Template talk:context


 * See archived comments at Template talk:context/archive

Format suggestions for new label templates
Currently, the recommended wikitext for creating new context labels looks like this:

I think it would actually look nicer like this:

The first line contains the parts that are expected to be customized for each template, the second line contains the named pass-through parameters, and the third line contains the unnamed pass-through parameters. I'd probably do the regional tags like so:

Any thoughts? Mike Dillon 02:55, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * (edited Mike's comment to remove the "x" from sub|x, so it won't confuse people) Robert Ullmann 12:16, 24 October 2007 (UTC)


 * It would be nice to have these as templates, such as Template:new label, which can   for the label and is passed the category as its only parameter. (Something special would have to be done to avoid any of the other parameters from being evaluated upon creation.) Similarly another template for new regional labels would take the region adjective and default language. Do we need a template for parts of speech and modifiers? Why not. DAVilla 06:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Started Template:new label; seems to work OK with regular substitution (interestingly subst: and subst:msgnw yield the same outcome). I'm sure it's far from perfect, but it will at least be useful for poor schmucks like me who can never remember this stuff.  -- Visviva 06:34, 26 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes something like that. I'd like to keep all of the variants on the first line (e.g. the lang default), but that isn't critical (the python code that produces User:Robert Ullmann/Context labels depends on it being on the first line, but that is a SMOC ;-) and the separate line looks good. Breaking the second line (invariants) does look better, especially because it will pretty much always have a noinclude tag on the end. A "new label" template seems more trouble than it is worth; why not just copy and paste from the examples above? Robert Ullmann 14:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

US vs USA vs U.S. vs U.S.A.
I have no idea how any of the wiki-markup works, but I noticed on corn that one sense of the word says US while the other says U.S.A., with the latter apparently originating here. In my experience living here, it seems that it's always U.S. or USA rather than visa-versa, but regardless, one of the templates should be changed so the spellings agree with one another. (Amusing from a lexicographical perspective, given the spelling confusion in this country, that there would be confusion over how to abbreviate the very country's name. :-D) Globish 02:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, I feel silly. Maybe I was viewing a newer version of the source than the version I saw in my browser... It's been fixed either way. Sorry. Globish 02:26, 24 November 2007 (UTC)


 * There's a but no  -- an IP was adding  and I was converting to . Cynewulf 02:28, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

"context:language" seems to be broken
"context:language" seems to display empty parentheses, see the 2nd sense at drow. Language Lover 06:37, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Not entirely sure, but I think that template is used for calling up languages from SIL codes, not as context tag. You may want to leave a note with Robert Ullmann to double check this. I have changed the context tag on drow to linguistics, which seems to work. I don't know if this is the most appropriate tag for the sense; feel free to change it to something better if you can think of one. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 06:49, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, isn't a context template. I'm working out a sneaky way to solve a number of glitches, borrowing a method from DAVilla's older version of {context} (which there was hacked pretty badly ;-). Robert Ullmann 13:57, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


