cannot avoid typing anyway. However, let's also see if @Equinox has got any other tip. — inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 10:06, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Inqilābī: oh, one more thing – if you are using Google Books, you can sometimes copy and paste parts of a passage from the search results. This also works to a more limited degree for the Internet Archive and the HathiTrust Digital Library, but in all cases you have to check the pasted text against the actual PDF text as the OCR is frequently inaccurate. — SGconlaw (talk) 10:11, 12 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Talk:Magi.

So you know, all of the old WOTDs now have audio (except multiworders). I am a hero Kilo Lima Mike (talk) 21:27, 24 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Kilo Lima Mike: thanks! Oh, but note "commons:File talk:LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-canaigre.wav". — SGconlaw (talk) 21:29, 24 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Probably better now. Kilo Lima Mike (talk) 21:38, 24 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

See {{syn}}: “after any usage examples or quotes”. J3133 (talk) 20:05, 28 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

@J3133: I should think that "WT:EL", being policy, trumps {{synonyms}}. In any case, I feel it makes more sense for semantic relations to appear immediately after definitions, otherwise they risk being separated from the definitions by quotations and missed entirely. — SGconlaw (talk) 20:17, 28 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Sgconlaw: I have added a note at the documentation. J3133 (talk) 20:40, 28 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

@J3133: OK, thanks. — SGconlaw (talk) 20:48, 28 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Ovid Epistles.

What does “2020–2014” mean in the title of Archive 2020–2014 (the page contains 2020 discussions, although “2014” is also in the title of 2014–2019)? J3133 (talk) 17:50, 1 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

Oops, typo on my part. It's supposed to say 2020–2024! Thanks. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:57, 1 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Talk:outcant.

Discussion moved to Talk:volley.

Trains Illustrated was renamed Modern Railways from the January 1962 issue. The publisher was, at that time, Ian Allan Ltd, with the address at Craven House, Hampton Court, Surrey. The editor then was G. Freeman Allen (note the difference in spelling). The business later moved to Shepperton, a few miles away. Ian Allan died a few years ago, but Modern Railways is still published, but under new ownership. DonnanZ (talk) 18:10, 6 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Donnanz: mmmm, OK? Not entirely sure what you're driving at, I'm afraid. — SGconlaw (talk) 18:17, 6 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

I noticed your edits to the quotes I added to fogman and draw a veil over, and I thought you might appreciate some background information. I first bought a copy of Modern Railways in 1963 (or was it 1964?). DonnanZ (talk) 18:29, 6 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Donnanz: ah, OK. Thanks. Yes, I noticed you make quite a number of edits to rail-related entries! You've probably just been notified that one of your nominations, bogie, is appearing as WOTD on 16 January 2021. — SGconlaw (talk) 18:31, 6 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Beaumont Fletcher Comedies and Tragedies.

Do you think puellile / puelline would be an interesting WOTD? J3133 (talk) 10:44, 13 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

Not? J3133 (talk) 10:57, 16 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

@J3133: sure, puellile seems fine. Puelline doesn't appear in the OED so it would need verifying quotations. Anyway, we should only feature one of them as they are identical in meaning. — SGconlaw (talk) 11:00, 16 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

I did not intend to suggest featuring both; rather, to mention the alternative form (which I created on 10 January with 6 quotations (re “would need verifying quotations”)). When would puellile be WOTD?—on Girls’ Day / Hinamatsuri (3 March) perhaps? J3133 (talk) 11:20, 16 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

@J3133: sure, please nominate one of them for 3 March at “Wiktionary:Word of the day/Nominations. — SGconlaw (talk) 11:35, 16 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

I noticed that I nominated “puelline” instead of “puellile” (a mistake; I said “When would puellile be WOTD”). Can it be changed now? J3133 (talk) 14:51, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

@J3133: aargh. Shall we just leave it at puelline since it's already been set? — SGconlaw (talk) 14:59, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Puellile has nine times as many Google results as puelline and appears in a major dictionary; it would be better to change, if possible. J3133 (talk) 15:07, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

@J3133: well, we also feature less common words, so that's not really a problem. Also, at the moment puelline is a more complete entry as it has more quotations. — SGconlaw (talk) 15:19, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Then if I added quotations to puellile? J3133 (talk) 15:20, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Puellile now has more quotations. J3133 (talk) 17:13, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

@J3133: *Sigh*, OK. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:16, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

