Wiktionary:Information desk/2015/August

The citation of ふいんき
I think that we should avoid using even a part of a copyrighted material published in Japan as quotation because it is disputed whether we can apply fair use doctrine to such materials or not. There is even a judicial precedent that negated fair use protest against accusation of copyright infringement (18 Dec. 1995 by Supreme Court of Japan; see article 'Fair use' in jawp). To my concern the editor answered that it would be okay because it was a transcription of a very short spoken line. Then I'd like to ask here what you think about it. --エリック・キィ (talk) 14:50, 3 August 2015 (UTC)


 * My understanding is that en.Wiktionary is governed by United States law, where fair use is protected (and hence that the legality or illegality of fair use in Japan has no effect upon en.Wiktionary), but I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice — we could ping one of the WMF's lawyers. - -sche (discuss) 16:57, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for advice. Unfortunately, I don't know well what to do, so could you introduce to me or call directly anyone of them? --エリック・キィ (talk) 12:47, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Contact us points to this which lists an email address. —suzukaze (t・c) 09:20, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, thank you very much for notification. --エリック・キィ (talk) 14:14, 6 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Apologies, I meant to [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3APhilippe_%28WMF%29&type=revision&diff=674890583&oldid=673243529 ping] User:Philippe (WMF) to this discussion yesterday, but I got distracted. En.Wikt's practice of quoting works (both copyrighted and uncopyrighted) to show and verify the usage of terms is described and rationalized in the last paragraph of the intro of WT:COPY ("Frequently, Wiktionary entries..."), and mentioned in the intro to WT:NFCC ("The English Wiktionary often..."), though explicitly not governed by the rest of latter policy. - -sche (discuss) 20:12, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * No problem. I have waited cautiously and have not made any contact yet. And I didn't know the existence of the latter criteria, thanks. --エリック・キィ (talk) 02:04, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi エリック・キィ. User:Philippe (WMF) forwarded this on to me to take a look. First, let me clarify that I can't give legal advice to individual users per our disclaimer. What I can do is share the Wikimedia Foundation's perspective on the issue. The Foundation, located in San Francisco, is subject to U.S. law, which generally does not allow copyright in short phrases and also has an exception called "de minimis" that makes copying very small amounts of something okay even if it is copyrighted. Stanford has put out a great page about copyright in short phrases if you want to read more. I also want to remind you that, per the Terms of Use, even if U.S. law allows for something, individual users may need to obey the laws of the place where they live in order to avoid liability. The only way to know what law might apply to you as an individual would be to ask a local lawyer. I hope that helps clear up this issue a little.--Jrogers (WMF) (talk) 19:07, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you for precious advice, I'm convinced mostly. --エリック・キィ (talk) 03:52, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Request for unprotection of Word of the Day pages
Hi, I am updating some of the Word of the Day pages, but am unable to change the following ones as they have been protected. Could an administrator please unprotect them?


 * Word of the day/December 14.
 * Word of the day/Archive/2006.
 * Word of the day/Archive/2009.
 * Word of the day/Archive/2010.
 * Word of the day/Nominations/Archive 2012 – I'd like to archive some stale nominations.

Thanks. Smuconlaw (talk) 16:17, 4 August 2015 (UTC)


 * ✅. - -sche (discuss) 16:47, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks! Smuconlaw (talk) 16:56, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, by the way, I added the following template to the tops of the more recent WOTD archive pages for easier navigation:


 * I can't do so for "Word of the day/Nominations/Archive 2006" to "Word of the day/Nominations/Archive 2011" as these pages are also protected, but if you like you can add the template (suitably modified for each page) and then reprotect the pages. Smuconlaw (talk) 17:06, 4 August 2015 (UTC)


 * ✅. - -sche (discuss) 18:36, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks! Smuconlaw (talk) 09:02, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Proper Nouns
Can proper nouns be added as Wiktionary entries? -MrdaChi (talk) 20:30, 13 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, we already have many of them. See Category:Proper nouns by language. —CodeCat 20:34, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