 * This should be fixed, but it may be a bit too much magic. Robert Ullmann 14:19, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Haywireness
I don't have the competence to fix this, but the last change seems to have caused the rendering of wikified non-template arguments (e.g. ) to go all screwy:. -- Visviva 13:31, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh dear, I thought I had gotten that case correct! Will fix. Should be okay now. Robert Ullmann 19:28, 20 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Wonderful, thanks. -- Visviva 23:48, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Multilingual
Should mul for lang= be ignored? --Ivan Štambuk 00:58, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Can you give varied examples of multilingual terms with a context so that their categorization can be examined? My guess is that excluding "en"/"English" where we would otherwise use the language to name categories makes it undesireable to categorize multilingual terms. DAVilla 07:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I can't remember exactly where, but when I posted this on some ==Translingual== entry I saw Category:mul:Something (i.e. lang=mul was used on context label), and it was not etymology related.
 * You're right, entries like Aves: so far don't have lang= at all so they're Translingual terms appearing in English topical categories, which doesn't seem quite all right.
 * Moreover, {infl} recently enforced categorization, so for {infl|mul|PoS} in the inflection line numerous categories like Category:Translingual symbols started appearing which look anomalous (every symbol is inherently translingual, these are not symbols in some Category:Translingual language [hey - this category contains something!], but symbols independent of any language)
 * My guess is the the current mismatch for translingual code mul in a number of templates, which is caused by the fact that the adjective translingual does not mean her "belonging to a specific language", is best to be handled by completely ignoring him everywhere, so that e.g. {zoology|lang=mul} should display (zoology) but not categorise. That's the approach that {etyl} uses from the beginning. --Ivan Štambuk 12:56, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think that mul should be ignored, but rather it should be a sort of kill switch, preventing any type of categorizing. Generally, translingual entries have been categorized into their own special cats, such as Category:Taxonomic names, and basically into no other categories (so, as Ivan notes, translingual entries derived from Ancient Greek do not go into Category:Ancient Greek derivations nor Category:mul:Ancient Greek derivations, the categorization is simply not done).  While this is admittedly imperfect, until a solution is presented, it seems like the best SOP.  -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 00:45, 8 June 2008 (UTC)


 * That's what I originally meant by "ignored", i.e. not-categorizing, just haven't expressed myself more clearly. I was referring to those that use lang=mul, and thought on those translingual terms terms that don't use lang=mul in context labels like an anomalous cases which should be fixed with lang=mul, which would then be covered with the above "don't categorize" scenario.
 * Now if someone who actually understands the code would make the bold edit.. --Ivan Štambuk 01:00, 8 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Wow. I didn't realize quite how complex a template this is.  It's beyond my capabilities.  -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 01:07, 8 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Why wouldn't we treat  like other language codes? mul-prefixed etymology categories are more useful than no category. In regards to symbols, not all of them are used widely, so they will not all be Translingual (see ¿). Topical categories certainly make sense such as Category:mul:Chess. --Bequw → τ 14:28, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Cases
I was wondering whether cases should be added into this. E.g. verbs that take the dative case one would simply write in the sense which takes the dative case and it would say (with dative) and even add a category like "Category:Latin verbs followed by the dative case". These are just suggestions, so please treat them accordingly. --BiT 02:14, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Qualifiers and usage labels
Category:Context labels has five, mostly exclusive, subcategories. This template only accommodates three of them.


 * Category:Grammatical context labels:, etc. [poscat=]
 * Category:Qualifier context labels:, etc. [qualifiercat=?]
 * Category:Regional context labels:, etc. [regcat=]
 * Category:Topical context labels:, etc. [topcat=]
 * Category:Usage context labels:, , etc. [usagecat=?]

Can support for the other two be added?

In the future I could also the benefit of splitting usage up into temporal (e.g., archaic), frequency (rare), taboo (vulgar), insult (offensive), slang (slang), style (informal), status (nonstandard) categories. —Michael Z. 2009-03-03 18:45 z 


 * The template {context} itself only needs 4 types, reflecting the category naming systems that the entries themselves are placed in. The categorization of the label templates themselves is a different thing entirely. {context} just makes a best guess on the label cat when it can. Labels to be themselves put in other cats can use, e.g.  . And that already allows for the labels themselves to be more finely categorised. Robert Ullmann 14:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)


 * So what change has to be made to, e.g., and  to remove them from category:Topical context labels? —Michael Z. 2009-03-04 16:39 z 


 * NZ should be a regional label (and not redirected to "New Zealand English", rather the other way 'round ;-) using regcat= and defaulting to English. {slang} should use, note that is in addition to  ,the latter is the category structure used for the entries, the first is the category for the template. (and lose the explicit category in both cases). ("slang" really ought to use POS-like categories, "French slang" and not "fr:slang", but that it a different matter!) Robert Ullmann 16:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I think I'm catching on. The instructions above are inadequate, and I think as a result there is a lot of category clean-up to do for these templates. —Michael Z. 2009-03-04 17:04 z 

Okay, I cleaned up a whole lot of these labels, removed a whack of them from the top-level category and replaced literal categories with tcat, etc.

