Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-10/Treatment of toneless pinyin other than syllables

Treatment of toneless pinyin other than syllables

 * Voting on: Not allowing toneless pinyin in the main namespace as entries. This would effectively mean:
 * 1) When the toned version is attestable, toneless entries would be moved to toned entries with the redirect deleted
 * 2) When the toned entry is not attestable, the toneless entry should be deleted after a reasonable effort to find the toned version, such as an RFV


 * Rationale: The Wiktionary search engine is clever enough to find an entry with diacritics when one searches for an entry without diacritics. Therefore, toneless entries have no benefits - searching for them will find the toned entry just as easily. Toneless entries give less information, and are comparable to the English words The and THE - even though they are attestable forms of, they should not be included.


 * Note that this vote does not effect or supersede the result of Votes/pl-2009-12/Treatment of toneless pinyin syllables, which affects toneless syllables, but not words.
 * The outcome of this vote, if positive, should be at About Mandarin.


 * Vote starts: 00:01, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Vote ends: 23:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Vote created: Mglovesfun (talk) 21:31, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Discussion:
 * [[Image:Wikt rei-artur3.svg|20px]] Beer_parlour_archive/2009/December
 * [[Image:Wikt rei-artur3.svg|20px]] Beer parlour archive/2010/January
 * [[Image:Wikt rei-artur3.svg|20px]] Beer_parlour_archive/2010/April
 * [[Image:Wikt rei-artur3.svg|20px]] Beer_parlour_archive/2010/May
 * [[Image:Wikt rei-artur3.svg|20px]] Talk:ou, June 2009, result of deletion debate
 * [[Image:Wikt rei-artur3.svg|20px]] Votes/pl-2009-12/Treatment of toneless pinyin syllables

Support

 * 1) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support  --Anatoli 06:01, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Mglovesfun (talk) 11:56, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) * [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Delete Pinyin altogether - non-standard orthography in any way, merely a transcription scheme. Wjcd 11:53, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Wjcd, if you wish to get rid of all pinyin, then I'd think, a fortiori, that you want to take this less drastic step. What am I missing? &#x200b;—msh210℠ (talk) 19:56, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry. Confused by the wording. Now moved to Support. Wjcd 20:01, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. I'm indenting Wjcd's vote as a nonvote, as it is invalid as a vote under our voting policy. &#x200b;—msh210℠ (talk) 20:03, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support ---&gt; Tooironic 00:11, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support --Vahag 10:42, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Ivan Štambuk 18:21, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 4) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Prosfilaes 11:17, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 5) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support —Internoob (Disc•Cont) 04:50, 15 November 2010 (UTC) Per what Tooironic has been saying.
 * 6) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support —Ruakh TALK 19:50, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 7) [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|20px]] Support Jamesjiao → T ◊ C 20:20, 28 November 2010 (UTC) Too much effort is already needed to keep duplicate entries in both tra wnd sim for each word. In fact, I'd even suggest to only keep an entry in either simplified or traditional script and make the other an alternative form of it. This way, we will only need to keep track of one entry instead of two. The argument here is with duplication effort as per my comments above, above everything else.