@J3133: I think the 2017 quotation should be removed or replaced; the author clearly didn't make up the word himself. Also, note that an editor expressed a problem with the 1908 quotation on the talk page (I think it's OK, personally). — SGconlaw (talk) 17:33, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Why does it matter whether the author made up the word himself or not if it is a use of it? The claim can be removed from the quotation. J3133 (talk) 17:38, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

@J3133: yes, perhaps just remove the footnote as it may be confusing to readers. But if a better quotation can be found (from a less clueless author), I suggest using that instead. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:44, 18 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I see you have access to the images at Newspapers.com.

entry2 (used in the 1891 quotation) does not work. J3133 (talk) 18:52, 3 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

@J3133: OK, fixed. I applied for access to Newspapers.com from the Wikipedia Library Card Platform; you might want to do so as well. It's very useful for print newspaper content – just remember to use the clip function as clips are viewable by everyone, while URLs to the entire page are only accessible to subscribers. I tried looking for the 1891 quotation in The Guardian (the most obvious Guardian newspaper) on Newspapers.com, but could not find it. It must be from some other Guardian (perhaps the one referred to in the Wikipedia article "w:The Guardian (Anglican newspaper)"?). — SGconlaw (talk) 19:24, 3 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

I keep on forgetting that Template:RQ:Spenser FQ has been deleted. Can you recreate it please as a redirect? Alexfromiowa (talk) 21:42, 13 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

Nah, don't worry. I made Template:RQ:Spenser F as an alternative. Happy editing! Alexfromiowa (talk) 22:03, 13 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

@AlexfromIowa: please avoid creating unnecessary redirects that are difficult for other editors to understand the meaning of. {{RQ:Spenser Faerie Queene}} is not that hard to type. — SGconlaw (talk) 04:20, 14 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

As long as we're keeping Template:RQ:Mrxl SqrsDghtr, I'm gonna defend Template:RQ:Spenser F. Alexfromiowa (talk) 10:14, 14 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Alexfromiowa: there's no reason to retain redirects like {{RQ:Mrxl SqrsDghtr}} either; they were created quite long ago when I renamed all such quotation templates with more understandable names, and I was not aware that there was a way to request for uses of such templates to be replaced. — SGconlaw (talk) 11:02, 16 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

Well, my defence is weak now. Do as you wish with my abbrv's tmplts. Alexfromiowa (talk) 16:31, 17 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Bacon Works.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:New International Version.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Shakespeare Twelfth Night.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Buk Baibel.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Locrine.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Joseph Beaumont Psyche.

Please explain reversion to the inferior markup: Equinox ◑ 17:04, 7 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Equinox: is there some reason for using the template when the tooltip feature is not employed? Otherwise it just seems to be an unnecessary transclusion of templates on to the page. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:11, 7 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

When it's a template, the system recognises it as such, and can understand that this is elided text. If you write "" then there is no way for the system to know that the cited author didn't in fact write "" in their book. Do you specifically avoid it because you think it has a performance penalty? Please don't. Equinox ◑ 11:37, 10 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Equinox: what isn't clear to me is what it means for the "system" to "recognize" the template. Well, yes, I thought there was no reason to use a template if it wasn't serving any particular purpose (such as creating a tooltip) as it would add to the transclusions on pages. I suppose this would only be critical on very large pages, though. I take your point about the possibility of distinguishing between an elision inserted by an editor and one in the original text, though I have to say I have yet to encounter the use of a bracketed ellipsis in original texts; most of the time the ellipses are unbracketed, and I would reproduce this with " …". — SGconlaw (talk) 13:28, 10 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Any kind of automatic processing of the text should be able to understand that it's seeing an elided portion, and not an actual "" that someone typed with brackets and dots. As we progress into the future, we will do more and more automatic computer-based work. What else do you need to know? You need to use the form that I have shown you. If you don't understand this, ask on one of the discussion pages. I'm trying to be nice so far. Equinox ◑ 23:40, 10 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Equinox: well, thank you for at least explaining how the templates distinguish between ellipses inserted by Wiktionary editors and those already in texts. That is a reason I find convincing. General statements suggesting there will be more "automatic processing of the text" and more "automatic computer-based work" without explaining the purpose that such "automatic processing" is supposed to achieve is, frankly, neither convincing nor helpful. And everyone is a volunteer here; there is no need to treat people condescendingly. — SGconlaw (talk) 13:20, 11 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Writing HTML junk like & nbsp; is also very unhelpful. Equinox ◑ 23:41, 10 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Equinox: Not everything is supposed to wrap (e.g., ⟨/⟩, a medieval form of the comma). If it would not be written in HTML, one cannot tell it ( ) apart from an ordinary space. See w:MOS:NBSP for more uses (also for en dashes: w:WP:MOS § Punctuating a sentence (em or en dashes)). J3133 (talk) 06:57, 11 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

