User talk:EncycloPetey/Archive 1

Retroactive welcome
(added so I can find this text when I need it)

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to Wiktionary. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:
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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wiktionarian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk (discussion) and vote pages using four tildes, like this: &#126;&#126;&#126;&#126;, which automatically produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the beer parlour or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! --EncycloPetey 00:23, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for experimenting with Wiktionary. Your test worked, and has now been removed. Please use Sandbox for any other tests you want to do, since testing material in articles will normally be removed quickly. Please see the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our dictionary. Thanks. --EncycloPetey 19:16, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Heraldic azure
Hi. I was actually coming back to edit that. The terms were correct, however the sense in which they were used was not and it should not have been capitalized in Serbian. --Dijan 09:10, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I made the corrections on the page. The Croatian term was the one that was not used correctly, while the Serbian one was used correctly, but the capitalization was off.  I also added Bosnian. --Dijan 09:17, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The word "plavo" is used for nouns of neuter gender. All names of colors are considered adjectives in Serbian, Bosnian, and Croatian.  They can never be nouns, however they can be used in the English noun sense, but only if followed by the word "boja" (color) or if "boja" is implied.  "Boja" is a feminine word, so if it is implied the adjective for azure must be in the feminine form "plava".  :)    --Dijan 09:25, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh, and the only reason I marked the adjective form as feminine is to indicate that in that sense the term is feminine. --Dijan 09:29, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

About argent
If you are using the word argent in the sense of a noun, then the word "srebro" is correct. However, if you are using it as an adjective, then the correct term is "srebrna". Same goes for Bosnian and Serbian. --Dijan 09:38, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh, I would love to help. :)  --Dijan 09:41, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

alternative spellings
Hi there. We like each spelling to have its own entry - see fossilisation for one way of doing this. SemperBlotto 12:30, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

There's a discussion in the Beer Parlour (alternative spelling of..) - but we haven't got a firm style guide for it yet. I sometimes put #(mostly British) or whatever. It is a bit of an ongoing problem - see theatre / theater or color / colour for the mad way of doing it. SemperBlotto 12:40, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Mis-translations
Sorry about the mis-translations. --Dijan 12:32, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks. You seem to be that way too. :) --Dijan 23:30, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Word of the day
Hey! Thanks for your contributions! Your Word of the Day suggestions were great. If you would like to support WOTD some more, you can put the word of the day template on your homepage and tell people about it on wiktionary.

Please do not hesitate to write in a few more suggestions whenever you run across them. Iamnotanorange 21:30, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

pericarp
Hiya. Would you please restore the citation in pericarp? I know it is not being used in the strictly botanical sense, but the use is simply a poetic extension which compares the surrounding skin of a clitoris to the surrounding flesh of a ripe fruit. It is quite right that creative writers use words metaphorically and that should not require a new definition each time. One of the things I am trying to do is add quotes which show how ‘scientific’ or ‘technical’ words can be used creatively by good writers. Perhaps you would feel happier if we could find a more orthodox citation to go with it? Widsith 10:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your quick reply. I realise the quote had been commented; I just didn't want to revert your changes without mentioning it to you.  I have restored the citation.  As I said above, the word is simply being used metaphorically - that doesn't mean it needs a separate definition.  I do agree however that the entry would be even better with a stricter botanical def to accompany it. Widsith 11:07, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikification of languages
You must not dewikify all languages in the translations section. While it is custom to have the "familiar" ones dewikified, less known ones should link. &mdash; Vildricianus 19:01, 8 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Is this policy? I would argue that the choice should be consistently made to either have them all linked or none linked. Otherwise, people will be constantly confused and wikifying and dewikifying per their own volition. Personally, I find that linked languages distract from the words in the translation tables, and would rather see none of the languages linked. --EncycloPetey 10:01, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


 * They are not all linked because this puts an unnecessary load on the server (especially for pages with many translations). They are not all unlinked because users might want to look up the lesser-known ones.  The policy is to link only these lesser-known languages.  See Entry layout explained - Translations for more information. &mdash; Paul G 11:27, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that it's inconsistent. I'm working on a policy trying to solve this problem. &mdash; Vildricianus 17:40, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

chamaeleon
Hi,

I've made a number of changes to the page for "chamaeleon" that you posted. Please note that:


 * Alternative spellings are simply redirected to the more common spelling rather than copied in full, so that we don't end up with unnecessary duplication and pages becoming out of synch with one another.
 * Translations in the English wiktionary are given for English entries only. I've moved the Greek translation of the Latin word to the English page for "chameleon".

