Wiktionary:Grease pit/2007/May

Oh drat, I forgot what a pain it is to deal with line breaks. Anyhow, I count 15,197 proper noun entries that seem to need this correction (but I didn't filter for just English.) I'm not seeing an easy way to do this. --Connel MacKenzie 18:05, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Alright, first note : I've started setting up the pywikipediabot framework and all of the requisite stuff, as of yesterday (strange though it may seem, I've never had occasion to use it before — that's partly what I meant above about my coding skills).

On which note: can one of you robot operators pass along to me the code that makes the robot stop making edits if anybody posts a message on its talk page?

Second note, as for how to acquire the pagenames : couldn't I just tell the bot to edit every page listed in Special:Uncategorizedpages (or make a list by copying all those pagenames) that contained the specified code? I'd tell it to look for ‘==English== ===Proper noun=== '''x'''’, and if it found only ‘==German== ===Noun=== '''x'''’ on the page, and no English proper nouns, it would just skip that page, correct? — Beobach972 00:08, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Um, right, that was the part that I was saying is a pain. I can never seem to remember if a line break (in the pywikipediabot context) is "\r\n" or "\n" or "\r" or something else. Regex wildcards sortof work, but have a tendency to go too wild on the wildcard. Anyhow, yes, -ref:Special:Uncategorizedpages is fine as a starting point...as long as you don't say "Yes to all." Note corrections above. --Connel MacKenzie 18:12, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Alright, noted. I'm still working on it. Putting in the exception (if that's what you were saying was hard) seems straightforward, which is probably a bad sign and means it'll be ridiculously complicated (haha). I suppose there is no rush, though, since I seem to be in the minority of wiktionary users who even look at that page to begin with. — Beobach972 05:05, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Notice the link to the Vietnamese page on the side of this (up above, where the interwiki links usually are)? Yea, well, as far as I can see, it's completely erroneous — and it's inserted by the inclusion, at the very top of the page, of Wiktionary:Discussion rooms. I'd comment it out there, but it occurs to me... do we actually want that to appear on all of the pages? It could be useful, since not all FL wikts would have discussion pages that matched ours exactly, but they probably have a general discussion page to which we could link. — Beobach972 14:01, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

(shrug) I don't see the harm, either way. It is only four pages, right? --Connel MacKenzie 17:50, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I've come across this problem a bit recently. The "sg=" and "pl=" parameters which are useful on {{en-noun}} as the only way I know of to use the template to link individual words of multi-word headwords, do not exist across all the POS templates. Some examples: limpieza de sangre (where {{es-noun-f-unc}} doesn't take the parameter), ad referendum ({{en-adj}}), and arma de fuego where adding {{es-noun-f}} with the "pl=" parameter added extra brackets. I think that all nouns in all languages (?) should be able to take the parameters, and all adjectives and adverbs as well to have a similar functioning parameter. "Singular" and "plural" don't really make sense in all languages for adjectives and adverbs, but some parameter for wikifying individual words of compound headwords is still needed. This is a bigger problem than I can tackle because 1) looking at the code for {{en-noun}} makes my brain hurt, and 2) having poked around at other language POS templates, as well as the other English ones, it looks like very few have a mechanism for this. Time for some automated addition across all the templates? Dmcdevit·t 07:32, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

In what languages can adverbs by plural? --EncycloPetey 20:11, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Good point. But my general point--that we need parameters to link multi-word phrases in all POS templates in all languages, plus consistent parameters like "sg" and "pl" where appropriate, and it's difficult for the less technically inclined to figure out how to do that on a case-by-case basis--still seems relevant. Dmcdevit·t 08:08, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

{{gerund of}} with "lang=Italian" does not add the word into the category Italian gerunds. This seems to be at odds with "past participle of" and "present participle of". SemperBlotto 08:34, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Compare {{present participle of}}. I think I've fixed it now. --Connel MacKenzie 15:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. That's fine. Category:Italian gerunds still looks enpty, but I believe it will catch up some time. SemperBlotto 16:29, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Some edits on WT:BP today of sections, ended up overwriting previous sections when saved.

I've archived off a large portion of it, with the hopes that it is simply a new feature of WM that involuntarily (and randomly) starts archiving sections if a page is over 600KB.

I'll rebuild the index portion of WT:BPA when I find the program I used to use for that. Hopefully not too much has changed and I won't have to rewrite much of it.