I notice that many have both topcat= and tcat=Usage, some have other combinations (e.g. has regcat=US and tcat=Usage). I think these templates should automatically be placed in all the categories which apply based on these parameters, rather that overriding the others with tcat. I think this may work as expected, because tcat should only be necessary for grammatical, qualifier, and usage cats, which should be largely exclusive, while topcat and regcat can add their respective template categories. Is this possible?

Regcat
I've encountered a couple of problems in using regcat=. Regcat is intended to work with the form   , e.g. “American English.” I guess this is generalized so it will work with any language.


 * 1) Some names of dialects don't follow this form.  What's the best way to deal with these labels?  (Many of them incorrectly appear in category:Topical context labels due to the use of topcat=.)  Some of these could be used with regcat as-is, if their categories were renamed to accommodate this – which may also make them more self-explanatory: Chakavian Croatian, Cumbrian English, Bristolian English, London English, Northern English, etc.
 * 2) * Croatian
 * 3) ** [standardized]
 * 4) ** [standardized]
 * 5) * English
 * 6) ** [can't tell if this label refers to gay slang, Roma slang, or both] It represents both, a British argot adopted by one group from the other.
 * 7) ** [apparently used as both topical and regional dialect label, for both English and Italian – I suspect that it can be deleted altogether, or at least split into clear appropriate labels] converted to regional topic label, based on entries' content
 * 8) * Korean [now standardized]
 * 9) * Scots
 * 10) ** [should this be renamed Doric Scots, to disambiguate from Doric Greek?] Converted into a standard regional template, defaulting to lang=sco, but usable for Doric Greek, etc.
 * 11) Some of our category names don't follow the standard lexicographical names for dialects.  No other dictionary uses the following.
 * 12) * (there is no such dialect or orthographic convention; dictionaries use British English)
 * 13) * (British English)
 * 14) * (American English)
 * 15) Some restrict the term by both dialect and usage.
 * 16) Some by topic and usage
 * 17) No idea what these represent:
 * 18) * [rebuilt as pronunciation template, following ]
 * 1) ** [can't tell if this label refers to gay slang, Roma slang, or both] It represents both, a British argot adopted by one group from the other.
 * 2) ** [apparently used as both topical and regional dialect label, for both English and Italian – I suspect that it can be deleted altogether, or at least split into clear appropriate labels] converted to regional topic label, based on entries' content
 * 3) * Korean [now standardized]
 * 4) * Scots
 * 5) ** [should this be renamed Doric Scots, to disambiguate from Doric Greek?] Converted into a standard regional template, defaulting to lang=sco, but usable for Doric Greek, etc.
 * 6) Some of our category names don't follow the standard lexicographical names for dialects.  No other dictionary uses the following.
 * 7) * (there is no such dialect or orthographic convention; dictionaries use British English)
 * 8) * (British English)
 * 9) * (American English)
 * 10) Some restrict the term by both dialect and usage.
 * 11) Some by topic and usage
 * 12) No idea what these represent:
 * 13) * [rebuilt as pronunciation template, following ]
 * 1) ** [should this be renamed Doric Scots, to disambiguate from Doric Greek?] Converted into a standard regional template, defaulting to lang=sco, but usable for Doric Greek, etc.
 * 2) Some of our category names don't follow the standard lexicographical names for dialects.  No other dictionary uses the following.
 * 3) * (there is no such dialect or orthographic convention; dictionaries use British English)
 * 4) * (British English)
 * 5) * (American English)
 * 6) Some restrict the term by both dialect and usage.
 * 7) Some by topic and usage
 * 8) No idea what these represent:
 * 9) * [rebuilt as pronunciation template, following ]
 * 1) Some by topic and usage
 * 2) No idea what these represent:
 * 3) * [rebuilt as pronunciation template, following ]
 * 1) No idea what these represent:
 * 2) * [rebuilt as pronunciation template, following ]
 * 1) No idea what these represent:
 * 2) * [rebuilt as pronunciation template, following ]
 * 1) * [rebuilt as pronunciation template, following ]