Thanks. &mdash; Paul G 11:15, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


 * PS: note that the this policy on alternative spellings only applies where there is a universally used most common spelling; it does not apply to variations such as "color"/"colour", where one spelling is "correct" and the other "incorrect" in different parts of the world. &mdash; Paul G 11:18, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Is there a standard format for Latin entries that has been agreed upon? I notice you've made minor formatting changes, and since I'm adding a number of Latin words lately (through work on the constellations), I'd like to be working consistently. Up to now, I've been doing mostly nouns, but I need now to enter a verb, and don't have a style page to refer to for that. --EncycloPetey 11:33, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Arabic
Hiya. Whoops, force of habit while I was fiddling around with the Arabic etymologies. I'll stick the Cats back in. Widsith 11:51, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Reverts
I think they're ok now, I had server issues earlier, anyway I think the vandal is still active. Jonathan Webley 14:22, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Bible
Indeed, I was aware of that issue, which is why I paused to rethink the template. I'm going to revise all the entries and leave out any numbering, which is Wikipedia's task to handle. Perhaps I should have warned Jonathan before he went on with it. Thanks for the advice, though. Cheers. &mdash; Vildricianus 08:02, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Not a separate page == ==

''There is already a page Wiktionary:Requested articles:English doin this job, so why do we need this page as well. Please see if you can reasonably just put these words into that list, then delete this page.--Richardb 00:53, 25 March 2006 (UTC)''

This is not a separate page, but the embedded short version that shows up at the top of "Recent Changes". It appears nowhere on its own and is merely a short list reminder for people who might not be willing to take the time to sift through the blue links on the full page. Since I have begun updating this list, I've noticed an increased interest in the Requested articles list, so it's helping, not hindering. --EncycloPetey 01:13, 25 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the info. I've added that list to Cleanup and deletion elements--Richardb 04:09, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

WOTD audio
This was already on my list to do, but I'd been putting it off a bit. Thanks for the nudge. I think we now have audio from today through the part of April that's been determined, so far. I'll try to keep an eye on this, but my contributions, while numerous, are by nature haphazard, and eventually all articles should have audio. Please remind me if we're getting near the end of where I've done audio. --Dvortygirl 19:51, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the heads-up. I think you'll find the current batch done as of just now, except for mallemaroking, which I've never heard and can't find a pronunciation of anywhere. --Dvortygirl 03:57, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

User:Wikigregg
Thanks for the heads up, I am talking to Connel and friends about this, apparently it has been discussed before (I don't know when or where) and with some proper formatting some people think it is useful. I am inclined to call it a translation and subject it to those standards (no ISO code, no entry) but if you feel strongly one way or another the beer parlour should hear about it. - TheDaveRoss 06:02, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, the IRC conversation is lively, but none of us can track down the last conversation. It should be raised again on the Beer Parlour.  --Connel MacKenzie T C 06:30, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

náive?
We are missing so many! - TheDaveRoss 05:50, 1 April 2006 (UTC) ;)

Isnt it spelled Naïve? Thats almost as bad as a sign in a Target in Watsonville California that actaully Says Los Bános instead of los Baños! Qrc2006 23:28, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Hint
chasten, chastens - they might be red links, but you are allowed to add them SemperBlotto 10:11, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Already had them down -- was just considering other means of expansion. --EncycloPetey 10:12, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I've arbitrarily adjusted the rules, and removed chastened as it didn't retain the apostrophe. Cheers. SemperBlotto 10:54, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

No language
No, it didn't. Look at the previous version, it'd always be "April". I've reverted. &mdash; Vildricianus 11:45, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't know either. Either Connel will need to solve it or we'll need to subst: it each time. &mdash; Vildricianus 12:35, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
 * You can check User talk:Connel MacKenzie if you want to know how it works. It'll have to be subst:'ed from now on. Cheers. &mdash; Vildricianus 08:18, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Easter competition
Nice comeback! Hope you didn't mind my jumping on your earlier entry! Widsith 07:14, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The rules specifically allowed for it, so complaining wouldn't do any good, would it? ;) --EncycloPetey 11:27, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

