Wiktionary talk:Index to templates

This page is named "Wiktionary:Index to Templates" but um, shouldn't that be "Wiktionary:Index to templates"??? --Connel MacKenzie 08:00, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You could be right Connel. But, this is Wiktionary. Why not be brave and change it ? :-)richardb

But, this is in the Wiktionary namespace, so I'm not sure there are any rules about capitalisation there.

If you contribute a policy to the fledgling policy area Category:Policies - Top Level, then I'll have to change it!

Actually, I'm happy to leave it to you to change/move it, as you spotted the mistake. Especially as you then also have to remake all the consequently broken links too. Thanks!--Richardb 10:48, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm not quite bored enough yet to tackle this. Soon, perhaps. Then again, with the whole upper/lower case controversy, this may get 'bot-ified? --Connel MacKenzie 04:33, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

see Wiktionary:Sub-Project -Template renaming for some work I started about changing the naming of some Template pages that were inappropriately using the name Template.--Richardb 14:52, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Rather than have the conversation on the main page, the talk page is perhaps better.

dmh, I threw together a description of where I had gone with your templates. I think it would be better to correct my line

{{cattag2|___|___}} - Tag two categories. Same as above, but it adds this entry into two categories, using only the first as the name. Very helpful when something belongs in a category and a sub-category.

with

{{cattag2|___|___}} - Tag two categories. Same as above, but it adds this entry into two categories, using only the first as the name. Very helpful when something belongs in multiple unrelated categories.

or somesuch.

First, I was a little reluctant to edit the text, but I wanted to make my original intention clear and I hope I haven't run completely roughshod over what you had. I particularly wanted to make clear the intention between cattag2 and cattag3. I'm still not clear on what "using only the first as a name" meant. The intent of these (and their behavior, unless it's been changed) is to handle words that need to be tagged in multiple, essentially independent ways, with both (or all three) appearing in the definition.

Also, perhaps I wasn't emphatic enough that this category doubling (not using cattag2, BTW, just directly in the three templates,) is considered sacreligious by some. And that it has only been done to meet a very specific need...I know I prefer to see them all lumped together. Obviously whomever set up the page felt the same (far before my time here.) From a more technical perspective, however, they should be listed separately.

Can you give an example? The main reason I created cattag2 was to see (cat1, cat2) instead of (cat1)(cat2). More precisely, cattag2 gives you the choice of which style to use (across all cattag2 instances).

Sure. The problem is, this quote is so far out of context here. I was referring to the use of multiple categories within one template as "being sacreligious." One convention is to be as absolutely specific with category name as possible, and let the target category be a sub category (or sub sub cat, or sub sub sub ...) In this example, I was talking about {{abbreviations}}, {{acronyms}}, and {{initialisms}} which each place items in a sub-category and it's parent category. (The latter being the sacreligious part.) The reason that is cited as a one-time specific need is the same logic that whomever created

was apparently using: sometimes it makes sense to have the terms listed together. (Most of the time, I would think.) At a less useful level though, they are different things. --Connel MacKenzie 05:39, 6 May 2005 (UTC)Reply

I guess what I really don't understand is why Wiktionarians are hesitant to categorize stuff. Most Wikipedia articles are in multiple categories. Some are in many categories. Few (percentage-wise) Wiktionary articles are in any category. It's a mystery to me. By the same token, I can't imagine what people are thinking when they remove a category link from an article. I do hope that practice gets voted down, at some point soon. --Connel MacKenzie 04:33, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't get it either. To me, this is vast unexplored territory for Wiktionary, and I'm trying to kick-start the exploration. In any case, thanks for the initial effort and the kind words, and I'm sorry I didn't notice this and reply sooner. -dmh 04:24, 6 May 2005 (UTC)Reply

It seems unwise to me, to have the headings section removed immediately after they've all been cleaned up (bravo on the tedious job there!) The pages will still have that stuff in their history, and the possibility that some may be reverted seems possible. I think some kind of footnote about what was there and why it was abolished would be helpful for a week or two or three. --Connel MacKenzie 05:21, 6 May 2005 (UTC)Reply

Not trying to be a luddite (nor a neo-luddite) but rather in the interest of simplifying things for newcomers:

Can we lighten the verbiage of these forms please?