I know I'm asking about a lot here. What's uncontroversial? Everything else I'll take to a broader forum. —Michael Z. 2009-03-06 07:56 z 


 * There should be no problem changing the Old Korean cats (Baekje, Balhae, Buyeo, Goguryeo and also Silla) to "X_Old Korean". Many of those entries also need to be cleaned up and/or deleted...  Anyway, I can do that batch right now. Done.  Job queue's moving fast tonight. -- 08:49, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. —Michael Z. 2009-03-06 22:14 z 
 * Looks to me like should not be using  or assigning a category at all, as it is just used to label transcriptions in pronunciation sections.  Likewise,  is just being used as a placeholder in the Translingual section of a couple of entries; it seems like a  rather than a context.  -- Visviva 08:25, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Lexicography
I think I understand grammatical labels pretty clearly as relating to the grammatical function of the term. Everything else I'm a little less clear on.

My main question on topical labels is at what point they apply. Everyone knows what a down payment is, but apparently it's also a legal term. It would be misleading to use that context because it's understood outside of the legal world, but it would be incorrect to omit the label if it has a specific legal definition. The problem is that the definition is the same in both cases, so there is only one definition line.

As to regions, how does this relate to the pronunciation section? I'm sure dialectical use must vary in both accent and word choice. Would we want to be able to use any regional label, ideally, to mark pronunciation?

I'd like to establish the "other" category a little more clearly as well. I see words like diction, formality, distance, politeness, authority, status. Which of these are perpendicular? Do they define axes or even a basis? That is, can all of the labels be understood by pinpointing them on each scale? Or if it's more categorical, then how does each label file? DAVilla 08:46, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Re the context template, I suggest down payment is an excellent example of when not to use it because
 * "down payment" is now used metaphorically in many contexts (as per the Obama quote example), and is no longer restricted to its finance or commerce origins, and
 * many terms in many fields (e.g. finance, commerce, employment, human rights and information technology), have specific "legal" definitions which only differ in detail from the generally understood meanings (as DAVilla suggests). Having a "legal" meaning does not in itself make it a term which is (mostly) only used in a legal context.


 * I suggest Usage notes for the template recommend it only be applied
 * for meanings which are (mostly) only relevant to or used in legal circles, e.g. legal jargon, like "tort", or
 * if the legal definition given differs from other meaning(s) given, e.g. "appeal".


 * If down payment were expanded with several context-specific examples added, such as an actual monetary purchase: "The full price was $200, so I made a down payment of $5 and will pay off the rest over ten months", would it be appropriate to add a context template to the Obama example? I don't think it would be appropriate to add a  one to the monetary meaning because that is the original literal no-context meaning. Comments?

-- Bricaniwi 15:13, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I've added a second sense supporting the Obama example, as an extension from the first sense. Obama's usage is, of course, not the traditional legal definition because neither the U.S. nor Afghanistan vests any legal rights or obligations in the act. bd2412 T 18:29, 7 December 2009 (UTC)


 * A good start to separate Obama's metaphorical usage from the (law) sense usage - it helps clarify what this discussion is about, thanks.


 * Can we get more comment please on the original point of this (law) sense being inappropriate on the first definition of down payment. The more I look at it, especially with another sense now added, the more I agree (law) should be removed (because this is the literal meaning) - (or maybe changed to (commerce) or (finance) (I don't know the full list) to indicate the origins?)


