Wiktionary:Votes/2015-03/Templatizing topical categories in the mainspace

• Voting on: Templatizing the markup for topical categories in the mainspace. Thus, giving a full go ahead to all automatic and semiautomatic edits that replace the likes of "]" with "{{catlangcode|nl|Mammals}}" or similar.
• Rationale: See Wiktionary talk:Votes/2015-03/Templatizing topical categories in the mainspace#Rationale. The voters only vote on the proposed action, not on the rationale.
• Vote started: 00:00, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
• Vote ends: 23:59, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Vote extended to 23:59, 30 June 2015 (UTC) --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:47, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Vote extended to 23:59, 30 July 2015 (UTC) --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:29, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Vote extended to 23:59, 31 August 2015 (UTC): the vote is not clearly failing yet (it is at 50% support), and there came an additional vote in the last extension period, that of WikiTiki89. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:19, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
• Vote created: Dan Polansky (talk) 21:28, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
• Discussion:

  Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2015/February#Simplification_of_topic_categories_adding

  Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2015/March#Templatizing topical categories in the mainspace

  Wiktionary talk:Votes/2015-03/Templatizing topical categories in the mainspace

1. Support --Daniel 01:56, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
2. Support Languages with different sort ordering from default will greatly benefit. Already used in Module:zh-cat, which sorts by radicals, rather than characters themselves. Japanese would be greatly simplified (there would be no need to pass hiragana spelling for each category, if implemented (requires work but the logic is already used in other Japanese modules). Besides, it's simpler - multiple categories can be added as parameters in one template. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:59, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

   How many languages are there of such kind?--Dixtosa (talk) 15:48, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

   I don't know how many apart from Chinese and Japanese (Korean hangeul entries used to have them but it's no longer necessary) but you can try checking how often |sort= is used in the {{context}}/{{cx}} or what is used by {{DEFAULTSORT}}. Korean and Vietnamese entries in hanja and Hán tự also use some logic to sort by the modern scripts. Sorting order for many languages could be improved with a module. E.g., I'm annoyed to see Russian letter Ё appearing before any other letter in categories when it should be between letters Е and Ж. It also effects other Cyrillic letters in other languages. You have much more control over categories and their behaviour when you have a program than when you just use square brackets - ].--Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:38, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

   @Anatoli T.: Is the sorting order for Russian for "ё" okay at Category:Russian lemmas, from letter Е? If so, is this because the category is created by templates and modules that contain dedicated code to support this? --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:58, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

   @Dan Polansky: Yes, it seems OK there but if you look at the very first page of the category, words starting with the archaic Cyrillic letter "і" still come first (probably this hasn't been addressed yet). In Category:Russian_adjectives words starting with the Cyrillic letter "ё" (BTW, the first two of them are vulgar, which is annoying) come before other letters. There are other examples I've come across before in other languages as well. Yes, I think some modules/templates help the sorting order but I don't know the details.

   A categories module would make sure that languages are sorted as they should be - alphabetically, as the order may differ for Roman-based languages as well, e.g. Czech letter ch should come after h, shouldn't it? But Czech lemmas are sorted by letter c, AFAIK. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:12, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

   @Anatoli T.: Czech sorting in Czech categories is kind of broken (non-conventional), as you say. Should not the sorting order be first fixed in a category generated by templates (Category:Russian_adjectives) before the sorting order is used as a selling point? What I would actually prefer is that each category is assigned the sorting order on the Mediawiki software level, regardless of the means by which the items are added to the category (direct markup, template, etc.). Are you sure there is no extension or software in Mediawiki that supports that? --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:19, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

   I'm not selling it, just voting with my reasons. Yes, PoS categories need to be fixed as well. I don't know what Mediawiki can offer but I remember we had issues with Arabic diacritics display order before Benwing has created a module to address this - after many complaints about how MediaWiki does it. Editors will have more control over things, not just sorting order, when the code is here, at Wiktionary. I don't see why not either. Apart from HotCat, I don't see other reasons to oppose and HotCat can be taught to work with the module, I'm sure. I've seen the benefits of Module:zh-cat -> {{zh-cat}} and the sorting order was changed quickly for Chinese entries when a decision was made. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:37, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

