User talk:Intersets

Your prefix entries
Last week you created several entries and I would urge you to be more careful about what you add.


 * isn't this just minus the final vowel? There are only two terms that can be derived using it, since  is just . I'm ambivalent about whether this one should be kept.


 * This is just the word with a hyphen.


 * I don't know where you got this from. The entry claims that "part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster's Dictionary", except that the link is broken. The definitions seem to be cribbed from https://www.websters1913.com/words/Volt which is an entry for a noun. I think this entry is most likely junk.


 * Only two of your example terms start with volvo- and both refer to some kind of algae, not rolling.


 * This one is good in my opinion. The examples are solid and the information is confirmed by the Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com, and the OED. Thank you!


 * This one is good as well.

Since you seem to be passionate about prefixes, I can give you a few recommendations on how to contribute more effectively:
 * Improve our existing suffix entries. The most important thing is to have good definitions and good examples of use. Here are some good entries to emulate:, , , ,.
 * Add prefixes and suffixes that are in other dictionaries but are missing from Wiktionary. I can send you a list if you'd like.
 * Add references to your entries. The most common ones are:, , and . The in-progress online third edition of the OED can be accessed at https://oed.com/ but is partially paywalled, while the printed second edition from 1989 (cite it with ) is available for free at https://archive.org/details/OXD1989ENEN. Also, don't use , but rather (or ideally, don't rely on a century-old dictionary in the first place), and check that the URLs work.

Sorry if this comment seems too negative. I'm impressed by your major contributions to Appendix:English prefixes and I hope you can keep up that energy!

Ioaxxere (talk) 05:42, 17 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi! You're the first to interact with me on this site - I am new to this. I have a little bit of general lingustics background but nothing in lexicography.


 * Re: volcan-: There are a ton of existing pages for prevocalic forms of prefixes, e.g. atlant-, atrop-, aut-, bacter-. Why is volcan- considered an iffy entry but the hundreds of other prevocalic forms fine? (Legit question: not defensive.)


 * For well-: there's plenty of words that start with well that don't have the hyphen. What makes the difference here?


 * volt- was based on the entry for volt, the citations came along with it. I will confess I don't really understand how the template for citations works here. I've contributed to Wikipedia here and there and am used to MediaWiki giving me a reference option in the editor. Since I started with Appendix:English prefixes which had zero references to begin with I haven't had exposure to that many examples - it's only been more recent that I've thought about creating pages for entries.


 * I will happily take your list of prefixes and suffixes from other dictionaries and incorporate them - send them along! :) My vague plan was once I finished with the prefixes I'd get going on the suffixes. Intersets (talk) 06:58, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Like I said, I don't have any strong feelings about . I think having being used two terms is very low for an alleged suffix, but a brief search turned up and  which are good examples of use. However, I think I need to explain the definition of a prefix and suffix. A prefix and a suffix are both types of, which our glossary defines as "a bound morpheme added to a word's stem". This means that an affix cannot exist on its own, meaning that  and  are not prefixes. Note that suffixes like  and  apparently break this rule, although one might argue that -man has a slightly different meaning than  (e.g. "horse man" vs "horseman") and thus deserves its own entry (and likewise for -work), but I wouldn't rush to save these entries if someone nominated it for deletion. As for our reference templates, the template's page usually has very detailed documentation with multiple examples. By the way, I invite you to our WT:Discord if you would like to discuss further! Ioaxxere (talk) 07:50, 17 February 2024 (UTC)