English conjugation
What is our procedure for English verb inflection? Whenever I see an entry for an English verb, it displays the five main forms, but some entries (such as there be) have a request for a specific inflection-table template. I did respond to the English verb go request, using the en-conj template, but is it ever normally used? ~Eloquio (talk) 13:35, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * has a conjugation section. The tables are encoded manually. — Ungoliant (falai) 13:46, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * For simple verbs, there is, as seen on . - -sche (discuss) 14:54, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. But do we ever use these templates in entries? ~Eloquio (talk) 10:04, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * English conjugation is so simple that adding tables hasn't been high on anyone's list of priorities, but Template:en-conj-simple is used on some pages and you can feel free to add it to more. You can look at look and like to see how it works on those kinds of verbs. It does not work on other kinds of verbs; that will have to be addressed in the future. - -sche (discuss) 16:53, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. I just thought it might be useful to display the conjugations in a table, to show how future/conditional forms work, that aren't in the header. ~Eloquio (talk) 17:49, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Numbering of Meanings Translations
What is the policy on numbering of meanings translations, as defined by Entry layout? Are they permitted to change over time and for what reasons, how certain can I be about the consistency of the meaning numbers translation over time?
 * What numbering are you referring to? I don't think our translations are numbered. --WikiTiki89 10:49, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The original question is not clear, it should be what is the policy on numbing of meanings Entry_layout_explained, I've corrected the question. (JonathanDring (talk) 23:25, 18 August 2015 (UTC))
 * There isn't any such policy because it would be simply impossible to enforce. People add, remove, merge, split and rearrange senses all the time, and there's no way to keep track of it all with millions of entries and only a few dozen active admins. The only way to reliably link to a sense is to add a link target to the sense line with a template such as . Even then, there's always the possibility that someone will delete or completely change the line with the template. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:59, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Sense IDs sound great, are there any policies at all about how changes to these links should occur, or is there a way to subscribe to changes to the link? (161.202.78.180 23:03, 20 August 2015 (UTC))

Is there any way to filter the content to one specific language?
There are several Latin-to-English dictionary sites, but I happened to use Wiktionary most often because unlike other sites, (1)it gives results for any form of a word (e.g., other sites give no result for "laudabat" but Wiktionary does) and, (2)It has a table of all possible declensions of each noun, verb, or adjective (this is very helpful for learning).

The only problem is it shows an entry for all other languages I do not care in the same page. This often makes a page very long. I am using Android, and all web browsers I have tested on Android are slow and poor at scrolling. So, it is time-consuming and annoying to move to the Latin section each time.

Is there any way to filter on the data permanantly to see Latin vocabularies only all the time? I searched Google for "Wiktionary Latin" but a possible sub-site, but there was no such thing.


 * There is a | Latin Wiktionary, but it is fairly useless. SemperBlotto (talk) 10:38, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I am sorry, but that is not what I meant. I do not want an all-Latin version, I want an English version that has only Latin entires.


 * It used to be that the mobile version automatically collapsed all the languages and you just had to scroll through the list and expand the one you wanted. But then they changed it and everything is expanded by default. Maybe there should be a setting. --WikiTiki89 10:47, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Collapsing/expanding is not the biggest problem. I am using Android devices (2013 Nexus 7, Galaxy Note Pro 12.2, etc). Loading is slow (probably because the page contains too much text from other Languages I am not interested in), and for some reason, when clicking a Latin link, the top location suddenly jumps up and down when page loading finishes. Since loading is slow, if I try to scroll down to see declensions when loading is not completed, it jumps to a weird location. Also when page is long, I have to scroll up many many times to search for a new word because the search field is at the top of the page.


 * If you add #Latin to the page address, it will go directly to the Latin section. For instance, the address for face is https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/face (I believe it's slightly different in the mobile version, but you get the idea). Add #Latin and you get https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/face#Latin, which will take you to the Latin section. Typing the extra letters may be a nuisance, but it may be possible to use Javascript to add them automatically (I'm not sure what Javascript capabilities there are in the mobile version). Chuck Entz (talk) 14:02, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know about the anonymous OP, but I just tried that on my phone and it doesn't work, at least not via the Wiktionary app (as opposed to using Wiktionary directly via Chrome or another browser). With the app, you can't enter URLs directly, you can just search for a term like, and if you want the Latin section you literally have to scroll all the way through the English entry to get to it. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:35, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * We have an app? --WikiTiki89 14:42, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, we have had one since 2012. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:19, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, it's for Android only. There doesn't seem to be an iOS version. --WikiTiki89 15:42, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Someone should file a bug report, because it's kind of silly to have a Wiktionary-specific app that can't deal with a very basic feature of most Wiktionaries' architecture. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:09, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * (Assuming that what other people have said about the apps in true,) the bug report should also request that people be able to log in through the app like they can through Wikipedia's. - -sche (discuss) 02:49, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I have tried the official Wiktionary App, which was marked "unsupported" and last updated in 2013. Well, the app was poor and the top table of contents were not shown, but at least it showed the result a lot faster than the web browsers did. If I cannot find any better solution, I will probably use this app instead of the web version from now. There also was another app named Vertes Latin dictionary, whose description was exactly what I was looking for: "pulling only Latin data from Wiktionary", but unfortunately the app also seemed to be abandoned and crashed on my Nexus 7 which is running Android 5.1.1.