Currently, they are:

1. third person singular simple present
2. present participle
3. simple past
4. past participle

I would much rather see those tagged as:

1. third person
2. present
3. past
4. participle

I could even see these as an improvement:

1. third person
2. present
3. past
4. participle

Which version do people like? 1 = current, 2 = luddite, 3 = wikilinked condensed or 4 = other?

--Connel MacKenzie 05:43, 25 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

They are really participles. The only thing that seems reasonable to drop is simple present.

I created two verb templates using the naming convention of the others and the content of Ncik's templates. So why did I bother? I think the current templates are hard to use and consequently I didn't start using them. There are too many of them and one needs to start investigating which one to use. If there are only two templates, one can still remember their names. They also contain the complete forms of the conjugations. I think this is important for clearness. Otherwise it takes a lot of show previews to see whether the result is what one intended. The difference with the templates Ncik proposed is that the user doesn't have to add any formatting. This is something that templates are extremely suitable for. The user only has to occupy him/herself with the content. The person editing the template can improve how it looks. I don't really like to do this. Uncle G put a lot of work in these templates and they are very smart indeed. Ergonomics and clearness are more important than typing less characters or trying to save space though. Anyway, I would like to hear what other people think about this proposal to simplify the English conjugation templates.

Here they are:

• Template:en-conj-reg
• Template:en-conj-irreg

and I used one of them in dig Polyglot 06:30, 13 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your efforts! However, I have a harsh critique, I'm afraid. But, my friend, you know where to go to find support in a non-yelling environment.

I used to know this stuff. Hell, I used to teach English as a Second Language. But through injuries and drugs, time and failing memory, I can now safely annoint myself, Official Idiot - and I speak from that viewpoint.

If you're going to change things, you have to make it a lot better. I barely know what the word "conjugation" means in your introduction. And why can't your template names be something intuitive and simple, like: "verb-regular" and "verb-irregular"?

I can grasp "infinitive" and "simple past" but the "past participle" and the others are beyond me. I simply don't know what you're talking about. I believe many newbies contributing here are the same - and they might not even know "infinitive" or "simple past".

Staying on the infinitive for a moment, why aren't verbs formatted the same way all the other words are? I think they should be. For example, DON'T put:

===Verb===
'''to dig'''

USE:

===Verb===
'''dig'''

Keep things consistent. Why do you put the infinitive under the Verb definition heading? The word is "dig" after all; not "to" dig.

Although I don't know the technical names of the different forms of the verbs, I do know that the "-ing form" of "dig" is "digging" and the "-ed form or past-tense form" of "dig" is "dug". Having the technical names appear in the final version, in the final rendered form will help to educate us idiots, but it won't help us to use the template.

Using the template, itself, is too complicated. Now, maybe there's nothing you can do about this because the wiki programming language is limited, I don't know - but the programming language was made for us, not us for the programming language; if it doesn't do what we want it to do, it should be changed - but that's a rant for another day. Back to templates, I'll explain what I mean.

For regular verbs anyway, it seems as though I should be able to enter: '''act''' {{template-verb-regular}} and have the result be: act (acts, acted, acting)

That's another thing. I'm only interested in different spelling forms of the word. If the spelling doesn't change, don't list it. To a certain extent, y'all agree with this. I mean, not once have I seen the form "will act" for the future tense. Then, for "dig", why do you list "past participle" which is the same spelling as the simple past? Why are you arbitrarily excluding the future tense? Is that not just as valuable a tense as "past participle"?

I don't think you need tense names because this isn't a grammar lesson. It's a dictionary. A dictionary is helpful for spelling, so that's why the different spellings forms of the word are needed. We can define grammatical terms and if people are interested, they can look them up; but let's keep the articles themselves simple. And if we keep them simple, we needn't have the colourful boxes. Otherwise, '''act''' (], ], ]) is easier to understand and easier to enter especially for a newbie. (A newbie note: As a newbie, I deleted a couple boxes because I didn't know what the fancy code on the page was for - it confused me. I know now it was a mistake.)

Poly, if you have an example of the new template, as you do with "dig", also including an example of the old template you seek to replace would be helpful for us idiot newbies to compare it to would be appreciated.

And for "dig", I think the noun color boxes are really bad, but I don't know if that's the issue here or not. Perhaps, Poly, a better example word without the noun boxes would be a better pick.

Sorry. Drugs are starting to kick in. Time to do something which doesn't require the same analytical clarity of thought. My apologies if I didn't make a lot of sense.