@J3133: What the fuck are you doing here? Congratulation, we think you are very clever for knowing about a mediaeval comma. Fuck off. Equinox ◑ 06:11, 2 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Equinox: kindly point to some policy stating that HTML is "unhelpful" or not to be used. — SGconlaw (talk) 13:20, 11 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

I have explained why it is counterproductive and harmful to the project not to use it, and why it's useful to use it (meaningful to the machine). You can continue out of pure spite but I will see this as vandalism. Have fun. You seemed so cool otherwise. Equinox ◑ 06:10, 2 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Equinox: er, no, I accepted your explanation and now use {{...}}. What exactly are you referring to? — SGconlaw (talk) 07:02, 2 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

A disgusting reply from someone who clearly knows nothing and expected me to do nothing while you are attacking Sgconlaw. J3133 (talk) 06:54, 2 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Also no, knowing about a mediaeval comma does not make you very clever (nor does throwing a fit because someone provided points). J3133 (talk) 07:19, 2 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Sgconlaw, sorry to pop up out of nowhere. It's true that I ignore my talk pages and responses for a long time, so sometimes I reopen long-ago discussions. At least I got to make J3133 super salty. Equinox ◑ 07:23, 2 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Equinox: OK. Seriously, you might try dialling it down a notch. — SGconlaw (talk) 08:01, 2 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Byron Lara.

Hi. Thanks again for deleting the useful redirects. Perhaps you'd like to do something with Template:Jonathan Swift quotation templates next. Oxlade2000 (talk) 21:27, 21 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Oxlade2000: *Shudder* — SGconlaw (talk) 21:30, 21 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

I know, right. To make it even more fun, there are more that aren't in there, and will be even more in the near future. Oxlade2000 (talk) 21:33, 21 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

No need to be swift (or Swift). Please take time to do things right. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:37, 21 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, SG, listen to Chuck ... Oxlade2000 (talk) 22:06, 21 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Don’t think that was aimed at me … — SGconlaw (talk) 22:12, 21 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

I haven't been checking these for a while, and there are now quite a few of them. Here's a table of all the ones related to quotation templates, with selected information to show where the problem is (I've omitted text and passage parameters unless relevant to save space):

There are two basic problems: {{RQ:Milton Poems}} being given non-numeric pagerefs that it doesn't know how to handle, and other templates not being given mandatory parameters to allow finding the passages in the books.

Maybe we need some kind of intermediate template so WF can give what useful information he finds without having to bother with the full details. As it is currently, the entries are left in a broken condition- with no request category to let people know that the job isn't finished. Sure, there's Category:ParserFunction errors, but that's an emergency maintenance category that shouldn't be used for such things. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:26, 6 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Chuck Entz: thanks, this is helpful. I think it is generally a legacy problem as I now try to program the quotation templates so that they don't throw ParserFunction errors. The errors generated by {{RQ:Milton Poems}} was due to an update to the template; I've asked Benwing2 to do a bot replace. — SGconlaw (talk) 15:36, 7 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

• WF has generated some more errors since then :) These ones are from the use of Template:RQ:Chapman Iliad, which was deleted by you and I imagine you're going to delete again soon, protect it from recreation, and then do the same with a similar template redirect like Template:RQ:Chapman Il. Oxlade2000 (talk) 20:40, 11 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

I understand that this will not be as controversial in the English-speaking world as some previous political WOTDs, but I think that this too is the kind of political subject area that is best avoided in the future for both WOTD and FWOTD. It's also a rather rude way to mark the birthday of a living person, even if you have a very low opinion of his ethics. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 19:32, 25 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Lingo Bingo Dingo: there was actually a whole discussion on this at “Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2021/January#"Schröderization" as WOTD?” but no one seemed to think it was an issue or even that it was worth bothering about (only Jberkel commented). — SGconlaw (talk) 01:17, 26 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

I missed that discussion, else I would have commented sooner. Anyway, you can leave the WOTD set, but my suggestion is that such senses related to living people, and arguably extending to similarly negative senses that involve the recently deceased, should not be used looking forward. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 18:01, 26 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Lingo Bingo Dingo: which is why I thought it would be appropriate to have a discussion, but it didn't seem that editors felt very strongly about the issue. — SGconlaw (talk) 18:03, 26 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Thomson Works.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Wordsworth Poems 1815.