Any progress on someone contacting Werdna's replacement? --Connel MacKenzie 15:13, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm seeing what could be a similar probelm whiule editing this page. Above, you'll see duplicate sections. I even tried to delete one of the duplicate sections, but to no avail -- it's still there. --EncycloPetey 20:15, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

{{gerund of}} with "lang=Italian" does not add the word into the category Italian gerunds. This seems to be at odds with "past participle of" and "present participle of". SemperBlotto 08:34, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Compare {{present participle of}}. I think I've fixed it now. --Connel MacKenzie 15:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Some edits on WT:BP today of sections, ended up overwriting previous sections when saved.

I've archived off a large portion of it, with the hopes that it is simply a new feature of WM that involuntarily (and randomly) starts archiving sections if a page is over 600KB.

I'll rebuild the index portion of WT:BPA when I find the program I used to use for that. Hopefully not too much has changed and I won't have to rewrite much of it.

Any progress on someone contacting Werdna's replacement? --Connel MacKenzie 15:13, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Would someone like to create a template for words that are in the past tense but not past participles please. Then add it to forswore. SemperBlotto 19:46, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Already exists: {{simple past of}} --EncycloPetey 21:39, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I've just added that redirect from {{past tense of}} to {{simple past of}}. --Connel MacKenzie 19:21, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

How would one go about adding {{simple past of}} to the Templates that show at the bottom of every edit screen? — Beobach972 03:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Edit the first section of MediaWiki:Edittools. Be Bold. --Connel MacKenzie 07:14, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I did a search for pants in the Wikisaurus namespace only. The result I got showed 5 entries. But at the top of the page it said Results 1-100 of 299, and also showed there were 3 pages of results 1 2 3 Next » . But if you click on 1, 2 or 3 or >>, you don't get anything meaningful.

Anyone know how to get this problem fixed ?--Richardb 06:09, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

There is a new experimental search engine at http://ls2.wikimedia.org/ currently in testing. The "1, 2 or 3 >>" problems are that the Lucene search compiles all search results, then filters what it displays based on which namespaces you select. Of the 299 pages that contain "pants", five of them were in the Wikisaurus namespace. --Connel MacKenzie 18:54, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

The search on all the Wikimedia projects is lousy. You get numerous false positives, and I often get "3 pages" of results, but only two of those pages exist. It's frustrating, so I usually use the Advanced Search function on Google instead, if I really want to find what I'm looking for. --EncycloPetey 19:07, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I did a search for pants in the Wikisaurus namespace only. The result I got showed 5 entries. OF which one was your favourite entry and mine, Wikisaurus:sexual intercourse. But, when I went to that page and searched it for "pants", I didn't find the word. So why does that page show up in the search results ? "pants" wasn't in the Wiki code for the page either.

Makes it seem like search is not very reliable. Anyone know how to get this problem fixed ?--Richardb 06:09, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

See above. This is a similar problem, where "sometimes" (conditions unknown) the Lucene search lags behind the DB masters. A null edit to the page should cure it. --Connel MacKenzie 18:55, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, actually, it links to the "/more" page, which does contain the word "pants." --Connel MacKenzie 19:18, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Any ideas how to clear these out? There are lots that have only one entry in the category - those should just have the respective entries corrected, right? --Connel MacKenzie 18:50, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Not if they're calling a standard category for a language that simply doesn't yet have that category, but a quick look shows a significant fraction are calling categories that exist under a different name. Do we know how many of the rest are the result of Transwiki articles? --EncycloPetey 19:04, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea. I'm asking what people think a reasonable starting point is, for working this list. Remove all categories from the Transwiki: namespace? Maybe. --Connel MacKenzie 19:20, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps useful would be to pair up wanted categories with extant categories (category:Sports terminology & category:Sports seem an obvious example) and get a bot to perdiodically check the special:wantedcategories and move articles according to the list. The same could be done with categories that obviously don't belong on Wiktionary, e.g. category:Articles for deletion. Thryduulf 18:02, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be too much noise in the list; the Min Nan POS cats need to be created. A lot of the topic cats also simply need to be created. Note that AF is categorizing a lot of entries as it converts tags. (matrix wasn't in Archeology, happo wasn't in any cat, etc, etc.) Robert Ullmann 10:32, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Can we have a bot add {{wikipedia}} to our entries that in fact have corresponding Wikipedia pages (and perhaps even add {{wikipedia|lang=foo}} where applicable)? bd2412 T 01:26, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

How will the bot tell whether it's an entry, redirect, or disambiguation page. I'm not saying this is a bad idea; I'm just wondering about the specifics of execution.