Polyglot, I'm relying on Semper's assurance that y'all are thick-skinned. I've discovered that I'm not. Don't take this personally even though I might have been able to mince my words better. Cheers, --Stranger 16:26, 13 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

While I agree with some of the content of Stranger's rant, I think that Polyglot deserves a more polite tone. He is making a very good-faith effort, partially in an attempt to soften another dispute, I think.

Since starting to contribute on the Wiktionary project, I've seen quite a few attempts at listing verbs with their various inflections. None yet have been satisfactory. Polyglot's most recent attempt is a fair one, that addresses some of the problems with Uncle G's templates, while at the same time introducing problems that first appeared with Ncik's templates.

• A primary goal here is to list a verb with a consistent format, so we don't lose our "readers."
• A secondary goal (I think) is to make the data fairly simple to programmatically parse.
• Maintain consistency with other formatting conventions of Wiktionary.

In an effort to achieve these goals, some secondary goals have entered the playing field:

• Teach the grammatical case or inflected sense or ancillary part of speech (or whatever the particular writer wants to call it today) to the "readers."

We used to list a verb's inflection line as:

to cross  (crossing, crossed, crossed)

This has the effect of losing many readers, who assume that the repetition of crossed is an error. As Stranger pointed out above, the glaring absence of the future tense is also inexplicable, to most casual readers.

Later, verb were listed as:

to cross  (crossing, crossed, crossed)

both to address the concern that we should have "all words..." and that the translations for the terms were almost always different (as they should be.)

Later verbs were listed as:

to cross  (crosses, crossed, crossing)

by myself and others, who recognized that 3rd person is important (even if never irregular) and that the repetition of the past tense was missleading or rather, looked ameturish.

Then for a very brief time, some were listed as:

to cross  (third person: crosses, present participle: crossing, past imperfect: crossed, past participle: crossed)

which at least addressed the issue of the redundant spelling, so that it no longer looked ameturish. But I think everyone recognizes that this is a lot of typing to do for a simple verb. There was also debate about which terms to bold, etc.

Next, Uncle G introduced his templates.

Template:en-infl-reg-sibilant

Although much shorter to type, the variety of these templates make if very difficult for anyone (myself included) to use these effectively. The primary benefit is that many verb are now entered with some consistency.

Next, Ncik decided to violate the machine-readability aspects by adding his own unique templates.

Template:regverb

which added asthetically unpleasant pink boxes, and changed the ordering of the inflected forms again. He did however reduce the number of templates. He also (inadvertently?) removed the auto-categories that he himself found useful from Uncle G's irregular template.

Polyglot's takes Nciks idea of using fewer templates, and tries to combine the ideas from Uncle G's templates. I applaud the noble attempt. Polyglot also introduced the concept of labelling the terms as used, instead of by formal (long) name. I agree strongly!

Stranger then points out the formatting inconsistency of the prefix "to", which I never fully understood myself. Because I think I see the possible usefulness of it (with Polyglot's approach) I myself am still willing to let that go as it may, even though I still don't understand it.

1. template names too hard to remember, therefore use
2. too many variants (Unformatted, Uncle G, Ncik, Polyglot), and not one is liked by all
3. "to" is inconsistent formatting with rest of Wiktionary
4. past and past participle needlessly separated for regular verbs
5. some formats (Ncik, Polyglot) are multi-line, making machine readability more difficult (needlessly)

   Machine readability should be seen at the source level, not the result. What we edit, the wiki codes. So the fact the templates expand to multi-line shouldn't be an issue.

6. some formats are not extensible (via subst:) for verbs that are both regular and irregular

   this is a though one. Templates are not suitable for this kind of irregularities that weren't foreseen. Either we need another template for verbs that are both regular and irregular, or we use each template once or we don't use a template in that case.

7. line length is off-putting for casual readers when they see the long names for regular inflections

I think trying to condense Uncle G's templates down to two templates might be a better approach. Ncik's choice of using boxes is not flexible (especially for terms that follow both regular and irregular inflection rules) and changes the order of the terms for no apparent reason.

I really like Polyglot's idea of reducing it down to just "regular" and "irregular". With the template naming conventions others have used (WT:I2T) the names would be {{en-infl-reg}} and {{en-infl-irreg}}. As Stranger suggested, I agree that "verb" is easier to remember than "infl" so I would suggest {{en-verb-regular}} and {{en-verb-irregular}} instead.