I audio'd up a few future WOTDs - in case you wanted to put them in the fancy WOTD template. Yah, some of them are grainy as fuck, but hey, better than nothing, right? (or is it actually worse? because people might think "huh, I have been saying this word wrong all those years, without the graininess that that dude included" and them jump of a cliff in sheer desperation.) Seriously, I know a guy who attempted suicide because he was saying quinoa wrong, very funny story. He was, coincidentally, a grain farmer. In the end, he survived the fall, and I have never had the heart to tell him that he puts the stress on the wrong syllable of sorghum. Maybe I'll add an incorrect audio to that page, just to save his life, you know. He'll come along, check Wiktionary, which will soon be number 1 dictionary on the web, and be satisfied once again. Oh Pedro, how much I love you! Yellow is the colour (talk) 13:50, 4 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Yellow is the colour: ha ha, thanks. — SGconlaw (talk) 15:27, 4 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Yo, where is the discussion to move the date in {{cite-meta}}? I really hate it. --{{victar|talk}} 02:58, 9 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

There had been various complaints over the years which led to the creation of {{R:Reference-meta}} (now redundant), and there was also a formatting issue which led to a redundant space appearing after the date in some cases – having the date where it was made coding quite complex. — SGconlaw (talk) 04:00, 9 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Do you need help moving it back? Is that your reasoning for moving the translator too? @Erutuon. --{{victar|talk}} 04:20, 9 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

There was also suggestion that the translator should be credited up front as the person who actually composed the English text, and I generally agree with that. On balance, it seems to me that putting the publication date after the publisher creates less controversy. I would be inclined to leave the changes in place. — SGconlaw (talk) 05:08, 9 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Seeing as this was a personal decision and not made with any previous discussion, I've reverted your edits. The template format as is is in keeping with academic and publishing standards. I also believe all references should be dated, which appears to be another change you made. I recommend you start a discussion in the Beer Parlour with of proposal first before instating them again. --{{victar|talk}} 10:19, 9 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

All right, I’ll do that. — SGconlaw (talk) 10:31, 9 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for hearing me out and doing that. --{{victar|talk}} 11:06, 9 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Hello, I had a few questions regarding quotes.

• If I want to say a quote was written anytime up to 1200 CE, and if I want to express that in terms of century rather than a year, then what should I say? a. 13th century or a. 12th century? I am really confused about it.
• Also, can the word ‘century’ be abbreviated to ‘c.’ ?— it looks so unsightly to see the whole word displayed (in bold).
• Lastly, if the meaning of a particular word be uncertain then how can I indicate it? I think (?) is a goodun— if I use it then should I put it just beside the word in question? And if so then with or without any spacing to avoid ambiguity? May be it would be nice to have some template that would display a dotted line beneath the word and a (?) sign after the word.

For reference, you can see the quote in this entry. Thank you for your attention! -_⸘- dictātor·mundī 17:39, 1 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Hi, @Inqilābī:

• There is some ambiguity about this. Some people would say that the 13th century means 1201 to 1300 C.E., whereas it is also common nowadays to regard 1200–1299 as the 13th century (see "w:Century"). Because of the ambiguity of when the new century starts, I would suggest stating "a. 1200" instead of trying to use the "12th/13th century" form.
• Depends on the context, I think. If you are using {{defdate}}, we generally abbreviate century to c. However, in other contexts it may be better to spell it out to avoid ambiguity, as c. is also often used to mean chapter or circa.
• Yes, I suppose it is fine to use a question mark to indicate that the meaning of a word is unclear. My preference would be to put it in square brackets, since those are generally used to indicate editorial insertions into a text. If you are going to put it on the same level as the text, I think leave a space between it and the text. An alternative may be to make it a superscript, like this in which case no space is needed. Maybe we should create a template like {{sic}} to achieve this effect (I'm not entirely sure how we would add a dotted underline to the word after which it is placed, though).