 * I still object strongly to the use of the (law) sense label for the first definition because it is misleading, it gives the impression that this is a legal definition of "down payment". Rightly or wrongly, some people come to Wiktionary for ammunition for disputes - there is no way we should be seen to be giving anyone legal advice by, apparently, giving a legal definition of what a down payment is.


 * The phrase "the right to continue making payments" (only a tiny possible part of any actual legal definition) may apply in some jurisdictions (and of course needs citation), but would always be qualified and balanced with vendors' rights, etc.


 * Context/sense labels indicate how a term is used in a special way in that context. The first definition of "down payment" is not special to the legal context - almost everyone would use it that way.  -- Bricaniwi 13:11, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I happen to be a lawyer. If I were a realtor, I'd probably think of the phrase as relating to realty. However, when I see "down payment", my first thought is of the legal rights that, by definition, accompany such an act. bd2412 T 16:59, 8 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Excellent examples, thanks. A few more examples maybe:
 * If I were a car dealer I'd be wanting a 50% down payment from any lawyer banker these days.
 * If I ran a furniture shop I'd advertise "no down payment and five years to pay!"
 * Builders only want a ten percent down payment because work is scarce.
 * No matter what the context, the sense of "down payment" is always buying and selling, i.e. (finance), even if it's used metaphorically, buying credibility or time or security.


 * If I was a lawyer, when I saw "surgical operation", my first thought would be of the legal rights that, by definition, accompany such an act.
 * If I was a lawyer, when I saw "school enrolment", my first thought would be of the legal rights that, by definition, accompany such an act.
 * If I was a lawyer, when I saw "peaceful protest", my first thought would be of the legal rights that, by definition, accompany such an act.
 * No matter what the context of any act, there are almost always legal rights that, by definition, accompany such an act. That does not give the definition of the act a (law) sense.


 * Meanwhile, back over on down payment I've just added a synonym, deposit, which is the more common British equivalent. The noun form of "deposit" has several senses, the appropriate one being already labelled (finance). -- Bricaniwi 22:35, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree. Although I have a legal right to have a surgical operation performed with reasonable care, the phrase "surgical operation" implies no legal consequence in and of itself. The phrases that carry those consequences would be duty of care, negligence, and medical malpractice. A down payment, on the other hand, is itself a legal act. I can pay some portion of money for something up front without it qualifying as a "down payment". It is the invocation of the phrase in connection with that payment which signifies that the money having been advanced, the recipient is forbidden to sell the property to someone else so long as I continue making timely payments per the governing agreement. bd2412 T 04:24, 9 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I've looked back to the top of this page. It says "only used in a restricted context, as described in Context labels." There it says "only used in a restricted context, as described in Entry Layout Explained." ELE says ... only applies in a restricted context ...or is used only by specialists in a particular field and not by the general population."


 * You agree above that realtors would use the phrase "down payment" in their context too. I've given examples of it being used in other contexts too.


 * Yes, I understand that using the term in connection with a purchase has legal consequences (probably in most jurisdictions), so I agree the term does have specialised legal definitions (probably different specific legal definitions and consequences in each jurisdiction, and even in each industry), but those are in addition to its everyday usage by the general population.


 * I suggest that because "down payment" is used (even if in a legally sloppy or incorrect way) by the general population in many contexts, it does not qualify as being used only in a restricted context or only by specialists.