   My reason for opposing would be, don't complicate or templatize anything unless there is a tangible (not hypothetical) benefit in doing so; but I guess I am myself guilty of excessive complicating or templatizing. The template name {{catlangcode}} is pretty bad too, but that could be changed to {{cat}} or {{topiccat}}; the template is only intended for topical categories, from what I understand. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:19, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

   I'd say opposition to templates is a weak reason. Templates are supposed to help, not to complicate. The idea is already implemented with Chinese topical categories with tangible benefits, so it's not entirely hypothetical. Compare old ] (an editor needed to know the character radicals and stroke counts to add to categories) with the new {{zh-cat|Beginning}}. I have given examples of what could be done with Japanese entries, which also have a complicated sorting order. Agreed about the length of the template name but the vote says ... "{{catlangcode|nl|Mammals}}" or similar. I prefer {{cat}}. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 09:18, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

   Templates increase the learning curve for newcomers; that is why they should only be introduced when the tangible benefit exceeds this downside. You are right: the vote does not require that the template name is specifically {{catlangcode}}. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:39, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

   {{cat|en|People}} is not more complicated than ], besides, curly brackets and pipes are a second nature at Wiktionary, newcomers learn this fast. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 10:52, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

   FYI, Daniel Carrero pointed out there is {{topics}}, at Wiktionary talk:Votes/2015-03/Templatizing topical categories in the mainspace#catlangcode. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:46, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

3. Support if and only if the template be called {{C}} instead of {{catlangcode}}. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 20:15, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

   The dating template currently coded at {{C}} should be deleted. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 20:17, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

   {{C}} is now a redirect to {{catlangcode}} (the dating template has been moved to {{C.}}). — I.S.M.E.T.A. 01:26, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

4. Support —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:36, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
5. Support. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 15:20, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Oppose unless and until CodeCat gives a rationale for the change. This, that and the other (talk) 13:32, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Now neutral, per Anatoli's justification. I'd like a better name than "catlangcode" though. What a waste of valuable letters and precious keystrokes! This, that and the other (talk) 10:02, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree about the name "catlangcode". --Daniel 15:11, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

1. Oppose Equinox ◑ 01:59, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
2. HotCat will be affected --Dixtosa (talk) 15:48, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

   This could be addressed, I'm sure and made better. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:38, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

3. Oppose in general but support for languages that need it. Not all languages have a different sort order from default and it would mess up HotCat for the ones that don't. —Internoob 19:43, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

   @CodeCat Will the templatising of categories really mess with HotCat? Do you wish to address this or tell us your thoughts because this seems to be a concern. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:16, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

4. Oppose. CatScan doesn't work for templatized categories. (Sort order can also be handled by pipes.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 03:59, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
5. Oppose. This may be useful for generating category names in templates, but in the main namespace it is unnecessary. --WikiTiki89 20:12, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

• I went to ruwiki being sure they have done something about it, and I was right. See this to see how Russian wikiprojects addressed this problem. So, now they sort like this

АБВГДЕ
ЁЖЗИЙКЛМНОПРСТУФХЦЧШЩЬЫЪЭЮЯабвгде
ёжзийклмнопрстуфхцчшщьыъэюя

We can request the same for all languages.--Dixtosa (talk) 12:06, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

@Dixtosa Any improvement is welcome, of course. I'm not sure how the above affects topical and other categories but we'll have much more control if we have language-specific sorting logic. I mentioned {{DEFAULTSORT}}. This is needed for certain abugida-based languages. See the end of this discussion. It's quite important that Thai, Lao, etc. are sorted by proper initial consonants, not by "preposed" vowels. E.g. แข็ง (kăeng, “hard, strong, solid”) (note that it's spelled as "ăe + k + ng", certain vowels are written in front of syllables, they are preposed). It should be sorted by "ข็แง" (i.e. teh way it's read out: "k + ăe + ng") in entries {{DEFAULTSORT|ข็แง}}, the way people look up Thai words in dictionaries, in this case by consonant ข (k), not by the vowel แ (ae), even though it's physically written before the consonant. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:50, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

It seems that the overall proposal has no consensus, at 5-5-0. No changes will be made at this time, although there is of course no rule against templatising the categories either. Perhaps Dixtosa's suggestion would yield a vote with a more favourable outcome, if someone wants to set that up. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:43, 1 October 2015 (UTC)