• Example 1: We have an article on the word accord (concept) and an entry nominated for deletion for Accord; which one (or both) would end up linking to a wikipedia article about w:Accord. There might be a lexical connection between the two, but there might not. In some cases like this, our article will not match Wikipedia content at all because of CFI and the simple fact that we are a dictionary and they are an encyclopedia.
• Example 2: We have an article on heather (plant) and one on Heather (feminine name), but Wikipedia has only a redirect to w:Calluna (about the plant). So how would the link be set by automation?

--EncycloPetey 01:42, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

How about this: we tell the bot to look for disambiguation pages first, so heather would get a link to {{wikipediapar|Heather (disambiguation)}}, provides options including the plant. I'm sure we can also tell the bot to ignore redirects. bd2412 T 01:59, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Uh... I thought we weren't using {{wikipediapar}} anymore. In any case, that doesn't solve the problem of potentially having articles linked whose only commonality is shared spelling. I can't think of a good example off the top of my head, but say (hypothetically) Wiktionary has an entry on the archaic nautical verb flubel, and Wikipedia's only article on the subject is about a Swiss manufacturer of chocolate clocks. How will having the link help? --EncycloPetey 02:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

We have to use wikipediapar in some instances (look at what links to it and you'll see some obvious cases). But I think that the number of right hits will so outweigh the 'false positives' as to make it worthwhile. An editor can later sort through the bot's edit history and look for probable false leads. If we restrict the bot to, say, five-hundred edits a day, it should be fairly quick to peer through the obvious questionables. I'd be keen to know how much overlap there is now between Wikipedia titles and Wiktionary titles. bd2412 T 02:26, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Using {{wikipediapar}} is always wrong. Use {{wikipedia}} instead. --Connel MacKenzie 03:07, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

The function of {wikipediapar} was added to {wikipedia} quite a while ago; it is now just a redirect. AF routinely replaces it, because people continue to use it. (no big deal) Robert Ullmann 04:30, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

• I dislike our current "Wikipedia" link as it is. (Messes up formatting, moves around depending on whether or not there is a TOC, is inconsistent in what it links to, disambig, redirects or content, pushes images around, moves links randomly, takes up more than three lines again, - because someone screwed up the image on commons or something, doesn't wrap long titles cleanly, doesn't allow for multiple links cleanly, etc.) There probably should be something that allows a person to look it up in the Encyclopedia as well...if the WikiMedia software has an efficient method of crossing projects, that would be even better, no? But no matter what, we should be moving away from the DIV box thing, and listing the textual link (wrapped in a CSS class?) more like {{see}} does.
• All that said, I think this bot proposal has a great deal of merit. (If, on the other hand, you are just curious about "title" matches, the XML dumps do have a separate file with just the article titles.) With en.wiktionary content still under 500MB, you can only pretty easily filter out entries that already have those links, and provide a complete list of entries you'd like bot-edited, for community review. But I see no reason to exceed the 100-at-a-time guideline during the discussion phase. --Connel MacKenzie 03:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
  • The link is what it is. As for matches, I've started doing -ism's by hand (as it were) - those fairly universally match up well (as would, I think, the -ology's). No problem with a 100-at-a-time limit. bd2412 T 03:35, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

    Don't forget that there's also a {{pedialite}} for use in a See also/External links section. So, we already have a way to cross-link that isn't visually intrusive. I do link the floating box, though, even if it does have formatting issues to be resolved. It can be very useful to know right away that there may be a longer, more detailed article on Wikipedia. --EncycloPetey 21:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest starting by downloading the XML for the en.wikt (48.1 MB compressed), the XML for the the 'pedia article titles only, and generating a list of candidates, rather than tryng to add the templates. Then we can look at the list. I would think almost all would require some kind of evaluation. But we can look first and see. Robert Ullmann 04:30, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, a good list of candidates are the 'pedia entries that link to wiktionary ;-) Robert Ullmann 04:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmme, there are few enough of those that I can do them by hand. Thanks! bd2412 T 20:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I see a vote is being drafted. I'll note that the current draft does not include my preferred option, which covers more difficulties than any of the listed proposals do. For one thing, I have started seeing pages that link to the Arabic Wikipedia, the Russian wikipedia, the Japanese wikipedia, etc. I'm not sure how we can or should handle that, but as far as linking to the English Wikipedia, here is what I would want: "Each Wiktionary entry should have no more than one Wikipedia link in the form of a box. It should link to the most generally relevant page on Wikipedia, even if that is a disambiguation page. All other links should be in-line." I would prefer to see the in-line links relegated to the bottom of the entry, rather than mixed with the definitions, but that's likely a separate issue. --EncycloPetey 20:22, 28 June 2007 (UTC)