For an example then,

Template:en-verb-regular

which might result in:

to cross (he crosses, is crossing, they crossed)

Note that regular inflections then combine past and past participle. or perhaps:

cross (crosses, crossing, crossed)

or even:

cross (crossed, crossing, crosses)

to reorder them for no reason.

If instead, the desire is still to label the inflections, I would prefer a form more like this:

cross  (present: crosses, participle: crossing, past: crossed)

then allow the long names perhaps for irregular verbs, where it acutally matters.

As a final note: I don't care much which terms are in italics, which are in bold or what font they are in, as long as it is consistent. The pastel pink was a bit over the top though. Wikification is very important, I think.

I'd like to hear input from User:Uncle G, User: Ncik, User:Paul G, User: Hippietrail, before creating them though. (Those are the participants that have been most vocal about verb inflections, if I recall correctly.) Even though I won't create these two (unless I get positive feedback,) anyone else is welcome to be bold.

--Connel MacKenzie 19:23, 13 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

Sorry about the rant. I should have waited until it was out of my system and I could be more communicative.

I really like Connel's:

to cross (he crosses, is crossing, they crossed)

It doesn't require me to know any fancy language (like participle). (With the caveat of getting rid of the "to".)

This template though, {{en-verb-regular|cross|crosses|crossing|crossed}} still isn't intuitive. It would be better if it were alphabetical: cross, crossed, crosses, crossing. Is it possible to enter the information in the template alphabetically (-ed, -es, -ing or acted, acting, acts) yet have it turn out crosses, crossing, crossed?

Cheers, --Stranger 20:23, 13 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

I come to English as a foreign language speaker and I was taught that the infinitive of an English verb always has to in front of it. Romanian tends to mark its infinitives with a. So that explains the to. As far as I know we are putting definitions and translations for the infinitives there, so it should be marked as an infinitive to make this clear.

Knowing several languages it strikes me as a coincidence that regular English past tense and past participles are written the same way. To me they are very different things. It's like German and Dutch were infinitives and present plural forms coincide with the same spelling. Nobody would dream to list those as the same thing. So even if it looks clumsy, I would still repeat them. That's just one voice in the crowd though.

Verbs are conjugated; nouns, adjectives, pronouns etc. are inflected. Sorry I take this for granted. I do think though that explaining is better than oversimplifying. So if people don't know what participles are and that there are past participles and present participles, each with their own functions, then we have to refer them to a place where they can learn about them. Trying to simplify to the extreme just so people wouldn't have to learn anythin won't serve any purpose.

I could also settle for en-verb-reg and en-verb-irreg or regular and irregular. We don't like to type much though... but those few letters won't hurt, of course.

Parameters in templates are positional. This means that the order matters. Entering them alphabetically and hoping that somehow, automagically it is possible to detect what is what, is as good as impossible to achieve. Don't forget that we are not given an entire programming language in those templates. All there is are parameters that can be called upon depending on their position.

I'm always bold. It's the only way to get something done. Contrary to Ncik, I try to get some debate about them. I'm glad this worked and we're discussing this issue. While scrutinizing Ncik's entries I saw what he was trying to achieve and tried to improve upon it further. I'm not much of a graphical person, so what colors are approppriate really doesn't matter to me. I just copy/pasted those from Ncik's templates. Also what is in bold, italics or gets linked through is not relevant to me. As long as it happens in the template and doesn't need to be done by the editor. That was the biggest shortcoming of Ncik's templates, if you ask me.

Making the data practical to parse programmatically is always my concern, but that plays less here. I could rather easily write a program that parses and recomposes Uncle G's templates. My concern here was that they are too hard too use by mere mortals. If people have trouble distinguishing past participles and present participles, then how do are we going to expect them to know, and especially remember, what sibilant means and when to use that particular template. Then people need to start decomposing those verbs. If data entry is not practical it's not going to be used. (I know there are examples and I would have had no real problem finding out which one to use, but I would have to constantly look them up though and, quite frankly, I wouldn't bother)

Conjugating (inflecting if you want to call it that) a verb in the future tense is completely regular in English and doesn't pose any problem at all. If we start adding future tense, we also have to add conditional tense (would). Then a line won't suffice anymore and we will need a table, like other languages where conjugation is a lot more complicated, but also a lot more precise, which sometimes means personal pronouns (I, you, he, she, it, we, they) are optional or only used for emphasis.

