Wiktionary:Votes/2016-02/Placement of "Usage notes"

Terminology:

• The term inflection section henceforth in the text of this vote refers to any Inflection, Conjugation, Declension, or Mutation section, or any other section whose purpose is to list non-lemma forms of the lemma in question.

Voting on:

• Proposal 1:
  • Fix the placement of the "Usage notes" section after the definitions and before any non-inflection section. sections, leaving the relation to any inflection section up to proposal 2 below.
• Proposal 2:
  • If the proposal 1 passes, where exactly should the "Usage notes" section be placed, in relation to any inflection section. If the result is inconclusive, it remains unspecified whether the "Usage notes" section goes before or after the inflection section.

    A. Always before the inflection section.

    B. Always after the inflection section.

    C. Up to personal preference.

    D. Depending specifically on the contents of the usage notes.

Examples:

• Option A (before the inflection section):

===Noun===
====Usage notes====
====Inflection====

• Option B (after the inflection section):

===Noun===
====Inflection====
====Usage notes====

Rationale:

• WT:EL#Order of headings currently says " can be placed anywhere appropriate". This was voted in 2007, see Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2007-06/ELE level 4 header sequence. However, it is possible that there should be a certain place for the "Usage notes" section, not just anywhere in the entry.

Schedule:

• Vote starts: 00:00, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
• Vote ends: 23:59, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

• Vote created: --Daniel Carrero (talk) 01:21, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Discussion:

• Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2015-12/Usage notes#Location of the usage notes header
• Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2015-12/Usage notes/old#Oppose
• Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2015-12/Usage notes#Support
• Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2016/January#Placement of "Usage notes"
• Wiktionary talk:Votes/2016-02/Placement of "Usage notes"

1. Support --Daniel Carrero (talk) 04:00, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
2. Support --WikiTiki89 22:15, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
3. Support —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:20, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
4. Support - -sche (discuss) 05:20, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
5. Support --Vahag (talk) 21:33, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
6. Support -Xbony2 (talk) 00:43, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
7. Support - Donnanz (talk) 00:48, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
8. Support — Eru·tuon 06:30, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
9. Support — Andrew Sheedy (talk) 11:32, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
10. Support — Benwing2 (talk) 05:59, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

1. Oppose See no point in changing the status quo. Put them where they'll logical. We're humans, not bots for chrissake. Droigheann (talk) 19:48, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

   Ideally, bots should be able to "read" Wiktionary (i.e. repackage it easily into different formats and uses) just as easily as we can. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:22, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

   To be honest I don't see what you're trying to say. That it would be oh so great if we had Usage notes all in one position because then a bot could move them all into another one position after some future vote? --Droigheann (talk) 07:29, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

   Given that the sections are titled, their order shouldn't matter to the bot (associative array). Maybe their level, but not their order. Nibiko (talk) 08:00, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

2. Oppose per Droigheann. DCDuring TALK 13:39, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
3. Weak oppose — I.S.M.E.T.A. 01:18, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

1. Support --Daniel Carrero (talk) 04:00, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

   If the usage notes are in the middle, between definitions and inflection, then they are as near to the definitions as they are to the inflections. Relatedly, as argued in Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2016/January#Placement of "Usage notes", "when the usage notes are about inflection, they're as near to the inflection if they're above it as they are if they're below it." --Daniel Carrero (talk) 04:00, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

2. Support It's basically the de facto standard to put them right after the definition. Nibiko (talk) 08:22, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

   Note that this only applies when there actually is an inflection section, which there almost never is for the languages you seem to work with (Japanese and English, from a quick glance at your contributions). It has been my impression that when there is an inflection section, the usage notes have usually come after it, but I wish we had concrete statistics. --WikiTiki89 21:11, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

   @Wikitiki89 I just took a sample, which I describe in the BP: 30% of pages use the order "notes, then inflection", 26% use the order "notes, then mutation" (I thought mutation was treated like inflection and put at L4, but all these entries have mutations at L3), and 43% used the order "inflection, then notes" (sometimes with the notes at L3 below other sections). - -sche (discuss) 08:19, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

   There may be some variation between languages: many of the Latin entries had "inflection, then notes", while most of the German entries had "notes, then inflection". - -sche (discuss) 08:22, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

   Thanks! Mutations should be L4. --WikiTiki89 16:59, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