 * (I'm going travelling so may not be able to get back here for a while) -- Bricaniwi 00:17, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Then it would behoove us, I think, to include both definitions with a context tag for the legal sense, so people will understand that putting the phrase "down payment" in a contract, for example, imposes enforceable obligations on them beyond the mere niceties of society. bd2412 T 03:35, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Categorisation
I've been trying to sub-categorize these templates to make them more findable, the problem is any template based on is always categorized under Category:Topical context labels. If someone can remove this, then we can sort these into smaller categories. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:16, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Allowing a script prefix
To accomodate the new Chinese category naming scheme I wanted to propose another context parameter. Basically if some passed in  the entry would be additionally categorized under [ [Category: in Pinyin script]]. This is what the change would look here (there'd be similar edits to the other types of categories such as grammatical). Context label templates would also have to be editted to pass along the parameter. This change could be useful to other languages that write in multiple scripts. Does this look fine? Does anyone think we should somehow use script codes instead of plain text? --Bequw → τ 16:12, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Put in place here. I've updated to pass through the script and script2 parameters. One can now type  and it will put the page into nan:Religion and nan:Religion in simplified script. How does that look? --Bequw → τ 21:39, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I hadn't realized that this had been changed until now. It looks fine accept for one thing.  The sort categories are not working.  I have filled in the template in the 玉皇 entry to illustrate what I think is needed.  The skey goes with script, and skey2 goes with script2.  That way, I can specify the preferred sort mechanism for each script.  Ideally, traditional script should be sorted according to radical/stroke order, whereas simplified should be sorted according to pinyin/tone order.  Thanks for your help with this.  -- A-cai 13:08, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

football distorted into "soccer"
On Talk:goalhanger the valid objection has been raised that this template, when taking football as parameter, distorts it into soccer and no trace of football remains (except the Category:Football (Soccer) at the bottom of the entry). Therefore I plead for rectifying the visualisation of the parameter in consistence with the individual taste of the creator of the entry. In the case of goalhanger, that was SemperBlotto who has put football as parameter. I sincerely hope that such clumsy, albeit justified edits provoked by the current modus operandi of the parameter football can be averted in the future by abolishing the oh-so-USA-centric visualisation of the parameter (as the IP's expression is). The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 13:43, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I plead for consistency across entries (our entries are much smaller than WP articles). As for the "distortion", the redirect (which are common for context tags) is because "football" is too polysemous (cf Football (word)). It is sad people get angry viewing this a some sort of regional attack when really it's about specificity. --Bequw → τ 14:54, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Please take a closer look at the well formatted section football. You will notice that all senses except three have regional application. Two of those three are derived from the corresponding sense in that region. The first meaning which is synonymous with association football is applied outside North America. Some other meanings are current in Éire and Australia. Thence, this word does correspond unambiguously to association football everywhere except in North America, Australia and Éire, whereas soccer is a shortening and alteration of association football and barely 100 years might have elapsed since its concoction - even the voluminous Webster's Unabridged Dictionary from 1913 contains no entry for it. On the other hand, every imaginable language has loaned the word for that game from football and none has loaned it from soccer. Therefore, it is the internationally recognised designation of the game. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 15:57, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm confused by your counting. There are currently (and were) four non-regional senses (#7,#8,#9, #11, though this last one is probably US-only). "Non-North American" is, of course, also a regional qualifier. Why does it matter that some (2?) of those are derived from regional senses?
 * Re "this word does correspond unambiguously to association football everywhere except in North America, Australia and Éire", right, so apart from the majority of native-English speakers, it's unambiguous. Wait, who's side are you on:-? soccer is completely unambiguous.
 * History-wise, it is unimportant how long a term has been used. Webster probably didn't have "soccer" since it wasn't coined in the US (but in Cambridge, UK).
 * Foreign language adoption is irrelevant as this is the English Wiktionary. The other wiktionaries can use their translation of the word "football" as the standard on those sites. But just to nit-pick an error about no "soccer" adoption, see sokker.
 * --Bequw → τ 17:26, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I mentioned the two derived senses in order to point out that they do not matter and in order to focus on the primordial ones.
 * What is your aim when asking me whose side are you on? I simply adhære to the variety of English spoken on my continent and when other people tend to præfer this variety, they should be able to do so, not for the sake of this variety, but of the æquality of the two main varieties, as Wiktionary præsumably does not indorse either of them (with the exception of the modus operandi of this template with the parameter football). Furthermore, the population of the Commonwealth is 1 921 million people and even if the populations of Éire, Australia and Canada were subtracted, this would still repræsent the majority.
 * Your point regarding sokker is noted, but that is a negligible exception compared to the rest of thousands of languages on our planet. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 19:02, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * A reader is still left with ambiguity.
 * My phrase was a mild jest in that you appeared to be proving my point. As for population figures, I said "native" language rather than "governmental" or "subsidiary official" (which is the case for the vast majority of the citizens in the Commonwealth). But that's probably not a healthy argument to go down anyways.
 * A primal goal of Wiktionary is to provide obvious, clear information. That's why we use "US" rather than "America(n)" even though the latter is more common in the USA (is that anti-US-centrism?). Text in definition lines has more latitude, so if a user wants to write "football (soccer)" or "soccer" or "association football" it's OK. We are more constrained, however, in the context tags (parens look bad, we want to be concise, we only link rare words, we want to be obvious, etc.). If you would like to promote the creation of a customization system to tailor each entry to a particular users' variety of English, be my guest. But that is quite a task and should be prioritized below being clear. --Bequw → τ 21:46, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Helper templates
Do the numbered helper templates ( to ) still need to be kept in sync with the updates to the main template? They're currently pretty out-of-date. --Bequw → τ 03:48, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