Finally as a comment to --Stranger. I'm trying to make a test balloon go up. Any constructive comments are extremely welcome. The terminology I use should be understandable by any person older than 14 who was fortunate enough to go to school and smart enough to pay attention while sitting there. It's not rocket science and since this is a dictionary it's always possible to look up the terminology either here or on Wikipedia for more depth. Don't worry about my skin, it's thick enough. I don't feel like dumbing everything down to kindergarten level though. For that there is a simplified English project or something of the kind and even they will probably expect the level of, say, a 10 year old. Polyglot 23:12, 13 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

• Thanks.
• I don't think *any* of this is (or can be) intuitive.  :-) But alphabetical does make sense. I'd prefer to keep the order of the input parameters the same as how it will come out (the output parameters.) If everyone can agree that they should be alphabetical, then they should be alphabetical. Alphabetical makes sense, and is less prone to arguments about the order resurfacing in the future.

--Connel MacKenzie 21:58, 13 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

I guess as long as strangers know how to enter the information, I'm not as concerned as what the final product turns out to be. For example: as long as I know to enter {en-verb-reg and how many "|" to enter before the final } and that they should be in alphabetical order (if that's the correct order), I don't care if you use linguistic terminology, examples (he acts, they acted), or nothing at all, in the final printout. For example: {rivers} template prints out (geology) and that's okay with me. Have I made myself clear?

And as an aside, I'll add a note I had squirrelled away in a note on my computer on "to". --Stranger 17:52, 29 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

I've spent the day reviewing this issue, and reached these opinions.

1. The layout in boxes seems more useful than a line of text. I have always found it easier to have the eye go to a specific place all the time for for the same information about a word. A straight line of text, however, requires more searching for the eye to focus, especially if the text needs to wrap into a second line, or if the verbs considered have different lengths.
2. There should be a single template for which I would suggest Template:conj. The "en" tag in the template is unnecessary since this is the English Wiktionary; tags will of course be needed for similar constructions for other languages.
3. To have a single template requires a five box scheme. This does mean that the information in the past tense box will often be repeated in the past participle box, but I don't see that as a problem.
4. The order should be infinitive, third person, past tense, past participle and present participle. The infinitive should come first since it is the place for the usual dictionary listing. It is also usual to list the past tense before the past participle. Where to place the other two remains fairly arbitrary. Alphabetical order is a non-starter because it would be unstable resulting in the forms not always being in the same order. This would be compounded when a part has more than one option.
5. I'm indifferent about whether "to" should appear in the infinitive. This is easily changed in a single template.
6. Whether the boxes are pink or have a frame around each doesn't matter much to me. This too can be easily varied in a template. As an aside, it could be interesting if nouns, verbs and adjectives were distinguished by different colours.
7. I'm also flexible on the alocation of roman, italic or bold fonts. As much as possible these formatting issues should be in the template. This was a notable shortcoming in Ncik's suggestion.
8. Machine readability should not be a factor. I think that we are producing this project for the benefit of human readers, not to make life easier for machines. If machines can read it too, that's an incidental bonus.

If there are points that I have missed I can deal with them later. Eclecticology 02:15, 15 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

I apologize for not noticing this conversation earlier. I'd like to point out that Eclecticology's templates (accidentally?) do make the entries "more machine readable." I do like the fact that these are much easier to remember how to enter. (Thank you for that, Polyglot!) I disagre with the notion that the boxes are a good idea; when using the template for an idiomatic phrase the clutter will be too much, IMHO. When boxes are used for nouns, the result jumps to the opposite extreme. The notion of using different colors for different parts of speech is intruiging. I shall experiment with that - I think the pink is very non-Wiktionary (and hurts my eyes,) while light blues, greens and grays just work better. It would be nice to have a couple different "irregular" templates that further accent the irregular forms (probably with a darker background color, or underlined?) For that matter, the inflected form should also be emphasised (in all these templates) more than the inflections.

I'd like to point out also, that using a technique like the babel templates, we could just as easily end up with something like this:

{{en-conj5|infl=cross|3rd=crosses|part=crossing|pp=crossed|past=crossed}}

{{en-conj4|infl=cross|3rd=crosses|part=crossing|p=crossed}}

{{en-conj2|sing=cross|plur=crosses}}

{{en-conj3|adj=cross|more=cross|most=cross}} (or nocomp, nosup, vs. comp=crossly sup=crossest.)