 * I would expect volcanish to be simply volcano + -ish. Sometimes two vowels are merged like that; it doesn't mean there has to be an affix. Equinox ◑ 14:06, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Missing affix list
Check out User:Ioaxxere/affixes, a list of over 3000 missing affixes combining information from several online dictionaries. Just make sure to be careful when creating entries as I can't guarantee that these are all good. Ioaxxere (talk) 06:01, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Sweeeet, thanks! Intersets (talk) 07:25, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Guidelines for creating entries
Thank you for your mainspace edits! However, before doing any more please note the following: There's also for antonyms, which works the same way. Ioaxxere (talk) 19:35, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
 * References must go under a  or   header. On, you just plopped it into a random spot which isn't good. One thing you can do is put whatever you're referencing inside a   tag, and then add to the bottom of the page:
 * Definitions in English entries should be written with the first letter being uppercase and followed by a period.
 * Rather than a long  section, I would recommend using the  template to add the synonym directly below the definition being referenced. For example:
 * Ah! Sorry! Thanks for letting me know. With super- I put the citation beside content that came from the OED - in this case, I pulled those specific examples from the OED (superlabial, superglacial, superlineal), whereas other examples were ones that came out of me clicking random entries in the category English terms prefixed with super- until I found relevant examples or thought of examples myself. I take that is for general citation and is for when you want to want to indicate a specific passage originates from a source? I'll change that to using there. Intersets (talk) 19:56, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Wait, you're a McGill student?
I might be in the area... Ioaxxere (talk) 04:42, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Sorting derived terms
Hey, I saw that you've been sorting derived terms by the sense of the suffix that they're using. You might want to use the senseid system for this, in which you add |id= to the entry's etymology, and a category is automatically created. For example, see the entries in Category:English terms suffixed with -er (agent noun) and Category:English terms suffixed with -er (occupation) (in fact, has not yet been completely sorted, as there are many terms left in Category:English terms suffixed with -er). Ioaxxere (talk) 02:03, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the tip! I'm finding senseid rather confusing. On what page are the English terms suffixed with -er getting tagged with senseid to put them in that category? For example, where is abandoner being tagged with the agent noun sense? I don't see that information stored in the wikitext for -er and I'm not seeing it the entry article (abandoner)? Intersets (talk) 05:29, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
 * At abandoner, the code is . This could also be written as  . Either way, that line adds the term to the category Category:English terms suffixed with -er (agent noun). Note that "agent noun" is an arbitrary ID, and you can pick whatever string you want. Also, check out Category:English terms suffixed with -core for an example of a completely sorted suffix category. Ioaxxere (talk) 06:55, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Lua timeouts
Appendix:English prefixes by semantic category is now in CAT:E with timeout errors. This is no doubt partly due to changes in the modules, but I think that just speeds up the inevitable. As you add more content with more templates, you will eventually have more module use than the system can support.

Since we're talking about English, might I suggest using bare wikilinks instead of templates for simple linking? When you use l, the template loads and runs a module which then loads in and runs other modules to get information on the language code, the language, and formatting information. This is really unnecessary: English is the default language of the Wiki, so no special formatting is required. The only thing the template does in most cases is add "#English" to the link. Sure, there are cases with senseids and etymids, but you can use the template for those as long as you aren't using up all the processor time with the other links.

Basically, you would be going back to the way you were originally doing it. If it's important to link specifically to the English section, you would need to change to a more complicated wikilink: &lbrack;&lbrack;pre-#English|pre-]] (pre-) to replace en, for instance. Switching would be a lot of work unless you have a script, since a simple find-and-replace wouldn't duplicate the term name. I'm willing to spend some time helping you, but I don't have script capabilities.

The other option would be to use a Lua-free template such as l-lite or m-lite. These use template syntax to create the link for cases where there's no need to worry about formatting of non-Latin scripts.

Without the changes mentioned above, you would need to split the page. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:07, 23 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the tip! This is really useful to know. I indeed have a script so will adjust it to reformat the links. Intersets (talk) 19:59, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Just updated the script and Appendix:English prefixes by semantic category no longer has timeout errors! :D Would it be okay to do this to Appendix:English prefixes (that is, to revert it to a single page but with the direct links so as not to be in CAT:E)? If so I can make the change now. Otherwise, it'll take some more work to change my code to handle the alphabetized version being broken up, which I'd probably get to later this weekend (I'll change it to direct links in this scenario, it will just take longer to handle the multiple pages). Intersets (talk) 20:43, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Fine with me. I only split because it seemed I had to. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:54, 23 March 2024 (UTC)