— SGconlaw (talk) 18:02, 1 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the suggestions. I would like to make the following observations:

• 1201-1300 C.E. for the 13th century is the standard practice as far as I know. Those who celebrated new century/millennium in 2000 were criticised by many, for example. I am hearing for the first time that 1200–1299 for the said century is acceptable; it might be common but it is erroneous. Nevertheless, I like your suggestion of using the year instead. By the way, is using a. --th century rare or even nonexistent? I ought to use the standard notation… Again however, if I follow the standard practice of counting the 13th century until 1300 C.E., then what should I write?— a. 13th century would mean “before the 13th century”, i.e., “before 1201 CE”, right? (This was actually my original question.)
• Using ‘c.’ in quotes could lead to confusion with other abbreviations, of course. But also it’s written following the century (13th); whilst circa is written before the date, and ‘chapter’ farther away… Notwithstanding, since circa & century are quite closely related with regard to date, I agree it would be wise not to use ‘c.’ for century. Still writing out the whole word looks kinda bad; so what about using other abbreviations, ‘C.’ or ‘cent.’?— both valid ones.
• All that I can say is that (?) seems to be a standard symbol. That Old Bengali quote you saw— it was copied from {{R:ODBL|1|262}} where the author used the same symbol; hence I picked that up. I have no idea if does serve the same purpose, nor am I sure if using a superscript symbol would be nice, as some other thing may be suggested by it (like, readers may think of some hidden gloss, a font, or the like). I am in favour of a dotted underline seeing that it has the potential to show connexion to the word better than elsewhat. And I thought of it because a. and c. already appear underscored with a dotted line when used in a quotation templet. Would be worth a shot. Alternatively, if this idea be not feasible, then we can put an asterisk at the end of the word, as WORD* to indicate that the uncertainty of the meaning.

-_⸘- dictātor·mundī 01:22, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Fay Freak: Could you give us your ideas on these? Thanks. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 17:15, 5 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

1. a. 1200 2. probably also what Sgconlaw says; this is too trifling to have decided a preference. I guess I mostly spell it out. 3. I don’t know. The same problem arises when I transcribe a song but do not understand a segment, as on mickey (“membrum virile”). Then I also want to indicate the length of the segment. Sgconlaw likes to use |footer= for notes. A similar issue is manuscript variants, sometimes one could peruse a whole apparatus for a quoted text. Fay Freak (talk) 19:14, 5 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

I don't know if you were aware, but the bot run that substituted the Tristram Shandy templates last week left 15 entries with ParserFunction errors due to their not having volume numbers specified. There are 5 two-letter entries there as a side effect of "out of memory" errors, but everything else is because of the bot run. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:51, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Chuck Entz: that’s odd. Let me check. — SGconlaw (talk) 04:15, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Chuck Entz: OK. Fixed. — SGconlaw (talk) 19:09, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Hall Works.

Hi SG. During Equinox's recent (and pretty epic) mass-delete of pages WF created, a few quotation templates were destroyed in the process. You may or may not want to recreate them. TVdinnerless (talk) 15:12, 20 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

@TVdinnerless: ah, OK. — SGconlaw (talk) 15:46, 20 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Talk:pert.

Discussion moved to Talk:Raj.

Hi, I undid a block you gave to this user because they weren't vandalizing, only reverting vandalism. I removed the edit summaries because they were undos/reverts that contained the username of the actual vandal, as is standard practice. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 09:36, 18 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Surjection: oh, sorry, I must have looked at the edit history wrongly. — SGconlaw (talk) 11:14, 18 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Talk:laske.

Hi SG, I made a bunch more audios for the future WOTDs. I think we're up to date now Roger the Rodger (talk) 16:18, 17 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Roger the Rodger: great! — SGconlaw (talk) 16:22, 17 September 2021 (UTC)Reply

Hi. Could you please undelete all this stuff? Equinox epically mass-deleted all of Wonderfool's entries back in the summer, but they were all good Roger the Rodger (talk) 20:11, 1 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

Seriously, what's up with those WOTDs with more than 10 (sub)senses recently? No one is killed if you skip one or two quotidian senses. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 16:26, 20 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Lingo Bingo Dingo: guess it's easier than having to decide which senses to include and which to exclude? But I'll bear that in mind. — SGconlaw (talk) 16:34, 20 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Talk:groundly.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Shakespeare Sonnets.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Peele Old Wives Tale.

Hi. I found a bunch of templated quotes using ISBN= instead of the lowercase isbn=. Any chance that could be added into the Template:quote-book? Br00pVain (talk) 17:42, 24 December 2021 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Mayhew London Labour.