{{en-conj5-i45|infl=sting|3rd=stings|part=stinging|p=stung|archp=stang}} to make the 4th and 5th 
    boxes (past & pp and archaic past & archaic pp) have darker background colors.

but that would essentially take us back full circle to making people try to remember stuff. There is also a possible performance impact of using cascading templates. (E.g. en-cong5 calls en-conj-infl, en-conj-3rd, en-conj-part, en-conj-pp, and en-conj-past in the first example above.)

Prefixing the "en-" to the template name I think is important; others copy our templates to their language...having the en- prefix helps them do so, and contains the Template: namespace clutter to a single place. (There would result in about 30 templates total, by my estimate...but users would only have to remember "en-conj#" and the POS targets (infl, 3rd, part, pp, past.))

Also note the flexibility; when past and past participle are the same, they could be combined using the above technique ("p") or separated ("pp" and "past") when needed.

As a finalé, there could also be {{conj|cross|crosses|crossing|crossed}} that duplicates (or calls) en-conj4 for regular verbs and {{conj-irreg|arise|arises|arising|arose|arisen}} for "normal" irregulars.

Should I begin this experiment? --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:44, 8 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

In addition, in the cases where some customization is needed, the template:conj or template:conj-irrreg can be subst'ed, making the customization (e.g. for sting) that much easier.

All that said, my objections to the boxes may dissapear when the ugly (& painful) pink is gone. I think the boxes are very non-Wiktionary-ish but if the colors are less garrish, my objections will diminish. --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:59, 8 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Don't remove the "to" from the infinitive of verbs as you did on light. Ncik 20 May 2005

Why not? The verb is light, not to light. To light is the infinitive, but the verb itself is just light. RSvK 01:25, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "the verb itself". The infinitive is traditionally considered the "basic" form of the verb. We inflect the infinitive of a verb for syntactical purposes. That's why Wiktionary, like any other dictionary, gives the infinitive of verbs first, and then lists four other inflected forms of interest: 3rd person singular present tense, past tense, past participle, and present participle. This holds only for English entries, of course. Words from other languages might have other conventions (or none at all yet). Ncik 21 May 2005

By 'the verb itself', using the same example, I mean light. Light itself is the word we are defining, not the verb phrase to light. To light is a verb phrase which happens to be the infinitive form of the verb in English. Adding the extra word to is superfluous when defining light. It just adds more verbiage.

Wiktionary doesn't give the infinitive first--it gives first whatever form of the verb we happen to be defining. There can be separate entries for every form of the verb, like light, lighted, lights, lighting. The basic form of the verb (at least in English) could just as well be described as the present tense.

Please don't add unnecessary verbiage by attaching to to every single verb in Wiktionary. RSvK 01:51, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

The following was moved here from RFC --Stranger 00:43, 29 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

All pages containing the templates created by User:Wonderfool that contain equals signs used to create headers. These include Template:-fr- and Template:-adj-. Replace these with ==French== and ===Adjective=== respectively. These are bad and to be avoided because if you try to edit the section beginning with one of these, you end up editing the template instead. Wonderfool has been asked not to use these in future, and neither should anyone else.

Unfortunately there are rather a large number of pages that use them, so clean-up will take some time. Perhaps Wonderfool should be asked to do it. — Paul G 11:02, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• In the interim you can add the magic word __NOEDITSECTION__ to the templates in question so that you don't confuse users with the misleading section edit link. —Muke Tever 05:04, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• To be fair to User:Wonderfool, there are a lot of such bad templates at Wiktionary:Index to templates#Heading_templates, most of which are not xyr creation. I've listed them above. Uncle G 18:47, 5 May 2005 (UTC)Reply
• I could write a bot to fix this. Kevin Rector 19:29, 5 May 2005 (UTC)Reply
• This problem also exists in the Italian and French conjugation tables - they all have ===Conjugation=== in them. Removing this is no trouble but it affects the look of the articles containing them (which all need to have it added). SemperBlotto 19:38, 5 May 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • ===Conjugation=== removed from Italian templates. SemperBlotto 09:08, 26 May 2005 (UTC)Reply
• In Wonderfool's defense, these templates (especially the language templates) have mostly existed here longer than his user account, or mine, for that matter. I forget who, but one of the older contributors *really* liked to use {{-etym-}}. This does seem like a task better suited for a bot. --Connel MacKenzie 23:39, 5 May 2005 (UTC)Reply
  • Are you thinking of User:Blade Hirato (see User:Blade Hirato:II) ? Uncle G 23:44, 8 May 2005 (UTC)Reply
    • Ummm, I didn't see any point in naming names. Spilt milk and all that. Nor did I see any point in researching it. Does it matter? --Connel MacKenzie 00:03, 9 May 2005 (UTC)Reply

