Wiktionary talk:Votes/2021-07/Deleting the Index

Incoming links etc.?
Hi! I certainly have seen the Index pages being superseded by the Lemma category in my time here. But is it possible to demonstrate that the old stuff really isn't required? For example, are there incoming links, etc. etc. Equinox ◑ 02:31, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Since I removed the links to it from the main page in 2018 per a BP discussion, I think the only significant main namespace linkage comes from Finnish lemmas. See e.g. the top of varpunen. Ultimateria (talk) 03:09, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Should I mention removing incoming links in the vote? It seemed pretty obvious to me (and those Finnish links aren't approved by our layout rules anyway). —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 04:23, 22 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Probably fine. I only wanted to double-check that it had been considered. Thanks. Equinox ◑ 04:56, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Another big source is the box in category pages, e.g. Category:English language. I don't know how to remove it, unfortunately. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 06:11, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Those are added by Module:category tree/poscatboiler/data/languages, so it should just be a simple edit. — Eru·tuon 06:50, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Just a note, but they are still linked from the very top of the main page under ‘Browse: All langauges’. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 18:59, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Good catch, I'd never even thought to click on that. I'll replace that link with Category:All languages unless anyone has another suggestion. Ultimateria (talk) 19:09, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Do they delete namespaces?
Not sure if the Wikimedia folks do delete namespaces. Wikipedia has the Gadget and Gadget definition namespaces (and their talk namespaces), which are unused but haven't been deleted. But at least they could mark the Index namespace as deprecated, as was done with the Wikipedia namespaces. — Eru·tuon 06:45, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * This would be good to find out for sure. I was planning on designating you as the person to handle the Phabricator side of things anyway... —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 19:34, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I inquired and the answer is yes, they do delete namespaces. Gadget is a special case because of its extension. Here is the Phab report that en.wiki recently used to delete the Book namespace. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 20:50, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Okay, good to know, and yes, I think I can write the Phabricator task. — Eru·tuon 23:07, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Presentation
I like the way the index is formatted, it's much more functional than the lemma categories, and restores some of that random paper dictionary experience. And it contains red links, useful to spot holes. (useful for editors, that is). But generating this for every language, with the current size of the dictionary seems like a monster undertaking. – Jberkel 19:10, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 * User:Matthias Buchmeier has made some of these from translation sections (see his userpage), if that's really all you want. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 19:34, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Not bad, but it doesn't have redlinks, and the entries are duplicated (one line per POS). – Jberkel 23:19, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Last I checked, it did have redlinks, and they're more likely to be reliable than the Index ones, which are horribly outdated and often reflect deleted entries. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 02:42, 24 July 2021 (UTC)
 * It does have redlinks, but only from English-Other language. – Jberkel 22:50, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

Statistics on links
Some statistics on linking to index pages here. Quite a few links to nonexistent index pages. It's possible most links are generated by modules or templates. At least that is true of links to subpages of  (see Special:WhatLinksHere/Index:index/a), and probably true of links to Index:Chinese Cangjie and its subpages (Special:Search/insource:"Chinese cangjie").

Not too many pages transclude indices. Quite a few transclude themselves (query), and a few user pages transclude index pages (query). — Eru·tuon 23:21, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

American Sign Language
User:AG202 mentioned on Discord that Index:American Sign Language is probably worth keeping. So we can leave it when we move everything to the Appendix namespace. — Eru·tuon 23:00, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Wherefore need we to? I see that that index page lists no terms… ·~   dictátor · mundꟾ  08:27, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
 * , can you answer this? I just took a look and it seems like a good idea, but there's hardly anything there... —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 04:12, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Pinging as well. Yea I think it'd be good thing to move it to the Appendix. At first glance, it doesn't look like much, but some pages like Index:American_Sign_Language/AIS have more detailed information, so I think it'd be best to preserve it, especially considering the work that probably went into it. I'm not a speaker of ASL myself, but I'd feel bad removing useful information like that. AG202 (talk) 05:18, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Same. Some work went into it. More like the picture dictionaries in spoken languages — of course due to the sign languages’ nature, but still it is more like these picture dictionaries and less like the crap for which this namespace was deleted. Fay Freak (talk) 04:47, 26 August 2021 (UTC)