   @Wikitiki89: Why? At least for Welsh, it makes more sense for Mutation to be an L3 header, because the information given in that section about the way a word mutates solely concerns its spelling and bears no relation to any POS under the section for which it would be nested. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 01:18, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

   If that's the case, then mutations shouldn't have been included in this vote. --WikiTiki89 03:48, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

   @Wikitiki89: Indeed they shouldn't've; you're right. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 12:32, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

   Oppose Per above and because this vote seems, but its elimination of Oppose headers to be biasing the voting. DCDuring TALK 13:42, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

   Invalid per talk page. --WikiTiki89 21:13, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

3. Support. Most usage notes are about definitions, not inflection information (see data in BP), and even if they are about inflection information, they are as near to the inflection information if they are above it as if they are below it: but if they are below it, there is too much risk that readers won't notice them. For comparison, fr.Wikt places notes directly after definitions, while full inflection information (of the sort we're discussing interpolating between definitions and usage notes) is on a separate page; see fr:baiser (the note section is called "Note"). de.Wikt places notes before definitions, and full inflection information on a separate page; see de:rheinisch and de:US-amerikanisch (the notes sections are called "Anmerkung" with or without additional words). The speaks in favour of the idea that usage notes are for more closely bound to definitions than inflection information is. - -sche (discuss) 05:23, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
4. Support -Xbony2 (talk) 00:46, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
5. Support — When I write usage notes for Ancient Greek entries, they are either about definitions or inflection. But even when they're about inflected forms, it looks better to have them above inflection tables, especially in entries on verbs with many forms. Bulky inflection tables block my view of the notes. A language-specific reason, so I'm curious if this is the case for other languages' entries. — Eru·tuon 06:30, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

   For me it is (true of other languages' entries too). I've almost missed (and have probably sometimes completely missed) usage notes that were hidden below big inflection tables in German and Latin, and that's true even at times when I've been looking through entries of one type of another looking for usage notes. - -sche (discuss) 08:26, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

6. Support — Andrew Sheedy (talk) 11:33, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

1. Support. Among other stronger arguments I have given in the discussions, I think the Usage notes section aesthetically looks better after the inflections. --WikiTiki89 22:15, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

   Oppose DCDuring TALK 13:42, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

   Invalid per talk page. --WikiTiki89 21:13, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

2. Support per Wikitiki. --Vahag (talk) 21:35, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
3. Support per Wikitiki. Benwing2 (talk) 05:59, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Oppose --Daniel Carrero (talk) 11:48, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to pinpoint where exactly to fix the usage notes, if possible. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 11:50, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

I removed this vote per the talk page. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 21:03, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

1. Support Closest to the flexibility useful for effective placement of the content. DCDuring TALK 13:42, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
2. Support — All other things being equal, I would prefer placement immediately after definitions; however, I second DCDuring's vote in favour of retaining flexibility through editorial freedom. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 01:20, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

1. Abstain No rationale has been given for any of the options, so it's pointless bikeshedding. Equinox ◑ 19:17, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

   @Equinox Usage notes are usually about senses (and when to use them) or inflected forms (and when to use them), or spelling. Very rarely, they are about pronunciation (and there's an ongoing vote to move that kind of note into the ===Pronunciation=== section), or etymology (which should probably just be ===Etymology===). I don't recall ever encountering any other kind of note. IMO, notes (especially ones about definitions) should be right next to the definitions, where they will be noticed. I sometimes see them pushed down below the inflection information or (even worse) pushed all the way to the bottom of the entry, where I barely notice them (and I may often not notice them, since not-noticing something would be hard to detect); that's bad; I expect that casual readers also fail to notice the important usage notes in those cases, so I'd like a rule that notes should go next to definitions. (I think it's logical to put usage notes about inflection in the same noticeable place, since it's right above the inflection info.) It's also helpful to have the policy tell new users where usage notes go (which is I think the reason this vote was actually drafted). - -sche (discuss) 20:11, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

2. Abstain - not sure about this. Not every language uses inflection sections, or they can be sometimes avoided, depending on how complicated the inflections are. Donnanz (talk) 00:55, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Proposal 1 passes: 10-3-0.

Proposal 2 - option A passes: 6-3-0-2.

--Daniel Carrero (talk) 06:33, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Edited WT:EL accordingly. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 06:37, 12 March 2016 (UTC)