• Pff, bots. Humans can do it just fine; in fact, I found some of the entries quite interesting. I can't remember what I've done now, exactly, but I think I've depopulated {{-abbr-}}, {{-adv-}} and most of {{-noun-}}. I need sleep now, so I'll finish off the latter tomorrow, if no one does it before me. --Wytukaze 00:11, 9 May 2005 (UTC)Reply

Considering how many seem to be coming back, perhaps a 'bot is a better approach? --Connel MacKenzie 16:39, 17 August 2005 (UTC)Reply

This will need to be removed once we're done, and this is a good way to find all the remaining bad templates. --Wytukaze 10:01, 12 May 2005 (UTC)Reply

Hi, I've just change the Template:LanguageSection usage, but it still have some minor problem that, when editing the section it insert the incorrect comment (like /* Template:LanguageSection */) into the "Summary:" box. But is it ok?

BTW, why not also remove the section Wiktionary:Index_to_templates#Heading_language_templates from that page? -- Ans 12:16, 20 May 2005 (UTC)Reply

For the record, I fixed the "bad" templates and made RFD notes for sysops to delete the templates. The original list of templates MIGHT remain in the history of RFC, but I'm not that much of an expert. Cheers, --Stranger 00:43, 29 September 2005 (UTC)Reply

It does not appear that there are any templates in Wiktionary (though I've very likely missed them) akin to those in the Wikipedia for supporting citations (see Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles#Citations of generic sources). Is this by design? If not, would there be objection to bringing in a limited number of these templates from Wikipedia for use here? Thanks for the input. Ceyockey 23:18, 28 October 2005 (UTC)Reply

I have prepared a few templates of this sort in the format {{R:Xxxx}} for references and {{RQ:Xxxx}} for quotes. I have been trying ton integrate these with author links to Wikipedia for all of them, and quotation links to Wikisource when applicable.

There ought to be standard set of core Algonquian language grammatical tags be made available-- Gender:

• a - animate
• i - inanimate

Transitivity:

• t - transitive
• i - intransitive

Person:

• 0 - zeroeth singular
• 0p - zeroeth plural
• 1 - first person
• 1p - first person plural (exclusive)
• 21 - first person plural (inclusive)
• 2 - second person singular
• 2p - second person plural
• 3 - third person
• 3p - third person plural

Mode(?):

• d - dependent
• X - indeterminate
• ' - obviative

which together with the other grammatical tags found in other languages form combinations such as: vta 3>3' - verb, singular animate subject transitive to obviative animate object vii - verb, inanimate subject intransitive nid - noun, dependent inanimate pr21 - pronoun, animate first person plural (inclusive) CJLippert 18:09, 30 November 2005 (UTC)Reply

On the Index to templates page, I found the following. "Heading checks that don't cound "=" symbols..."

I suspect it's an error. Unfree 04:38, 6 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

Of course. Should be "count"; I've fixed it. Robert Ullmann 12:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

There isn't any way to use templates from Wikipedia simply, is there?

For example, if I wanted to use w:Template:Cquote on Wiktionary, am I right in thinking that there's no particularly quick way to do it i.e. {{w:Cquote}}?

Assuming there isn't, would my best options be to:

1. Import it into Wiktionary at Template:Cquote, using the source code copied and pasted from Wikipedia.
2. Or if I thought it wouldn't be useful for the whole community, do the same but at User:Drum guy/Cquote.
3. Copy and paste the source code from Wikipedia, and put that (raw) code into any articles that wanted it (with the text instead of {{{1}}} etc.).

?

I think I would copy it into a subpage from my user page, if those are my best options.

