Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2023-12/Notes section

Minor changes?
What are the minor changes? If they are not laid out explicitly in the vote, then the vote can't be considered to permit or mandate them. DCDuring (talk) 18:38, 27 December 2023 (UTC)


 * You're right. I clarified the minor changes I had in mind. I kept it vague since I am not sure if there are other part of the policy which would clash with the change. Catonif (talk) 10:54, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Overlap between notes/references
I have occasionally added an explanatory note to a reference note (i.e. in addition to the reference). Is such a note banned under the proposal? Should it be split into two notes? —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 17:47, 1 January 2024 (UTC)


 * The proposal in question is not explicitely banning anything, it's actually WT:ELE one should look at to understand this matter. The current policy reserves the section =References= for bibliographic information, and in other works I have often seen many works having some short comments after citing something in their bibliography, as in "Rossi (1998: 64), incorrectly says something else". So I think these somewhat still count as bibliography, and may be kept where they are. Of course when it starts to get lengthy I strongly advise making an explanatory note proper. Catonif (talk) 14:33, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Can we have an example?
Can we have an example of what type of information might go under the new "Notes" section that would not be appropriate under the current "Usage notes" or "References" section? It does seem clear what non-referential information might want to be notes, but so far the "Usage notes" headers eems to be a good catch for that? – Guitarmankev1 (talk) 13:34, 2 January 2024 (UTC)


 * In for example. Other examples that come to mind might be, . Catonif (talk) 14:41, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you. – Guitarmankev1 (talk) 17:43, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Does this mean that the ===Notes=== header is for "references" which themselves contain references? I'm not used to seeing this. — Soap — 09:44, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * No, it's intended for explanatory footnotes [...] to declutter other sections. Another good example may be sinupyla ~ κινούβοιλα. If you're not familiar with this or you personally think it is not that useful for your kind of editwork that's very normal. This isn't a section intended to be mass-used, but it's something that can prove to be very useful for a limited number of editors in some particular cases. Although most people will likely never use it, it definitely doesn't hurt them to have it used by others. Catonif (talk) 11:41, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Okay thank you. I havent used the Notes header that much, but I guess I've been using it incorrectly the few times I have used it.  I had browsed over this vote when I first saw it and figured that the idea of the Notes was for references that "explain" as opposed to references that "cite". Admittedly that's all on me for not reading more clearly and I know better now.  This proposal sounds good to me. — Soap — 13:08, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Catonif I'm a bit skeptical. In all the example words, visually there isn't a lot of content between the Etymology section and the Notes section, which in some sense allows those Notes to sound like a continuation of the text found in the Etymology (e.g. "Later he juxtaposes it..." or "It is, on the other hand, ..."). In many entries, however, you'd have a number of intervening sections - Pronunciation, an inflection table, and possibly lists of derived and related terms (among other WT:EL sections). Notes written like the ones in the examples would likely force the reader to scroll to the top of the entry to recover the original context in which those notes were introduced.
 * From my POV, some of those notes are more interesting than useful to the reader, and others could've been an extra sentence in the Etymology section. Of course, there could be other entries where the notes bring more value, so I'm making this statement only with respect to the examples given in the vote. IMO it's easy to add another section header, but it might encourage people to think less hard about how much detail is enough detail in an entry.
 * Is there a use case beyond etymology notes? The vote is written more generally, but all the examples given are of notes for etymology sections.
 * Thanks,
 * Chernorizets (talk) 05:52, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The header is definitely not my invention, it's from Wikipedia's "letter footnotes", like in Spain, this is merely a port. The example at w:Help:Explanatory notes is much clearer. Giving too many details can distract the reader and make them lose the train of thought, but not giving such information at all in some situations may be a loss. That's why Wikipedia makes great use of it. Perhaps the etymologies provided as examples can indeed be reworked, but the situation of having information too cluttery for the section yet valuable enough to keep can easily still come up. The reason why most of the examples provided are from etymologies is that =Etymology= is one of only headers actually written as running text, as a Wikipedia article would be. It's also very common to see etymologies with a lot of cramped information that make a reader lose interest in reading it. Not all examples given are in etymologies, however. Note on sinupyla the note to the alternative form and quote. I see no reason however to limit the section =Notes= to etymological notes, their usage may be as wide as their WP counterparts'. Note you don't need to scroll back up to recover the original context, there's a ^ at the beginning of every footnote that takes you exactly from where you were. As a final note, I believe this is a small change, a formality. I don't think anyone would actively change their editing style after it. Catonif (talk) 15:07, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Catonif I think Wikipedia has a different use case from us. Articles there can get really long, often requiring splitting into sub-articles. If any of our per-language entries got to a similar size - unless they were things like go and set which have a million meanings - it's most likely a sign of a problem with the entry. The Spain article is ~200KB. I assume the average Wikt entry is orders of magnitude less than that, as you'd expect for a reference source that users would ideally be in and out of quickly.
 * I'd be more in favor of a Notes section if it could be shown to solve a problem that exists in practice. IMO none of the example entries with an existing Notes section really need it, so it feels like it's too early to introduce it. Maybe other editors have encountered the need for Notes - it would be useful to hear a few such anecdotes. Chernorizets (talk) 09:36, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Real problem, but perhaps there is a neater solution: Notes Dropdown within Sections
It seems that the Notes section is largely intended to solve the problem of expanded scholarly analysis. The etymology section, in particular, does not always hierarchically sort this kind of information in a way that is most useful to the reader.