 * Could you search for (i.e. type into the search box) face#Latin? - -sche (discuss) 02:49, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I tried that, it didn't work. Also, I've discovered it is possible to log in, but only by attempting to edit. If you click Edit or a red link, you're taken to a page where you can choose to log in. Editing is pretty complicated, though. I just did, but I'm probably never going to try that again. Way too much work. And still no tabbed languages! —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 06:15, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Do TabbedLanguages work on mobile? - -sche (discuss) 14:56, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Not on mine at any rate. Tabbed languages are not active if you're not logged on, and I don't see any way to log on via the app. Wikipedia's app allows users to log on, but AFAICT Wiktionary's doesn't. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:19, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Wasn't there once a consensus to make it the default for users that are not logged in? What happened to it? —CodeCat 23:32, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Was there a consensus? I only remember utter chaos in those debates. --WikiTiki89 09:55, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

3 etymologies, 2 pronunciations
What should be done in entries where there are three separate etymologies (with POS subsections), but two of those have the same pronunciation while the third etymology/POS has another pronunciation? There seems to be no way to nest the sections properly in this case, but duplicating the pronunciation is probably not desirable either. —CodeCat 18:08, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Add labels or the like to pronunciations. We already do that in some places. --WikiTiki89 18:22, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That seems kind of haphazard though, at least considering we don't usually do it this way. Should we standardise on a method that will work in all cases? —CodeCat 18:26, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * We've been doing it this way for a while. It's just not very common. --WikiTiki89 18:31, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I've also seen entries that nest Pronunciation under numbered Etymology sections, or entries that have numbered Pronunciation sections with POS sections nested under them. There doesn't seem to be an agreed standard format that other entries can/should be converted to. —CodeCat 18:34, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Mole shows one possible format. Another possible format would be to have e.g. the nautical section and the physics section say (perhaps using a template) "the same as mole 'burrowing rodent', see above" rather than duplicating all the pron info. - -sche (discuss) 23:39, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Just give each one its own pronunciation section. They're different words, who cares if it's "duplicated". DTLHS (talk) 23:41, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That's how I've done it in the past. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:42, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

cộng đồng mạng việt nam
Wikimedia vietnamese

International characters
How can I insert international characters such as â or š by standard English keyboard in Windows and Ubuntu while transliterating Persian words, of course using User talk:Conrad.Irwin/editor.js? 4nn1l2 (talk) 14:44, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Select "Arabic" in the drop-down menu under the edit box. It has buttons both for Arabic-script characters and for transliteration characters. Everything needed for Persian is there as well. --WikiTiki89 15:11, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much for your quick reply but as I said before, I'm using editor.js for editing. Look at this image to understand what I mean. 4nn1l2 (talk) 15:25, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Copy and paste. --WikiTiki89 15:36, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Time-consuming! 4nn1l2 (talk) 15:46, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Or you can make your own custom keyboard with the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (if you use Windows). --WikiTiki89 15:54, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Modern Greek & PoS
Is Modern Greek just a proper noun?

In case of Greek it's an adjective in "the Greek word", right? So isn't Modern Greek in "the Modern Greek word" an adjective too? Or do English linguists claim that it is a combining form used in a compound word (or pseudo-compound word as it isn't spelled compouned like *"Moderngreekword" or *"Moderngreek-Word")? -84.161.47.115 20:31, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I would say Modern Greek word is using the noun attributively. That's how it works for language names like that aren't also adjectives. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:44, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Why isn't Sanskrit also an adjective? It is still used in phrases like "the Sanskrit language". You can say "this word is Sanskrit", but you cannot say "this word is the Sanskrit language", showing that the former is (or can be) an adjective, while the latter can only be a noun phrase. Likewise with "Modern Greek". --WikiTiki89 00:55, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The other option is that these are uncountable common nouns, which explains their use with determiners like "some": "I understand some Sanskrit, but very little Modern Greek". --WikiTiki89 01:00, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, that doesn't happen with religions/philosophies: "I know some Hinduism", but you have to say "this deity is Hindu" rather than "this deity is Hinduism". --WikiTiki89 01:03, 24 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I might be convinced by that argument if I could think of "the" in any kind of attributive construction- but I can't. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:31, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Well you drop the "the" in attributive constructions "this Sanskrit language word". But can you say "this word is Sanskrit language"? --WikiTiki89 01:56, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Is Sandbox for playing?
--Romanophile (talk) 17:30, 24 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes. --WikiTiki89 17:35, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