Oppose

 * 1) [[Image:Symbol oppose vote.svg|20px]] Oppose  Dan Polansky 07:14, 8 November 2010 (UTC) I cannot support such a sloppily worded vote. The title of the vote indicates the vote is about non-syllables: "Treatment of toneless pinyin other than syllables". But the body text of the vote does not bother to make a distinction between Pinyin syllables and Pinyin non-syllables (words, combinations, or whatever they are called): "Not allowing toneless pinyin in the main namespace as entries." Toneless Pinyin is unlikely to meet the attestation criterion of CFI; toneless Pinyin should be deleted whenever it fails the attestation criterion, unless and until the community reaches an agreement to give an exception to toneless Pinyin. --Dan Polansky 07:14, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That's what I meant by "Note that this vote does not effect or supersede the result of Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2009-12/Treatment of toneless pinyin syllables, which affects toneless syllables, but not words". Mglovesfun (talk) 12:00, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You should get the wording right in the main text of the vote rather than fixing it in a supplementary note. I have raised this issue on the talk page on the vote, but you have not fixed the vote. Each statement of the vote should work; a faulty statement should not get fixed in a subsequent statement. --Dan Polansky 12:18, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't "own" the vote, anyone is entitled to make a change that they feel is necessary. You're in the page history anyway. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:04, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I do not make myself responsible for fixing flawed votes. I only make myself responsible for pointing out the flaws early enough, so there is enough time for them to get fixed. The way I see it, the creator of a vote does own the vote in a way. He is to blame if the vote is poorly worded. Other editors can make proposals by editing the vote, but it is the creator of the vote who has the ultimate responsibility for the vote.
 * As regards my edits being in the history of this vote anyway, I have only edited this vote by adding a hyperlink to what I thought was a relevant discussion. Adding a hyperlink does not change the wording of the vote. --Dan Polansky 15:14, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The last thing I said is wrong; I have actually removed an unacceptable eternity clause in this edit. I have absolutely no idea how you could have ever thought that "The outcome of this vote, if positive, ... should not [get] changed again with a further vote" was acceptable. --Dan Polansky 15:19, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Because my fingers don't do what my brain tells them to do. It was a braino, see my equally brilliant to recepvoir. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:41, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * "Not allowing toneless pinyin in the main namespace as entries" yes that should say "Not allowing toneless pinyin in the main namespace as entries (other than syllables)". But it's in the vote title and the note below that it does not affect syllables, so I don't think anyone could use it to justify the deletion of syllables. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:53, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Abstain

 * 1) [[Image:Symbol abstain vote.svg|20px]] Abstain —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 19:45, 8 November 2010 (UTC) – I’ll defer to Chinese editors on this; toneless entries may be useful b/c widely used in informal writing (street signs, menus), but perhaps not worth having separate pages for these.
 * 2) [[Image:Symbol abstain vote.svg|20px]] Abstain. I think the wiser course of action would be to require an advance provision of three CFI-worthy sources for such a usage. bd2412 T 22:07, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The reality is there is no one either willing or able to do such research. ---&gt; Tooironic 11:12, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If that is true, toneless Pinyin entries can be deleted via the standard RFV process, using the current attestation criteria, and this vote is superfluous. --Dan Polansky 12:38, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you misunderstood my comment - my beef is not that they can or cannot be taken through RFVs but rather that no one is willing to do this for one or two or even for the hundreds or thousands of the dodgy toneless pinyin entries already existing in the mainspace. ---&gt; Tooironic 20:28, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Again, I see no problem with just shifting the burden to require provision of citations. Under such a rule, all existing uncited pinyin words could be deleted right away. Also, please take care not to conflate toneless pinyin words with toneless pinyin syllables, which are the equivalent of spelling out the sound of a letter without assigning meaning to it. bd2412 T 22:02, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I would basically echo bd1412. From what I have seen, you have not even tried to sent toneless Pinyin words to RFV. I have sent two toneless Pinyin words to RFV recently. After a batch of, say, ten toneless Pinyin would fail RFV, the rest toneless Pinyin words could have been deleted out of RFV process by induction. This is an academic discussion, anyway, as many people are happy to support this badly worded vote. --Dan Polansky 09:42, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Re my "you have not even tried to sent toneless Pinyin words to RFV": maybe you have; I am not really sure. --Dan Polansky 09:45, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) [[Image:Symbol abstain vote.svg|20px]] Although it looks otherwise sound, I cannot support a policy that would prohibit attestable terms, in the case that anyone should ever consider citing a toneless variant. DAVilla 18:56, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I accept that. My analogy written above was The being attestable as the when the first word of a sentence. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:22, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I was under the impression that we didn't accept transliterated material. If you're recording a language, it seems silly to only have that toneless Pinyin, or Latin Yiddish, or Cyrillic English, which have three citations; those words are no more valid then all the other words in those languages that have only one or two attestations in these scripts unusual for the base language.--Prosfilaes 00:26, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * What if the term appears within running text correctly scripted? More generally, I would prefer criteria that say "this is permitted" rather than "that is prohibited". DAVilla 03:28, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) [[Image:Symbol abstain vote.svg|20px]] Abstain A-cai 15:31, 25 November 2010 (UTC) I don't have a strong opinion one way or another at this point.  -- A-cai 15:31, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Decision

 * Vote passed with the result of 9-1-4. Jamesjiao → T ◊ C 21:50, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Could you please document the new rule at About Chinese languages? —Ruakh TALK 14:09, 10 December 2010 (UTC)