Wiktionary:Votes/2024-04/Allowing etymology trees on entries

Voting on: allowing editors to add etymology trees to entries using the {{etymon}} template. Here is an example etymology tree for English father:

This output above was generated by the wikitext {{etymon|en|id=male parent|title=father|inh|enm>fader>father|tree=1}}. The syntax is quite easy to learn and documented extensively on the template page.

This has the benefits of making etymology more interesting and accessible to casual readers, as well as increasing the consistency of our content—by design, it is impossible for etymology trees on different entries to contradict one another.

Specifically, the terms of the vote are:

• Each language community may decide for itself when and where etymology trees should be added to an entry. This may well be "never".
• Etymology trees must not be placed anywhere aside from within an Etymology section.
• If {{etymon}} is used without setting |tree=1, the template produces no output (aside from an anchor to itself). However, these "silent" templates are still important as they can pass on information to other entries. Therefore, they may be used site-wide whenever necessary.
• The {{etymon}} template has a parameter |text= which can generate some text describing the etymology. This feature is currently experimental and should not be used in mainspace.

This vote does not:

• Affect the way our etymologies are currently presented. Etymology trees are in addition to, not a replacement for, textual etymologies.
• Allow or encourage editors to mass-add etymology trees across the site. As stated above, each language community will decide if or when they are appropriate.
• Seek to deprecate or change the usage of any existing template.

Schedule:

• Vote starts: 00:00, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
• Vote ends: 23:59, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
• Vote created: Ioaxxere (talk) 18:34, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Discussion:

• Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2024/April § Etymology tree vote

1. Support as proposer. Ioaxxere (talk) 02:54, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
2. Support. -saph 🍏 14:26, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
3. Support Binarystep (talk) 14:44, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
4. Support Protegmatic (talk) 16:18, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

   Support 178.120.64.68 17:24, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

   IPs are not eligible to vote — SURJECTION ^{/ T / C / L /} 17:25, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

   Eh, why not? I'm active here (definitely more than 50 edits, you can see my IP range below) and the only one who uses the IP range 178.120// (at least here on Wiktionary). It's much better if you think about it. As an IP address I can't sockpuppet even if I wanted to. I only get one vote. 178.120.0.0/18 17:33, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

   It's universally understood that IPs are not allowed to vote in official votes. Wikipedia spells it out more clearly (plus their additional requirements, but it's the same here. "Account" means an actual account. If anything, we'd limit it to the IP you were using when you voted, which still does not meet the requirements. I'd highly recommend making an account if you'd like to fully participate in processes like these. AG202 (talk) 22:24, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

   Oh that's a bummer. I made many, many, contributions with this IP range, for years. I'd thought that would let me participate in votes. I basically see it as my account without a password lol. 178.120.13.161 01:20, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

5. Support. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 20:15, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
6. Support - I do think the maintenance issues raised in the Beer Parlor are a real concern, but I think it's definitely worth trying; this is something I've wanted for etymologies for a long time. Combine this with {{dercat}} and {{root}} you can cut down on the unnecessary text within an entry while still providing a full picture. I also think it's "shininess" isn't just a gimmick, I think it really could attract a larger readerbase, including real scholars. Vininn126 (talk) 07:21, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
7. Support for the trees! more seriously, this is a great improvement for users as it more clearly shows the relations between lemmas instead of a prose list in my opinion. of course, the latter will never go away but more options are better than none. Juwan (talk) 12:06, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
8. Support Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 15:23, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
9. Support. It's useful. Kungming2 (talk) 19:56, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
10. Support - I think this will be popular with casual users. Theknightwho (talk) 00:47, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
11. Support I'm excited by this initiative. This, that and the other (talk) 04:51, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
12. Support Looks like it's ready to go. —Soap— 06:39, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
13. Weak support I don't really like the look of it for now, but it seems overall a great addition. Tim Utikal 6:59, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
14. Support Rakso43243 (talk) 08:03, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
15. Support Tashi (talk) 09:47, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
16. Support I really like this idea, especially for our casual readers! Visualisation likes this really helps to convey information much easier. LunaEatsTuna (talk) 02:26, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
17. Support — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 19:48, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
18. Support Ideally, etymologies would be linked to each other and consistent across all pages. This is a step in the right direction. Megathonic (talk) 19:04, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
19. Support Easier to use, it'd be a great addition Rolando 1208 (talk) 07:26, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
20. Support --ChemPro (talk) 20:01, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
21. Support I don’t need to use the trees actively and they increase Wiktionary’s citation impact on the web, also attracting more manpower; perhaps add more gimmicky branding or watermarks in the background? In the end we will discontinue it anyway for the reasons Victar opposes it, unless new people follow my reasoning. Fay Freak (talk) 00:22, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
22. Support I hope to see more infrastructure for this sort of thing in the future. Anarhistička Maca (talk) 03:28, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
23. Support — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 17:18, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
24. Support --FocalPoint (talk) 22:42, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
25. Support in principle. This is the kind of progressive idea that transcendence of printed formats enables and makes Wiktionary such a great resource, although with Benwing2 I wish this vote hadn't been so rushed (the idea was first brought up in the beer parlour 14 March) and more time had been allowed for discussion about testing, implementation, and other issues. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 11:46, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
26. Support, any automation would be good and even if this is ugly at the start, could lead to something better Ysrael214 (talk) 18:26, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
27. Support. Imetsia (talk (more)) 22:25, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
28. Support - has some rough edges, but I am curious and fairly optimistic about where this will lead. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 08:25, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