Many thanks, Drum guy 17:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

I would also like to know about WP templates. I came here looking for the template Template:t1... Can these be used? or do we have to manually copy them over here? -- IrishDragon 06:06, 18 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

A couple issues here: First and foremost, if you are new to Wiktionary, please do not assume that we need or want Wikipedia templates. 99% of the time that people try and copy Wikipedia templates over here, they end up deleted, as their function is done by another template, or we simply don't want that function done here. If you're looking for a template to do something, I strongly suggest that you post a note on the WT:GP and ask there. That way, regular Wiktionarians, who understand the issues peculiar to this project, can give feedback. Generally, if the template is considered worthwhile, we are more than happy to either create such a template or import it (and probably modify it) from Wikipedia. And yes, importing, using the "Import" function, an admin only feature, is distinctly the most appropriate way to get stuff from the 'pedia, yet another reason why it is best to bring up the issue at the WT:GP instead of simply doing it yourself. Hope that helps. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 06:14, 18 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

As for w:template:t1, it seems to be a redirect to w:template:tl; we use {{temp}} for that.—msh210℠ 06:31, 18 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

A handful of minor templates needed to keep the style consistent. There is some confusion as to whether "figurative" or "figuratively" should be used with word lemmas. Also need to have an "attributive" category (particularly for nouns used in adjectival position in N-N phrases, e.g., minority report. Perhaps both should be abbreviated to fig. and attrib., respectively, just like the OED style. The issue is not just creating a template, but placing it in the right place, perhaps running a bot to fix earlier tags, etc. I don't have capacity for this, at the moment. Besides, the form should be agreed upon. I believe, "figuratively" is just wrong and makes no sense in this context, but would prefer templates that insert styled abbreviations, which would make the point moot. Still, the reference is to figurative usage figurative expression, not "using figuratively", which is why the adverb makes no sense here.

Also, the templates for place of origin (in etymology) or marking of regionalisms (usage notes) are inadequate. The following are the most likely tags for origin: US, US South, US West (e.g., poker), New England (pre-revolutionary, e.g., lengthy), US New England (post-revolutionary, e.g., wicked), England, Scotland, Ireland, North England, Britain (incl. England, Scotland, Ireland, particularly for 18th and 19th centuries, e.g., chow-chow), Wales, UK (post-WWI, e.g., baby bump), Australia (e.g., yabby), New Zealand (e.g., Pavlova for dessert), Anglo-Indian (e.g., chutney, congee, pish-pash).

This is different from foreign borrowing that already have a template, e.g., dhal, ghee (India), napa, honcho, sushi, skivvy (Japan), bottarga, torrone (Italy), bacalao (Spain) or bacalhau (Portugal), Zeitgeist, Gestalt (Germany), nudnik, chutzpah {Yiddish) and bar mitzvah (Hebrew).

Another template that does not appear to exist is for calque, i.e., an expression that is translated literally, even though there is no corresponding expression in English prior to this adaptation, e.g., wet work (from Russian), caviar (from Russian, for chopped food items made from vegetables, not for the the traditional processed fish roe, e.g., eggplant caviar). -- Alex.deWitte 00:44, 23 October 2011 (UTC)Reply

I'll address your requests in reverse order. For calques, see {{calque}}. Marking regionalisms in usage notes is usually not necessary, as we do it in so-called context tags, and the relatively few occasions when it is necessary can use those context tags as

This sees chiefly {{US|sub=labelcat}} use.

which yields

This sees chiefly Template:US use.

and categorizes in in category:American English. If there's a specific regional context tag we're missing, please feel free to request its creation at ]. Regional etymon templates — and, even more importantly IMO, the corresponding categories — are a good idea; again, the GP would be the place to suggest this, since the present page is scarcely read. As to figuratively, I see you've suggested this elsewhere also and it's being dealt with, so I won't address it here.​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:31, 23 October 2011 (UTC)Reply

Thanks! I'll follow this up, as necessary. Alex.deWitte 21:08, 25 October 2011 (UTC)Reply

original Wiktionary Index

I am involved in adding Turkish language words to the English Wikipedia. I was trying to add all case forms for the first time to a word, but I am a little confused how to name the new templates needed. I stopped at serverimiz and do not know how to name the "first person singular plural possessive of" it, called "serverlerimiz". Actually, I once created a mess with categories, so I decided this time not to continue until I get help of a language expert.

Both words are for first-person plural possessive "bizim" (our), but the word server is also in the plural form (serverler). Should I call the template "first-person plural possessive plural of"? Thank you for your help!

By the way: The template I used for "serverimiz" reads first-person plural simple present possessive form of server, which is ambiguous in Turkish, as there are two simple present tenses (geniş zaman, şimdiki zaman). Sae1962 (talk) 09:19, 3 August 2012 (UTC)Reply