Wiktionary talk:Votes/2020-01/Definitions of English terms should start with a capital and end with a full stop

Rationale
The purpose of this proposal is to clarify the wording at WT:STYLE, and, in particular, to make clear that all definitions and glosses of English terms should be formatted with an initial capital and closing full stop (or, exceptionally, other stop). This is to ensure visual consistency, since a mixture of styles looks messy.

The current wording at WT:STYLE is confusing. It says "Glosses, which are preferred for non-English terms, simply point the user to one or more English translations of the term." This implies that all glosses are translations, and hence do not apply to English terms, but this is contradicted elsewhere in the text.

It also says "A simple gloss should not be capitalized and should not end with a period", which, although a German example is given, is stated as though it applies to all languages, yet later the text says "a gloss for an English term should be formatted as a definition, with the capitalised example " # Cat ".

It is all a bit of a muddle.

In my experience, the great majority of definitions of English terms are already formatted in the proposed style, with initial capital and closing full stop. I do not propose any systematic programme to fix non-conforming entries, should this vote pass. Instead, non-conforming entries can be fixed when encountered, by editors who wish to do so, as in fact may already happen.

No change is intended to the treatment of definitions or glosses of non-English terms. However, the proposed new text is presently not explicit about what should happen with definitions (as opposed to glosses) of non-English terms. I don't know what to propose here. Do we want to say that these shouldn't have initial capital and full stop? Should we say it is the choice of individual editors?

Mihia (talk) 22:01, 5 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Baby steps. Do a vote for English first, and we can think about foreign languages later. A huge bite into the problem that tries to cover every language is more likely to raise unforeseen opposition. Equinox ◑ 00:04, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The current wording for the two cases is entangled (I would say muddled up), and it is not feasible to change only the part that applies to English while leaving the non-English part unchanged. Some people seem keen that glosses (one-word translations) for non-English terms should not be capitalised or stopped, and I am happy to accept this, give that this seems established practice, and also given that it seems to be the intention of the existing wording. The existing wording seems to imply that full definitions of non-English terms should at least be capitalised, and that they may also have a full stop. However, actual usage seems varied. If a popular suggestion does not present itself here then I will just put in the proposed wording that there are presently no particular guidelines on this point. Mihia (talk) 03:21, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

(outdent) The following is incorrect, by my understanding: "Glosses, which are preferred for non-English terms, are synonyms or translations, often single words." The style guide page (WT:STYLE) is not a policy and probably contains many defects. A more manageable vote proposal would only state the new policy without indicating which page has to be updated, from which text to which text.

Therefore, I would place the following to the vote page, which is based on what there already is:


 * Adopting the following policy:


 * Definitions of English terms, including definitions that are single words or lists of single words, should begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop, or, in special cases, exclamation mark or question mark. For example, at the entry for bread:


 * A foodstuff made by baking dough made from cereals.
 * Money.

--Dan Polansky (talk) 10:09, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Pinging User:Mihia. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:11, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Last time, in relation to the "COALMINE" vote, you said make a specific wording change proposal. Now, when I make a specific wording change proposal, you say not to do this. Seems I cannot win. If my proposal is adopted then it has to be documented somewhere. If it is documented other than at WT:STYLE then it will potentially be in conflict with WT:STYLE unless WT:STYLE is also updated. Therefore I do not at the present time intend to change the existing proposal in this respect.


 * I do agree that WT:STYLE probably contains other defects and omissions, but the purpose of my proposal is not to fix these other defects. It is to clarify the single point mentioned, while avoiding "creep" into other areas, such as general changes of terminology, which may have knock-on effects who knows where. If you or someone else wants to separately propose other changes to fix other perceived defects then you/they are free to do so.