That anon edit
I think I agree with the anon IP. Spaces after the colon make wikilinks much easier to read, and do not break anything. --Connel MacKenzie T C 02:00, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


 * They may not break anything now, but the spaces do insert additional characters within links (both internal templates and interwiki). This is a dangerous thing to do if the wiki norms change at a later date. There are already some situations where the insertion of a space affects the display, such is in the alphabetical order of category pages. --EncycloPetey 02:03, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

za
I don't think "za" is allowed in Scrabble yet. It is not in SOWPODS, the current official list.

What is your source? Is it the Collins list that was published a year or so ago? Despite calling itself "official", it is not.

It is expected that a new list based on Collins Dictionary will be published soon, but as far as I am aware, this is not out yet.

&mdash; Paul G 09:23, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah, I've just read the third footnote at Appendix:Official_Scrabble_2-letter_words. Ignore my comments above. &mdash; Paul G 09:25, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Messier numbers
Hi there. I have added Messier catalogue and Messier object, and I see that you have added a few of the individual Messier numbers. Do you have plans for all the others? This seems a reasonable little project. SemperBlotto 10:11, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Talk:mallemaroking
Hi. I only just now noticed your comment on my talk page (I've no idea how this happened). I'll have a go at some research and your requested translation. Cheers. &mdash; Vildricianus 11:16, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Done. &mdash; Vildricianus 19:24, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

carles wæn
I'm not entirely sure exactly what the Anglo-Saxons meant by carles wæn – whether it was the asterism we now know as Charles's Wain, or the whole constellation. I'll leave it as you've defined it now anyway – I'll see if I can find anywhere to check it! Widsith 09:56, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
 * As we define Ursa Major, it applies to a large region of the sky defined geometrically, and including regions without obvious stars. It is unlikely in the extreme that the Anglo-Saxons used anything like that definition, since the modern definition is less than 100 years old. Prior to that time, everyone used asterisms, though they would have been called constellations. Most of the astronomers and astronomy textbooks distinguish between the septentrion and the whole of Ursa Major, and I've always been led to believe that its the septentrion that looks like a cart in outline and so bears the name of Charles' Wain. --EncycloPetey 10:01, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, OK. You convinced me. Widsith 10:09, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Content not in English
Hi there,

I see you found that cobaya had been written in Spanish. You might not already known that there is a template for marking entries that are not written in English, namely. Adding this template to the page lists it under the Category "Pages needing translation into English ", where is the current month, making them easy to find and correct. &mdash; Paul G 13:55, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 * --Not necessary -- I translated the page. --EncycloPetey 07:54, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing my mistakes
So quick! I forgot that redirects were not prefered at Wiktionary, and within a few minutes, you'd fixed them un real nice. Well done! (I normally work as w:User:JesseW on Wikipedia, so I'd forgotten about Wiktionary's dislike of redirects. The entries are much nicer now.) 66.81.16.249 09:39, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

catchword
Thanks for your edit. I was having trouble determining how to accomplish the proper format to fit the Wiktionary style.

Pce3@ij.net 10:08, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Sure thing. We get a lot of new people around here who don't always know the usual conventions. I always like to see useful additions, and do what I can to make sure they look right too. --EncycloPetey 10:11, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Fancy being a sysop?
Hi 'Petey, I know we've got quite a fair few admins at the moment, but you seem perfectly qualified to be one too, as you're willing to tackle vandalism. I'm not going to be around much in the next few months, with exams looming (I assume other admins have exams coming up too, but I'm not sure how many school and uni students have the sysyop buttons). If you like, I will nominate you for sysophood. After all admins are spoilsports by nature, and you see to fit the bill! --Dangherous 14:00, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Wiktionary:project-wanted articles
I've been checking each definition before I removed them, or, if I created the entry, I would have someone on #wiktionary check it. Now that Wiktionary is growing and becoming rather large, if the words were left up there for a day after they were created the thing would be half bluelinks (and they'd mostly be things ending with ing and ed and the redlinks would be some non-English words, which defeats the whole purpose of the templates- to encourage new users to create articles). -- Rory 096   18:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The community disagrees. If you would like to change current policy, please propose the change to current practice in the Beer Parlour before implementing it. --EncycloPetey 06:59, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

obsess
I'm pretty sure this has a transitive meaning as well. This is from the online version of the Compact Oxford - • verb 1 (usu. be obsessed) fill the mind of (someone) continually and disturbingly. 2 informal, chiefly N. Amer. be preoccupied in this way.