    Support Иованъ (talk) 19:09, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

    Not eligible to vote, per rule 2 of Voting eligibility — SURJECTION ^{/ T / C / L /} 19:37, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

29. Support - nice representation. Jonashtand (talk) 09:47, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
30. Support — Etymology trees are wasted on words like th'English father (or, at least, trees as exemplified above are, anyway), since linear descent (with single forking at the root level) is expressed perfectly well by standard text etymologies. Where I see the real benefits of etymology trees is in complex derivations and in the presentation of cognates, for relevant discussions of which see Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2024/April#Automatic cognate generation and Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2024/May#Descendant tree design. I hope that, someday soon, I shall be able to add elucidatory etymology trees to the German Reichsrat and to its cognates. 0DF (talk) 22:21, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

1. Strong oppose Word0151 (talk) 14:34, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

   ...rationale? Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 20:15, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

2. Oppose If there is any chance that I would have to look at it. DCDuring (talk) 23:44, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
3. Oppose — Fenakhay ^{(حيطي · مساهماتي)} 18:54, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
4. Strong oppose Any benefit it might afford isn't worth the massive redundancy of work it creates maintaining consistency on entries, especially at the reconstructive level, and should have been made to work with the {{der}} templates, not in isolation from them. This template will breed mistakes and misinformation. --{{victar|talk}} 03:25, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

   Merging the two templates is absolutely possible, and is something I would support once the design has stabilised. I don’t see it as a reason to oppose, because it would be impractical to merge them from the start. Theknightwho (talk) 10:19, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

   I do agree maintenance could be an issue - we already have problems with getting headword templates on all lemmas for crying out loud! I think that it would be very easily possible to add inh/der and root function to this at some point however. Vininn126 (talk) 11:05, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

   And I can't even consider supporting this template until it includes this integration, which would more than likely require it being rebuilt from the ground up. This vote was made prematurely, and needs more development before it can be rolled out. There was no need for this vote yet. --{{victar|talk}} 06:19, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

   It wouldn't involve rebuilding from the ground up all. Theknightwho (talk) 03:52, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

5. Oppose — I don't like the appearance, which strikes me as a poor use of space (though I allow that that is an personal, aesthetic preference. Also, kudos for making it collapsible). I also don't relish the thought of having to add – and reach consensus for the content of – matched templates on all predecessor/descendant terms, especially where some of these relationships might be controversial. Cnilep (talk) 23:25, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
6. Weak oppose I can't really articulate this confidently but it looks...plasticky? It seems like a useless gimmick. If someone really needs it, there's already etytree.toolforge.org, don't clutter this site up with infographics.--Simplificationalizer (talk) 13:16, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

   @Simplificationalizer: I didn't know about that site, but it's clearly far from perfect. The trees for lead (metal) and ice are a complete mess. In both cases the program is evidently confused by homographs. Ioaxxere (talk) 14:16, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

   This website's last update seems to be one year old. There are edits from August 2023 that don't appear in the trees. Trooper57 (talk) 16:17, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

7. Oppose Disturbing. 恨国党非蠢即坏 (talk) 15:16, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
8. Oppose until someone demonstrates how an interesting etymology entry (let's say 3 disputed theories, of varying strengths of evidence, with links to researchers or citations for each) will look in tree form. From what I have seen, current proposal is suitable only for the completely trivial and well-settled cases like father. Tetromino (talk) 14:23, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

   As it says above "Etymology trees are in addition to, not a replacement for, textual etymologies" and "each language community will decide if or when they are appropriate." I don't think a case such as you sketch would be a good candidate for an etymology tree any more than a family tree can give you insight into your geneology if fundamental facts about your ancestry are unknown. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 09:42, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

   I have to echo this. Your complains here don't seem unaddressed by the vote's criteria. Vininn126 (talk) 12:55, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

   I am afraid that the usage of the tree in a critical mass of articles will lead well-meaning editors into also adding it where it is not appropriate. Tetromino (talk) 19:28, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

   1) It has the ability to show uncertain connections 2) Like many other templates, one need not apply it literally on every entry within a language, as the proposal allows. Vininn126 (talk) 08:01, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

   The same complaint applies to literally any etymology template, too. Theknightwho (talk) 14:32, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

9. Oppose largely per Victar. If this vote passes, there is too great a risk that people will actually use the template. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:08, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

1. Abstain I like the look of it, but it is very screen-dependent. I hope this will be handled in a "reactive" way, by which I mean not just "big or small phone", but also understanding desktop PC users. Good luck. Equinox ◑ 00:37, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
2. Abstain Similar reasons as Caoimhin ceallach. I appreciate the changes that have been made, and think that it'd be a helpful feature, but I still feel like there needed to be more time to work out the details. I'm a bit concerned as to how this would look as a whole, especially on pages with several languages. Imagine a page like mi with over 100 trees. Or the fact that this really only works well for Indo-European languages or similarly reconstructed families, and not for languages without established reconstructions or written ancestors. I'm worried that they'll start being out of place and neglected more than they already are, if this change becomes commonplace. However, this isn't enough for me to oppose the idea, but at the same time, I can't support it as is. AG202 (talk) 12:57, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

   Why does the fact it works mostly with one group (for now) mean it can't be applied to that one group? Vininn126 (talk) 12:56, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

   Note that I am abstaining, hence I'm not opposing the template being used. I just can't fully support it at this time. AG202 (talk) 15:21, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Passes 30–9–2. This, that and the other (talk) 01:27, 27 May 2024 (UTC)