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Thanks for spotting this. I added it because there were a few instances (probably all Wonderfool's fault) where there was an url included, but it didn't show up on the page. The idea was that an url= bit would overrule the pageurl= bit. But whatever, I really don't understand complicated templates. Br00pVain (talk) 20:35, 7 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

Why do you change curly quotation marks to straight ones (Special:Diff/65661696)? I use whichever is used in the work. J3133 (talk) 16:12, 6 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

@J3133: ah, I didn't know you did that. I generally change them to straight quotes for consistency (especially since most people don't type curly quotes in the quotations), unless it interferes with wikitext markup (for example, "'''nature''''s"). But I'll leave them unchanged if you prefer. — SGconlaw (talk) 16:23, 6 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Stevenson Dynamiter.

Hi again! You'll be pleased to know that I made a whole bunch more RQ: template redirects for you to unnecessarily delete VealSociedad (talk) 23:27, 20 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

I noticed in this documentation and also Template:RQ:Defoe Great Britain/documentation you refer to "Wikipedia entry pages", but this is not Wikipedia of course...could you correct this and any other docs you might have made this error in please? 37.110.218.43 14:07, 21 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Strange, I wonder how this error crept in. I'll request a bot edit. — SGconlaw (talk) 15:56, 21 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet Q1-2.

Hey. In my recent edit at uberly, I saw a date repeated, so decided to just keep one. I've done this loads, by the way, but only just realized there might have actually been a perfectly good reason for this. What's your opinion on the matter? Notusbutthem (talk) 19:20, 27 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Notusbutthem: yeah, I don't think it's necessary for the date to be repeated unless one is the date when the work is written (for first performed, in the case of a play) and the other the date of publication, in which case it should be set out clearly what the dates mean. For example, where the date of writing differs from the publication date, I'll indicate |month=(date written), |year=1810, and |year_published=1825. — SGconlaw (talk) 19:28, 27 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Thanks goodness for that. I was expecting your mighty wrath (ooh, that could be WOTD, I see you have a current fetish for 5-letter words...) Notusbutthem (talk) 19:31, 27 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Notusbutthem: yes, thought a Wordle-themed series might be fun. But I think we have enough five-lettered words from 2019. — SGconlaw (talk) 19:33, 27 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Kinda makes me want to redo WT's multilingual Scrabble game. Notusbutthem (talk) 19:38, 27 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Another corner I like cutting is adding url= to certain templates. I know many of the url= parameters actually do nothing. Maybe we can generate a list of them. But we probably shouldn't really give a damn Notusbutthem (talk) 19:52, 27 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Talk:skill.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Passionate Pilgrime.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Marlowe Edward 2.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:R. F. Burton Arabian Nights.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Richardson Clarissa.

Discussion moved to Talk:smirch.

Another book commonly quoted in WT that could do with an RQ template VealSociedad (talk) 10:34, 18 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

Needs allowing for non-Roman numerals. In fact, I'm surprised this isn't covered in {{quote-book}}, as it seems like a very reasonable thing to do VealSociedad (talk) 19:32, 18 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Shakespeare Love's Labour's Lost.

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Fielding Amelia.

Hello! I know sortieing is a valid verb inflection of sortie, but I removed it because we don't (AFAIK, as a rule) add these things as "derived terms" when they are already in the verb inflection line! Are you saying it's an important adjective? If so, maybe you'd like to cite it at sortieing separate from the verb? Equinox ◑ 07:36, 28 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

Yes, we should probably add an “Adjective” heading at sortieing, but I don’t always have the time or inclination to edit all the entries that are related to the entry I’m actually working on. It becomes a neverending rabbit hole so sometimes I just draw a line and decide to leave it to another editor to deal with. — SGconlaw (talk) 07:44, 28 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

Indeed. The fact that all the verb-derived adjs are actually verb forms suggests it's something that some stupid AI bot can do in a few years. Go figure. — Or to be a bit more blunt, I could spend my hours here fixing ISBN numbers and templates, or I could do something useful like creating new entries and finding citations. It makes me sad to see people doing stuff that a machine can do. There is/was a discussion about whether we should bother with those adj-verb forms, but I can't remember where it is. "A hoisting compiler": whom does it benefit to add "hoisting" as a... well, you see where I'm coming from. Equinox ◑ 07:48, 28 March 2022 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Talk:pentimento.

