Template talk:neuter singular of

RFD discussion: August 2016–December 2020
Okay, so I'm doing this in lieu of User:Embryomystic. He may have gotten tired or something, or didn't check his talk page yet. He stopped editing today about 15 minutes after I messaged him about this.

Please forgive me, I'm not trying to be mean, just being honest with you, but it pains me to see a user removing a template that I've been using for quite some time and changing it to another with all the pages he/she can find. The user is an experienced user, so I understand he/she may have a valuable reason for this. However, I think before a user starts doing this, they should bring it up here or somewhere similar first, which is what I'm doing now.

Embryomystic seems to have some reason why he/she doesn't like the neuter of and neuter singular of templates, and is replacing them with Template:inflection of, along with the parameters n and s. Although I don't agree that Template:neuter singular of should be deleted, I am going to bring it up here so that this can get resolved and so that, if the community decides the template should be deleted, then we can run a bot through and have it change all the templates for us (or whatever other consensus decision we come up with) rather than having one user do it all manually. Philmonte101 (talk) 09:40, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. I personally disagree that Template:neuter singular of should be deleted, since it seems to be literally no different at all from what Template:inflection of does. I feel like a lot of people here care a whole lot about the inner code formatting of entries, such as which template which does exactly the same thing should we use?, and will change it even when there's an intricate detail that they don't like. Personally, I never felt this way. The formatting is of very minor importance to me. It is of course important to some degree, as you don't want a bogged together entry with no spacing, even though it looks exactly the same on the outside as it would if there were spaces. But I'm just more focused on what's on the outside, what people who come here to read the dictionary to get linguistic knowledge, come to see. Most regular everyday lurkers probably could care less which template is being used, and honestly probably wouldn't even understand wiki templates at all.


 * However, that's not my only reason that I want to keep this. Another is that Template:neuter of and Template:neuter singular of are easier for people to use than Template:inflection of. I see inflection of as a template to be used for inflections of verbs or nouns that have to be explained in many words. That's where it gets convenient; so users don't have to type all of that out, so it makes it shorter. But in this case, it actually makes it longer. People actually have to type out "inflection of|n|s|[...]". This also implies that newcomers will have to have the same template knowledge as users who've been here 7 years like Embryo, and when they try entering, then they will be disappointed that it isn't so simple. Sure, I have no problem with people using "inflection of" when they create neuter inflection entries, since that just seems like a personal preference thing, and like I said I care about the formatting of the code to some degree, but it's not all that important, especially not as important as some here make it out to be. After all, the three templates all do exactly the same thing, so it makes no difference. Philmonte101 (talk) 09:40, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Embryomystic has a habit of editing everyone's entries, not only yours. Some edits are good, others are totally pointless. So it's not only you that's on the receiving end. DonnanZ (talk) 18:01, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Indeed, Embryomystic very often changes more specific form-of templates to inflection of. I'm not terribly fond of that, but I figure it's not worth arguing about, so I let him do as he pleases, even while I myself continue to use the more specific templates. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:05, 18 August 2016 (UTC)


 * Kept by default. Widely used and reasonably useful Kilo Lima Mike (talk) 20:59, 23 December 2020 (UTC)