wrong language template
On page Հայք something like has been used, which in effect transcludes template , not apropriate in this context. I came across it, because I had used tranclusion list of to identify English entries. I believe it's a bug in the context template. Using or  alone doesn't transclude  template. Olaf (talk) 20:56, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Calling  should produce identical results as calling  .  However, the former does not call, and the latter does.  Anyone can test this by adding   to a page, clicking Preview, and checking the list of called templates at the bottom of the editing page, and then replacing this code with   and previewing again.   is absent during the first preview, but appears in the list on the second preview.
 * This is clearly a bug in . -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ <small style="position: relative; top: -3px;">Tala við mig 22:10, 25 July 2012 (UTC)


 * This is not a "bug", because it's not a problem. is not intended as a mechanism for identifying English entries. But if anyone is curious — this occurs because  checks to see if its argument is an existent template, and if so, it transcludes it to determine if it's a context template (by transcluding it with and without <tt>sub=</tt>, looking for a difference). —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 23:13, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * That seems like a lot of server processing for what could effectively be one big <tt>select</tt> statement. Given how much talk I've seen on the boards about reducing server processing, am I wrong in thinking that this kind of avoidable complexity might be something to target for an overhaul?  -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ <small style="position: relative; top: -3px;">Tala við mig 01:13, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
 * That is much more efficient than one big <tt>select</tt> statement. But yes, this is one of the many reasons I wanted to revamp a few months back . . . which I still plan to do at some point. —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 01:33, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, not a problem... All right, so what is this correct mechanism for identifying programmaticaly all English entries in English Wiktionary? You can't for example get members of Category:English language tree, because it contains Category:English etymologies, which contains Category:Terms derived from English, which contains words in any possible language. Template:en seems to be less buggy although not perfect source of English entries list. I understand, that Wiktionary is mainly for people, not for bots, but it doesn't mean it should have no proper way of fetching all entries in a particular language. I have been using en-wikt for three years to verify and create new English entries in Polish Wiktionary using my bot, but still I keep coming across English wiktionary quirks, I was not aware of. Olaf (talk) 00:25, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
 * The best way is to scan the XML dump for pages with <tt>&lt;ns&gt;0&lt;/ns&gt;</tt> (meaning they're mainspace entries) and <tt>==English==</tt> (meaning they have an English section at header-level #2). —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 03:17, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Probably some other variations must be included as well, like <tt>== English ==</tt>. Thank you for the idea, I will try it. Olaf (talk) 07:32, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Blasphemous terms
What about adding "blasphemous" to the list of contexts?--Dixtosa-wikified me 14:18, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Blasphemous to who? 16:24, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * To God.--Dixtosa-wikified me 16:31, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * What is blasphemous is inherently subjective. For example, I do not believe in any gods, so to me, there are no blasphemous terms. And since we try to follow a neutral point of view on Wiktionary, we can't do that. 16:34, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Man, as per your logic, any other context labels are too subjective: some think the F word to be vulgar but to some it is not at all and they are free to use it. Nor is it disputed that OMFG is blasphemous.--Dixtosa-wikified me 16:42, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * There are most likely people who consider the English language as a whole to be blasphemous. How would you cope with that? 16:51, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I would think of each word objectively . And yeah, it is possilbe. Here's the formula: if a term is offensive (and we do have this - implying that offensiveness is not subjective, otherwise we would have this template, would we?) to God (I do not think it is too hard to figure out which is an addressee in a phrase/word)--Dixtosa-wikified me 17:07, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * But we first would have to define God to define what is offensive to God. And that would also be a POV, so we can't do that. Furthermore, people can consider a term blasphemous even though their religion has no God, but many gods, or even none at all. 17:14, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * But we first would have to define God to define what is offensive to God. And that would also be a POV, so we can't do that. Furthermore, people can consider a term blasphemous even though their religion has no God, but many gods, or even none at all. 17:14, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