— ORIGIN originally in the sense haunt, possess, referring to an evil spirit: from Latin obsidere ‘besiege’. SemperBlotto 07:26, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I still don't see in this how a direct object could be used. Can you provide an example with a direct object? --EncycloPetey 07:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * That first sight of her obsessed my thoughts all day. SemperBlotto 07:29, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

From Google Books - The Creative Process: Reflections on Invention Arts & Sciences p 58 - ... obsessed my nervously excited gaze. SemperBlotto 07:33, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah! OK. The Random House dictionary (which I just cross-checked) agress that this can be a transitive verb. I just had trouble figuring out how to get this to work. --EncycloPetey 07:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Plurals and see also == ==

Are you proposing that we link plurals and inflected forms at the top of the page now? Up to this point, I've only seen that done with variants in terms of capitalization and diacriticals. Inflected forms tens to be linked in definitions or templates. -- 128.32.154.69 10:18, 21 April 2006 (UTC) EncycloPetey 10:19, 21 April 2006 (UTC) sorry, the site didn't get my user info for some reason

Only in the case of disambiguation, such as in cobblers--Richardb 10:20, 21 April 2006 (UTC) Where cobbler and cobblers have two very different meanings.


 * So then, you would propose doing this for pant/pants scissor/scissors crap/craps and such? I think this might be better relegated to a "See also" at the bottom of the page, since it is linking to a morphologically distinct form. --EncycloPetey 10:26, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Strongly disagree. Disambiguations belong right at the top of the page.--Richardb 10:32, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I would completely agree if this were Wikipedia, but here it gets complicated. Do you think this should be done in all the languages where disambiguation might be a problem? What will this make the top of some pages look like? How will users know what language is meant? --EncycloPetey 10:34, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * if someone unfamiliar with English sees some phrase such as "I kicked the big guy in the cobblers", and looks up cobbler, why would they waste their time reading all the stuff about cobbler, only to find right at the bottom that there is another similar word cobblers which is where the stuff they really want is available.


 * If someone is really that unfamiliar with English, then why would they look up cobbler if the word in the text is cobblers? --EncycloPetey 10:39, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by "that unfamiliar with English". There must be millions of people who would first assume "cobblers" is the plural of "cobbler". I would suspect less tan 1% of people with English as a second language would recognise that "cobblers" was a distinct word.--Richardb 10:44, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with how it looks in Wikipedia. As to how the page "looks". Personally I think the pages already looking a disgusting mess with all the etymology and pronunciation "crap" (I am not a linguist, just a user of dictionaries for finding spellings and meanings) before we get to the real stuff, the definitions. Never mind a million transaltions before you get to the useful stuff of finding a pointer to the page you really want.

My guess is we could formulate some sort of policy for this, so that only a few pages get much in the way of disambiguation stuff at the top. And we could easily put language in brackets after the word. Or, more probably, the dismbiguation could come just after the language heading.--Richardb 10:44, 21 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I could go for disambiguation just after the language heading for differing forms like this -- much more than for cluttering them at the top of the page, which I would reserve for listings of capitalization differences and diacritics (which can be difficult to type). --128.32.154.69 10:47, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

See Wiktionary talk:Disambiguation in layout - Policy Think Tank

Welcoming templates
Hi. We also have for welcoming IPs (which you can also "subst:"). It's particularly useful as it categorizes these talk pages by date. Parameter 1 can be your signature. Cheers. &mdash; Vildricianus 11:17, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

nolanguage
Please "subst:" this one and, otherwise it won't work. That goes like  . Cheers. &mdash; Vildricianus 11:46, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

spanish entries
i ask you to create entries from spanish requested page, i can help--62.175.97.149 10:51, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

