Wiktionary:Votes/2010-09/Statistics header

• Voting on: Allowing the use of a Statistics header to contain such information about terms. For example, an English section could show the Gutenburg rankings through templates such as {{rank}}. This would mostly likely be an L3 header but could conceivably be sub-POS if such fine-grained information is available. This header would not require a change to the ELE as WT:ELE#Anagrams and other trivia states:

Other sections with other trivia and observations may be added, either under the heading "Trivia" or some other suitably explanatory heading

• Vote starts: 00:01, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
• Vote ends: 23.59, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

• Vote created: Bequw → τ 04:09, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
• Discussion:

  WT:BP#Gutenburg rankings

  Wiktionary talk:Votes/2010-09/Statistics header

1. Support Bequw → τ 00:47, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
2. Support —Ruakh_TALK 01:35, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
3. As I mentioned on the talkpage, it doesn't seem to me that this proposal requires a vote. In any event, I support it. I would also have supported that all {{rank}}s be moved to sub the Statistics header from where they are now, but that wasn't included in this vote.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:25, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
4. Support —Stephen (Talk) 22:08, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
5. Support. Good stuff! — Stevey7788 08:17, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
6. Support Daniel. 13:08, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
7. Support DCDuring TALK 22:58, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

1. Oppose Mglovesfun (talk) 16:48, 16 September 2010 (UTC) I'd rather just have no statistics or trivia. If we do have to have them, I don't like this header name much. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:48, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

   I don't like trivia, either, but statistics are actually meaningful, no? I mean, it's legitimately within a dictionary's scope to say how common a word is. —Ruakh_TALK 12:59, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

   No I don't oppose the presence of statistics. Per Dan Polansky's comment below, do we want a statistics header for that reason? I don't object to statistics so much as I worry people might misuse the header and put all sorts of crap there. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:08, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

2. Oppose We're a dictionary. Dictionaries do not include useless trivia. -- Prince Kassad 06:19, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
3. Oppose EncycloPetey 23:08, 22 September 2010 (UTC) If there were a more substantial argument for approving this header, I might agree with it. However, I don't like the idea of explicitly sanctioning a header with a vote when the potential utility is this nebulous. I can't imagine that it would be especially useful, and don't see why "Trivia" couldn't be used for the proposed kinds of information to be included. --EncycloPetey 23:08, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

   I think the biggest accomplishment would be to provide a less intrusive home for the Gutenberg frequency table-type data for users who don't now know how to turn it off. As that has apparently been a long-standing element of Wiktionary, it would be a brave soul indeed who would move it to Trivia without a vote. DCDuring TALK 23:27, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

   Or we can leave it where it is. If the purpose of this vote is to move the Gutenberg data, then that should be stated in the vote. If this is all just for the Gutenberg data, then I'm firmly against creating a whole new header for just that. --EncycloPetey 04:30, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

   Your reaction illustrates precisely why there is a need for a vote. Gutenberg is explicitly mentioned in the vote. But, beyond that, there is a whole area of usage-frequency data that would merit inclusion as massive, accessible corpora become increasingly available. We have the option of ignoring quantitative information and clinging to pre-corpus lexicography, leavened (or not) by some high theory. This may well be appropriate for languages with largely stagnant and well-mined corpora with superlative out-of-copyright authorities, but seems much less so for highly dynamic languages. I would hope this vote and the existence of the header would encourage existing and new contributors to develop new approaches of using corpus data to forward Wiktionary's objectives. DCDuring TALK 14:19, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

   Your point of view is quite different from mine. I disfavor sanctioning a new header solely to support potential information that might be included at some vague point in the future. With no obvious interest or involvement, I see this as a pointless exercise and needless clutter. Someone willing to do the kind of work you describe has Appendix space and Trivia sections to work in meanwhile. We've no need for headers for things that do not exist. --EncycloPetey 23:19, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

   Would you support this vote if it (the vote and header) was just for Gutenburg data? --Bequw → τ 02:43, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

4. Oppose "Trivia" is disallowed on Wikipedia where I can actually imagine that it could be interesting to more than 5 people. But trivia such as statistics I don't think really belong under their own header in our main entries. — opiaterein — 14:59, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
5. Oppose Similarly to EncycloPetey, I disfavour creating a whole new header solely for the Gutenberg data. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 08:04, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

1. Abstain Dan Polansky 12:04, 18 September 2010 (UTC) I definitely support including statistics in Wiktionary. I am not so sure about the need of a dedicated "Statistics" heading. Better abstain. --Dan Polansky 12:04, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
2. Abstain Sitting on a fence here. --Vahag 15:01, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
3. Abstain - consider the heading Metadata, which for all intents and purposes this would synonymize. - Amgine/^talk 20:27, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

   Really? It seems like most of the contents of an entry could be considered "metadata". I don't see what makes statistics particularly "meta". —Ruakh_TALK 22:18, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

   I would consider most of an entry's content data (senses, information about the word) while the statistics would be metadata (information about English related to the word, similarly usage, anagrams, synonyms, etc.) Incidentally, wouldn't POS, etym, be metadata about a sense, rather than about the word? - Amgine/^talk 23:17, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

   It would make me very happy if statistics were also metadata about a sense, but I suppose that's too much to hope for. —Ruakh_TALK 02:41, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

• Fails 7–5–3 (58%–42%). —Ruakh_TALK 17:34, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

  Does it seem OK then to move the Gutenburg rankings to =Usage notes=, which was the second most desired place from the previous BP discussion? --Bequw → τ 04:31, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

  Honestly, I think it's O.K. to move them to a ===Statistics=== header. As noted in the vote description, the ELE specifically indicate that such headers may be created arbitrarily. This vote sought to explicitly endorse this header as supported by consensus, and that failed, but even without such endorsement, the header still has majority support. I dunno, what do other people think? —Ruakh_TALK 18:15, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

  OK, as there's many entries using {{rank}} I'm requesting to use the Flood Flag for the move. --Bequw → τ 02:09, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  Other people, especially those from the Oppose section, may be disturbed by such an arbitrary imposement of the rejected section. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 12:21, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

  As I noted in the comment that accompanied my vote, and on the talkpage of this vote, I think that that's fine — but, then, I voted for this.​—msh210℠ (talk) 15:01, 3 November 2010 (UTC)