Thank you for your recent correction. Do you think it would have been appropriate to list /-ʌtaʊt/ (without no space) as a rhyme instead? In other words, should spaces in IPA pronunciations be preserved in rhymes when the primary stress of the phrase is not in the last word? - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 20:05, 22 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

@ExcarnateSojourner: ehhh, don’t think it’s a good idea, especially since (as I’ve mentioned to you before) it’s not a good idea to create rhymes pages for entries which are unlikely to have rhymes. — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:10, 22 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

I knew it was not idiomatic; I was intending to add it as an {{&lit}} on the page, but it was protected. FWIW, on the first SERP of Google Books, there are at least as many literal uses of the phrase as figurative. 70.172.194.25 16:00, 6 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

Personally, I think literal senses are completely useless. Why anyone would bother to look them up is beyond me. At most, they may be useful for phrasal verbs (e.g., walk through), but really not for terms like strange the parrot. — Sgconlaw (talk) 16:13, 6 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Spenser Faerie Queene.

Hi SG. Could you please make 5K the 5000th Word of the Day? Zumbacool (talk) 18:53, 10 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Zumbacool: how do we know how many WOTDs we have already set? — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:39, 10 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

this is a good start. I count 4973 main namespace pages Zumbacool (talk) 20:13, 10 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Zumbacool: ah, good idea. However, is 5K not potentially SoP? — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:29, 10 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

I'm not gonna send it to RFV Zumbacool (talk) 12:54, 11 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Zumbacool: I'd rather not feature it if it's going to be deleted. I've raised this at the Tea Room. In the meantime you might want to think of a backup nomination. — Sgconlaw (talk) 13:05, 11 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Sgconlaw: How about hundreds and thousands? For October 15 2022 which is apparently Sweetest Day. That would be sweet. Zumbacool (talk) 13:15, 11 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Zumbacool: sure. By the way, you can make such nominations at "Wiktionary:Word of the day/Nominations#Nominations for particular day". — Sgconlaw (talk) 13:33, 11 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hi. Can you put a stave= bit in the template that links to Wikisource? To make the quote at bitterer a bit better. Zumbacool (talk) 17:12, 11 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Richardson Clarissa.

Hi. Can you add something that makes the chapter= bit work at malignity? Zumbacool (talk) 06:54, 13 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

...please either specify the gender (it can easily be looked up online) or at the very least add |? (places it in a maintenance category) so that other people can clean it up later. This is in reference to rhapsody and false dichotomy. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 23:47, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Fytcha: I try to add the gender when I can find out what it is, but I can’t always easily find the information. I didn’t know about adding the extra pipe; I’ll do that in the future. — Sgconlaw (talk) 04:39, 21 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

On 1 August 2016, did you predict the Word of the Day would be "scuffle" on the 27th of that month? When it would actually be much later, in October? (I've applied a fix.) Henstepl (talk) 17:33, 22 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Henstepl: wow, this was so long ago I don't recall. Must have been a typo. — Sgconlaw (talk) 17:39, 22 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:R. F. Burton Arabian Nights.

A large portion of the broken Wikipedia links identified by User:This, that and the other and listed here are for authors and words in quotations. Some look like they may be yours.

I've been cleaning up similarly broken links in Translingual entries. There is a certain satisfaction to be found in cleaning up one's actual own messes and messes ascribable to one. DCDuring (talk) 18:38, 2 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

@DCDuring: the link you provided doesn't seem to be an extant page. — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:41, 2 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Corrected the link above. DCDuring (talk) 18:46, 2 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

@DCDuring: thanks. I'm not sure I fully understand what the page means (for example, what is "Section e-w*-4"?). It doesn't look like any of the broken links are caused by quotation templates created by me, though. — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:56, 2 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Many of the headings mean something only to the author thereof. I was hoping some were yours because it would be hard to track down a dispersed group of contributors. It is possible that some active on RfV are responsible for many of them. DCDuring (talk) 19:00, 2 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

@DCDuring: I had a look at two or three of the entries. They're quotations entered by various editors but not by me, I'm afraid. — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:04, 2 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Lots of the errors were mine, which comes as no surprise to anyone... I actually fixed some too, and not just mine xxx Zumbacool (talk) 10:58, 4 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Richardson Clarissa.

Discussion moved to Talk:hundreds and thousands.

User:This, that and the other/broken interwiki links/2022-07-01/wikisource is a new cleanup page which may or not correspond to your wikiing. Dunderdool (talk) 18:07, 9 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Talk:autobus.