broken
The template has been broken and doesn't work as it used to. E.g.

generates:
 * (Croatiawith genitive)

instead of:
 * (Croatia, with genitive)

--Ivan Štambuk (talk) 12:26, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
 * CodeCat's rewriting the template and hopefully she will have fixed any and all bugs by the time she's finished. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:30, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Most of it should be fixed now. Please let me know if there are any more problems. 12:39, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

doesn't work anymore - no italicization and no parentheses. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:28, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * That's by design, you should always use now.  should work.  16:02, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Why exactly is not possible anymore to invoke in context labels themselves? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:03, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Because in order for things like to work, a template has to be able to call itself, which is not possible. In the past we solved that by basically creating ten copies of  and having each copy call the "next" but that was a real problem to maintain. That recursion is now gone, thankfully, but it comes at the "cost" of not being able to use the labels directly.  18:22, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * There's also more at Beer parlour/2013/June and Beer parlour/2013/June. 18:24, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I thought that was being added explicitly by bots in order to orphan some of the auxiliary templates, so that the internal logic could be rewritten (for performance or whatever), but it appears that the behavior of all context labels is being changed as well.
 * Yes the old way required some tricks to work but it simplified usage by omitting a needless template invocation. So what if it was a nightmare to maintain? It 1) worked 2) affected much less editors (the few maintaining the template, as opposed to hundreds using it). It is always justified to reduce the complexity of an interface affecting the end-user at the expense of the developer maintaining the back end. I understand why this is being done, but it nevertheless strikes me as bad engineering. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:22, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

What does the "lang" parametre accomplish?
I fail to find that in the doc. And trying to search this discussion page for "lang" is a bit overwhelming, as there are so many occurrences, including those for "slang". --Jerome Potts (talk) 19:06, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * It categorises by language. But I think we're transitioning to using in place of  anyway. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 19:13, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Which also doesn't document its language parameter.
 * That might be because the template doesn't have any such named <tt>lang</tt> or <tt>language</tt> parameter.  Right in the <tt>==Usage==</tt> section, the  documentation does clearly state that:

<blockquote style="margin-left:4em;margin-right:4em;padding:4px;border:solid gray 1px;>The first parameter is the language code (e.g.  for English); see WT:LANGLIST for the full list.
 * Note that the first parameter for the template is unnamed -- so the format would be .  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 19:35, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

RFDO discussion: February–May 2017
Discontinued template replaced by Template:lb. It is not used in main namespace anymore. –dMoberg 19:33, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Delete or redirect, but there are a few usages in the mainspace today. — (((Romanophile))) ♞ (contributions) 05:56, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
 * RFDO failed. All mainspace uses have been converted, and I think I fixed all the references to it in our help material as well. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 22:15, 9 May 2017 (UTC)