WOTD
Thanks for noticing, and you're very welcome. I think it's a project with a lot of potential, and we desperately needed something like it on the Main Page. I hope it goes from strength to strength. Widsith 11:02, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Right, this reminds me of it. I'm going to take it on right now, so what do you think? There's going to be 366 pages, but it'd be a bit silly to make all new ones while there are some months of them already done. Can I start moving the existing pages of the format Word of the day/July 29, 2024 to Word of the day/July 29, adapting all links? That's phase 1 then. Following is the semi-protection of all 366 pages, while you or anyone can move the past WOTDs to archives. How does that sound? &mdash; Vildricianus 11:35, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Make the proposal on the WOTD Talk Page. There's some on-going discussion there. I'm not particularly concerned about the mechanism specifics, as long as the day-to-day operations run smoothly. --EncycloPetey 11:37, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

sumir speedy?
Hi. You nominated sumir for speedy deletion, but did not explain why. Doesn't look like much of a speedy candidate to me (although I have no knowledge of Icelandic). Cheers! bd2412 T 06:03, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
 * On further investigation, I presume it is because the contributor is a frequent fabricator? An explanation would still come in handy to bewildered transient like me, who stuble across such a page. bd2412 T 06:05, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see. I'll note that. Thanks! bd2412 T 09:03, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

ordering defs
Hi Pete, how are things. I noticed on one or two entries (forget which ones now) you reordered definitions in order of commonness. I wonder if you'd mind having a look at this discussion where I have argued that this is not in my opinion the best system. There is no consensus on it just yet, though Ec and Hippietrail strongly agreed with me, while Primetime and Ncik didn't. Anyway, have a look at the conversation, it might be something to think about anyway, because I don't think you were here at the time. Widsith 07:12, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Category fixing
If you d/l the pywikipediabot robot framework from http://www.sf.net, you can run the "category.py" script to rename categories a lot easier. --Connel MacKenzie T C 09:09, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Not really. There are a lot of these that have double tags that need to be removed -- it may be tagged as Estonian month and as Estonian noun or Estonian proper noun. Believe me, I did thnk about getting a bot, and would have if the process were purely mechanical. However, the number of bizarre problems I've run across mitigates against using a bot for this. I'm also restructuring category hierarchies to run parallel, for instance, except in case of small volume languages, where I have to make a judgment call about how much hierarchy is worthwhile. --EncycloPetey 09:12, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, that still seems pretty mechanical to me (one pass to remove the bad category, one pass to rename the other.) But suit yourself.  If you get tired of it, you can put larger renames you'd like done on my talk page (or User talk:Tawker, I think.)


 * Keep at it though. The cleanup you are doing is very helpful!  --Connel MacKenzie T C 09:22, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

A-team
Would you like to be able to delete all this stuff yourself? I think you'll get enough community backup for this. &mdash; Vildricianus 12:04, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps. The only issue then is that there would be an admin overseeing WOTD ;) --EncycloPetey 12:05, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Which issue is that? &mdash; Vildricianus 12:06, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Not an official one, but from bits of conversation I've seen, many consider WOTD something of a community effort, and one that the admins keep out of (at least as far as selecting entries). --EncycloPetey 12:08, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The problem here is that all regular contributors get to be admins in the end, because they are few. If you'd like to wait, no prob. I'm just annoyed at all the deletion nominations you're doing :-D. &mdash; Vildricianus 12:10, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
 * If the community is OK, then I've no need to wait. --EncycloPetey 12:10, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
 * There you go. &mdash; Vildricianus 12:48, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Months and Days
Hi, Roda. Would you mind having a look at the Appendices for Appendix:Months of the Year and Appendix:Days of the Week and be sure that both pages include the appropriate Japanese entries? Also, some of these basic entries may be missing from Wiktionary. Kappa has already helped to created the Korean ones, and I'll be looking for others to help in additional languages. Thanks for whatever help you can provide. --EncycloPetey 09:33, 29 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Will do! Rodasmith 20:17, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

NL done. &mdash; Vildricianus 22:08, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

ja is also done. Rodasmith 05:44, 30 April 2006 (UTC)