Hi. Just FYI this term is real. There is a well-known movie by Spike Lee with this title, and Googling yields tons of hits. It is not similar to "Apelanta" and "Chimpcongo", which are made-up terms. Benwing2 (talk) 04:58, 27 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Benwing2: well, then hopefully someone will add the required three quotations to the entry. — Sgconlaw (talk) 09:04, 27 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Spenser Complaints.

How does this term fall under the purview of WT:DEROGATORY? — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 13:00, 6 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

It was once used by a conservative 😂 😂 Equinox ◑ 13:21, 6 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

Same goes for blackophilia. I suggest you read WT:DEROGATORY before doing any further "work" in this direction. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 17:26, 6 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Fytcha: Looking at Clown World Order, it appears I accepted the assessment of the editor who tagged the entry (User:98.170.164.88) at face value. On review, I agree that it does not clearly fall within WT:DEROGATORY, and so sending the entry to WT:RFV is appropriate.

Blackophilia, on the other hand, seems to me to clearly fall within WT:DEROGATORY clearly. It indicates a fondness for or interest in black people, with a connotation that this is something strange or to be abhorred. — Sgconlaw (talk) 17:35, 6 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

Sorry, just saw this. I guess I saw the derogatory label and noticed it was created by a user with a history of making dubious entries, and didn't think much further before applying the template. I'll be more careful in the future to only add {{derogatory}} to terms that fit the wording of the policy. 98.170.164.88 15:30, 5 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

@98.170.164.88: no worries. — Sgconlaw (talk) 15:42, 5 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Tyndale NT.

Please make sure that the WP page exists before you link to it. Cheers! GreyishWorm (talk) 21:08, 22 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

@GreyishWorm: yes, thanks for the reminder. I usually do ... — Sgconlaw (talk) 21:09, 22 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

Discussion moved to Template talk:RQ:Fitzgerald Jazz Age.

I appreciate you reviewing the bot edits and I'll make sure it can better handle similar situations in the future. I think it could be argued that both of the bot edits bought the page slightly closer to WT:ELE compliance, since neither "Translations" nor "Related terms" should have been nested below "Derived terms", but clearly the bot missed the ideal fix of making "Derived terms" L5 instead of L4. Thanks! JeffDoozan (talk) 22:52, 28 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hi, @JeffDoozan. Ah, I didn't realize AutoDooz was a bot. (Should bots have the name "bot" in them?) It just seemed like a rather obtuse editor. Hmmm, well, I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean. At attend the error was that "Derived terms" was a level 3 instead of a level 4 heading. However, instead of fixing that, the bot also made "Related terms" a level 3 heading, and then moved both "Derived terms" and "Related terms" below "Translations". That doesn't seem to comply with WT:ELE at all. Hope you can fix the bot's behaviour. — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:35, 29 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

I agree the bot's behavior looks pretty dumb to human editors. In case you're interested, here's what the bot saw and how it would justify its edits: when it first encountered the page, there were three non-compliant sections: "Derived terms", "Related terms", and "Translations". Additionally, "Related terms" and "Translations" were both incorrectly marked as children of "Derived terms", making 5 total ELE errors. It moved "Translations" from "Derived terms" to "Verb", reducing the error count to 3. Later, it moved "Related terms" outside of "Derived terms", reducing the error count to 2.

From a human-perspective the page appears less compliant because we don't pay much attention to section levels and just notice that "Translations" is higher on the page than "Derived terms".

On a third pass, the bot would have noticed that "Derived terms" and "Related terms" should both be child sections of "Verb" and it would have adjusted the section headers. Then it would have noticed that the sections inside Verb were not sorted according to WT:ELE and it would sort them appropriately, achieving the desired result in a rather roundabout way.

It shouldn't take three or four edits to achieve the simple effect of making "Derived terms" level 4 instead of level 3 and going forward the bot will be smart enough to correct everything in one pass, but I hope this provides some insight on how the bot sees the page and believes that its edits are bringing it closer to WT:ELE compliance. JeffDoozan (talk) 22:24, 29 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

@JeffDoozan: I see. Anyway, best of luck with tweaking the bot! — Sgconlaw (talk) 01:32, 30 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

How often do you check this? There's a link to it at CAT:E, and I always check both. Considering the high volume of template editing you do, I think you should check it much more often. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:51, 7 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Chuck Entz: pretty much never? It's something I always forget. Will try and remember to do so. — Sgconlaw (talk) 15:56, 7 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

Word of the day for January 1 Hamdisaif (talk) 01:22, 18 December 2022 (UTC)Reply