"biases" pronunciation error
(with a "long i" sound in the final syllable)

That's what the discussion of Wiktionary's entry for BIASES says. Surely it means "short i"? It clearly and correctly shows that the second syllable of BIASES is pronounced with either a schwa or a short i, but the discussion says long i. The discussion seems to be going in the direction that I was in when I went to the page in the first place - that many educated people are mispronouncing it BY-UH-SEEZ instead of BY-UH-SIZZ, but it says that the error stems from confusion over Latin 3rd declension. If that were the case, then the LONG E mispronunciation should be what is discussed, not LONG I. At any rate, please don't fix it to imply that the long e version is OK - long e is nothing other than educated people wanting to sound more educated than they are, since they know that bases (pl. of basis), prognoses, and other Latin -is to -es spellings are indeed long e, but they don't know enough to know that dictionaries specifically list irregular pronunciations, and the absence of those means just use regular. Biases, processes, and other similar plurals spoken in educated settings are more and more often being ridiculously mispronounced -SEEZ instead of -SIZZ.

autopatroller
Where is the request page for autopatroller rights?--Charidri (talk) 18:52, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * You don't request it, someone else finds you and nominates you. But it is WT:Whitelist. --WikiTiki89 19:32, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Definitions of (Vulgar) Foreign Language Terms
In foreign language entries, is it better to give simple definitions or translations? To illustrate what I mean, I'll use the example that provoked the question (since vulgarities are the words to which this question applies the most):

One of the definitions of is currently "cunt" (I've seen the word in another Spanish entry too). Many people consider this an offensive word and might be shocked to see it when they simply wanted to know the regular meaning of "conejo" (which is "rabbit"). However, defining it as "vulva" or something similar would be a poor translation of the word, since it doesn't take register into account. On the other hand, that's what the context tags are for. What's the regular way to define such FL words? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 21:41, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * For the entry conejo, I believe that this is the best way to describe it. Yes, people could be offended, but in Wiktionary we do not censor vulgarities - we make a point of it at What Wiktionary is not. In general, however, ideally, a foreign language entry should consist of as many of the following as possible: A translation, some labels, a quote, a translation, usage notes, derived terms, pronunciation, synonyms, related terms, etymology, example sentences and, if necessary, a gloss definition. For example, I added a "gloss" tag to conejo, because the word cunt has many meanings in English. An example of a good Spanish entry is amistad. Feel free to ask me if you have any more questions, I'm glad to help. --A230rjfowe (talk) 21:58, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, thank you. The question arose in part because another entry that used "cunt" had context tags that didn't indicate an equal degree of offensiveness or vulgarity, and it made me question what the value was in having offensive words in FL definitions in the first place. I oppose censoring in a dictionary, however. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 14:19, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

word addition to the dictionary
Hi there Could you please let me know how or if I can add a word or request a word to be added to the dictionary. I would like to add a word which does not exist yet. I hope to hear from you soon. Philip Toft
 * Adding: read WT:RFE and/or read and understand the wikicode of existing pages (click edit to access the wikicode), type the word you want to create in the search box and click the red link that appears (i.e. “You may create the page "kjhkj" on a blank page”);
 * Requesting: go to the page WT:Requested entries (English) (or another language), add a link to the word and some information about it, if possible. — Ungoliant (falai) 01:28, 29 August 2015 (UTC)


 * It depends what you mean by "doesn't exist yet". If you mean we don't have an entry for it yet, but it's in use, by all means follow the suggestions above. If you mean you just thought up a new word, we don't want it. We're a descriptive dictionary, so we only describe how terms have been used, and new words haven't been used. Please see our Criteria for inclusion. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:36, 29 August 2015 (UTC)