Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-05/Names of specific entities

• Voting on: Replacing the current text of the section "Names of specific entities" of CFI with another text that removes the attributive-use rule and leaves the regulation of specific entities indeterminate.

Current text to be replaced:

A name should be included if it is used attributively, with a widely understood meaning. For example: New York is included because “New York” is used attributively in phrases like “New York delicatessen”, to describe a particular sort of delicatessen. A person or place name that is not used attributively (and that is not a word that otherwise should be included) should not be included. Lower Hampton, Sears Tower, and George Walker Bush thus should not be included. Similarly, whilst Jefferson (an attested family name word with an etymology that Wiktionary can discuss) and Jeffersonian (an adjective) should be included, Thomas Jefferson (which isn’t used attributively) should not.

New text to replace the old one:

This section regulates the inclusion and exclusion of names of specific entities, that is, names of individual people, names of geographic entities, names of mythological creatures, names of planets and stars, etc.

Many names of specific entitites should be excluded while some should be included. There is no agreement on specific rules for the inclusion of names of specific entities.

• Vote starts: 00:00, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
• Vote ends: 24:00, 17 June 2010 (UTC) -- 30 days after the start
• Vote created: Dan Polansky 23:08, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
• Discussion:

  Wiktionary:Beer parlour archive/2010/April#Straw poll on the 'names of specific entries', April 2010

  Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2010-05/Placenames with linguistic information 2

  Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2010-05/Names of specific entities

1. Support —Internoob (Disc•Cont) 23:04, 18 May 2010 (UTC) It removes from the CFI the stuff that no one adheres to anyway.
2. Support I hate the meaningless attributive-use rule. --Vahagn Petrosyan 08:10, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
3. Weak support. I don't like it, but it seems to be accurate, and I can live with it. —Ruakh_TALK 19:52, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
4. Support   AugPi 05:35, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
5. Support The attributive rule is mostly ignored anyway. Removing it makes discussion about place names simpler. --Makaokalani 13:05, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
6. Ten times better than what we have. Can we at least agree that we disagree? DAVilla 04:49, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
7. Support H. (talk) 15:26, 24 May 2010 (UTC) Indeed.
8. Support truth in advertising. -- Visviva 04:15, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
9. Support very strongly for reasons already above. Firstly, nobody knows what our currently policy means (or nobody claims to), secondly, it's more accurate, as people logically enough ignore policies they don't understand. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:21, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

   Re "nobody...": IIRC DCDuring and I claim to.​—msh210℠ 15:40, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

10. Support SemperBlotto 10:29, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
11. Support Strongly support making our policy pages reflect our practice. Still sort of wish we didn't need a vote for this. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 21:45, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
12. Support Ivan Štambuk 22:08, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
14. Support Daniel. 01:58, 5 June 2010 (UTC) Abstain Daniel. 14:40, 31 May 2010 (UTC) Oppose Daniel. 06:35, 19 May 2010 (UTC) I approve this proposal as I understood it. After all, a sincere "We have no agreement" seems better than a false and obscure "Sure, we have an agreement". However, the text Many names of specific entitites should be excluded while some should be included. seems pointless; I feel like I wasted precious seconds of my life reading that, because it effectively means nothing. --Daniel. 06:35, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

    I have responded at the talk page. --Dan Polansky 06:47, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

    I have responded at the same talk page, and changed my vote accordingly. --Daniel. 14:40, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

15. Support EncycloPetey 03:17, 13 June 2010 (UTC) It's a shame we don't have any good criteria in place, but I think it's better to have a document that describes what we're currently doing and will eliminate at least one constant point of contention. --EncycloPetey 03:17, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
16. Support Bequw → τ 06:04, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

1. Oppose why? -- Prince Kassad 17:09, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

   Because Wiktionary editors vary in their reading of what they mean by "used attributively"; because the rule seems to exclude non-geographic names that we want to include such as "Mercury", "Venus", "Mars", "Zeus" (god), "Odin" (god), "Calliope" (muse), "Cronus" (titan), "Medusa" (gorgon); because the rule does not make much sense to me: I do not see how the existence of "New York delicatessen" justifies the inclusion of "New York"; because the concept of attributive use has no direct analogue in many languages and is replaced by adjectives--so in Czech "New York delicatessen" would be "newyorské lahůdky" or something of the sort. There are possibly other reasons. --Dan Polansky 06:06, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

2. Oppose  Where there were (vague) limits, now there will be none. Doesn't this just give everyone licence to add whatever they want to the dictionary at no cost, while removing it will require dozens of new votes? —Michael Z. 2010-06-17 14:42 z

1. Abstain Seems pointless... most people aren't taking the attributive-use rule all that seriously with place names, as far as i can tell... but why not just wait to vote on something that has actually been worked on, instead of "we don't really know what we're gonna do with this" — opiaterein — 20:27, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

   Why not just wait to vote on something that has actually been worked on: Because the current text of CFI that this vote proposes to be replaced has not been agreed upon by Wiktionary editors, seems to have only a minority support, and past discussions and voting on the subject of inclusion of names of specific entities have yielded no consensus, and seem unlikely to yield one in the near future, as far as I can tell. So it seems only fair and honest to replace text unsupported by Wiktionary editors with text that fairly states the indeterminacy of the current state of discussion.

   On another note, it is not only geographic names that are at stake. Non-geographic names are not addressed by the proposal currently made by Makaokalani. See also my response to Prince Kassad above. --Dan Polansky 06:34, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

   My reply to you and to Daniel. above is the same. I prefer something pointless to something incomprehensible. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:54, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

2. Per opiaterein.​—msh210℠ 17:08, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

• Passes, 15–2–2 (>88%). —Ruakh_TALK 00:32, 18 June 2010 (UTC)