 * Having said this, and apropos of your point about the "gloss" terminology, per Beer_parlour/2019/December, I am not really clear how we do/should define "gloss" in this context. The section presently begins with the sentence "Most definitions on Wiktionary are either full definitions or glosses", which I preserved since I assumed it was an important distiction in Wiktionary terminology. How would you define the difference? Or do you think we should just not mention such a distinction at all? If people are of the latter opinion, I can just remove mention of the word "gloss" from the proposed new wording altogether. Mihia (talk) 22:46, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I might have been inconsistent; I would need to look. Specific wording change proposals are good, but here you are dealing with a can of worms in form of preexisting wording that is not even a policy. In the COALMINE vote you mention (Votes/2019-08/Rescinding the "Coalmine" policy), the wording change was very straighforward: drop paragraph so and so. The related discussion is at Wiktionary talk:Votes/2019-08/Rescinding the "Coalmine"_policy.
 * I suggest you place the proposal I made above (based on your proposal) to the vote, making the vote text much shorter and making it very clear what it does and that it has no side effects; thereby, you avoid having to deal with what the term "gloss" means. Otherwise, I will need to oppose on account of any side effects introduced by the proposed change. Any sentence that is in the new wording but not in the old wording has to be checked for inaccuracies. If the vote passes, WT:STYLE can be updated accordingly anyway; WT:STYLE is not a policy and it can be changed without a vote, unlike WT:EL. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:14, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Other English dictionaries
What other English-language dictionaries are doing ( and other sources): --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:34, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * M-W: lowercase definition, no final punctuation
 * OED: capitalized definition, final punctuation
 * AHD: capitalized definition, final punctuation
 * Collins: has full sentences such as "The world is the planet that we live on."
 * Macmillan: lowercase definition, no final punctuation
 * Lexico: capitalized definition, final punctuation
 * Cambridge: lowercase definition, no final punctuation
 * Webster 1913: capitalized definition, final punctuation

Rename
I would rename the vote from

"Definitions and glosses of English terms should start with a capital and end with a full stop"

to

"Definitions of English terms - capitalization and punctuation"

The current name is rather long for a vote name.

--Dan Polansky (talk) 10:40, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Other non-English dictionaries
What other non-English definition dictionaries are doing, whether considered relevant or not: Many more could be added, so if you have the energy, please add them. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:54, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Duden (German): lowercase definition, no final punctuation; you have to look for a definition starting with a non-noun to see that
 * DRAE (Spanish): capitalized definition, final punctuation
 * cnrtl.fr (French): capitalized definition, final punctuation
 * SSJC (Czech): lowercase definition, no final punctuation
 * Multiple Slovak dictionaries: lowercase definition, no final punctuation

Unified lowercase format with colon as a gloss separator
One thing I've been pondering for some time is this:
 * 1) Let English definition lines of lemmas start in lowercase, with no final punctuation. Example of cat:
 * domestic feline that drinks milk
 * 2) Let non-English definition lines of lemmas start in lowercase, start with comma-separated list of translations, optionally followed by a colon, a space and the gloss. Examples of French chat, with a single translation and then multiple translations:
 * cat: domestic feline
 * cat, grimalkin: domestic feline

(Grimalkin would probably not be used here, and is used only as a formatting example.)

An advantage is consistent capitalization across English and non-English entries. The non-English entries start with translations rather than the abbreviated definitions called glosses as before, but look a little bit more like definitions due to the missing brackets around the gloss, and this colon-format can sometimes be used in English entries defining by synonym as well.

While I agree with Equinox that it is often better to proceed step by step, and that the English definitions could therefore be treated separately, the definitions form an overall user experience, whether English or non-English, especially for users that consult the English Wiktinary for multiple languages.

As shown in, there is enough precedent for the lowercase definitions, so this is not a radical innovation or departure from previous dictionary practice.

--Dan Polansky (talk) 12:02, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
 * As someone who regularly uses Wiktionary for both English and several other languages, I prefer having English definitions capitalized and FL definitions in lowercase, since they are typically shorter and consist of translations more than actual definitions. It would seem odd to me to have typically longer definitions for English all in lowercase, and equally odd to have a series of capitalized, single words, as would be found in many FL entries. So I don't think unifying the formatting would contribute to users' experience. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:59, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It probably depends on the user. I for one find it a little odd that the capitalization is not consistent, and I remember a contributor to Czech entries who was entering translation lines like "A cat." into Czech entries, probably in an attempt to make it consistent with English entries. As for whether longer definitions in lowercase are odd, users of multiple English definition dictionaries got used to it, including Merriam-Webster online, per . In some typographic styles, bullet list items that are not sentences are not capitalized as sentences, and our definitions are not sentences. On the other hand, the style in which bullet list items are capitalized even when not sentences is very common in English-language typography, though not univesally prevailing. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:57, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Removal of mention of "glosses"
The current text presents the distinction between "full definitions" and "glosses" as an important one (it is more or less the basis of the organisation of this section), and I originally assumed that it was important to preserve this in the proposed new wording. However, it now seems to me that there may not be general clarity or agreement about this distinction, and this issue risks becoming a distraction from the actual point of the proposal. I have therefore decided to remove all mention of "glosses" from the proposed new text. Personally I do not feel that much is lost by this. Mihia (talk) 23:05, 12 January 2020 (UTC)