For example, arcazón linked above assumes familiarity with a bibliography and technical terms which would confuse the less informed reader but are interesting to the advanced reader.

A layout with 'notes' dropdowns within sections (like quotations, synonyms, etc) seems preferable to me. This allows the basic information to be presented first, then the 'expanded' information to be optionally 'expanded' by the reader. For example, if arcazón were presented in this format:

Etymology Uncertain.1 Perhaps from Mozarabic *šalqassún, assimilated variant of an older *šalqastún, from Latin salicastrum(“wild vine”) + -ōnem (augmentative ending).2 Notes ▼

 Notes Dropdown Within Section: For the loss of the initial sibilant, Corriente points to Valencian alcorroc < Arabic شَقَرَّاق‎ (šaqarrāq, “common roller bird”). If he is right, that would make arcazón a doublet of jaguarzo (“rockrose”) and sargazo (“gulfweed”). However, he later suggests that alcorroc derives from Andalusian Arabic قَرُّوق‎ (qarrūq), for which he notes a single probable attestation,[4] as an Andalusi Romance or echoic derivation.3

References 1. Coromines & Pascual (full ref) 2. Corriente (full ref) 3. Corriente (full ref)

To provide information with a hierarchy like this is why a Notes section is useful. However, a general Notes seems too much like a 'grab bag' to me --- it refers inconsistently to different parts of the entry, and thus the reader does not know what to look in the Notes section for. I'm a newly active account, so I can't vote in the current poll, but I would oppose it in its current form.

However, as illustrated above, section specific 'notes' dropdowns could be neat and useful. There could be definitions for the functions of notes for various existing sections --- i.e. the notes section in Etymology could discuss etymological disputes or specific sound changes, which are definitely of interest but I feel should not be a part of the main entry.

I can also imagine it could be useful in some other circumstances, for instance, a note within the Usage Notes section mentioning a scholarly dispute over the usage of the term, or, for extinct languages, scholarly commentary on the papryology or discovery of the word.

A con is that perhaps useful information would be obscured, and this would encourage entry bloat. But I think this would be a better solution than a general notes section, and bloat could be minimised by specifying the function of the notes dropdown (i.e. primarily expanded scholarly meta-discussion of the word). CosmicMuse (talk) 09:25, 31 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Brilliant. I would favour this option. Nicodene (talk) 10:00, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
 * This is a pretty interesting idea. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 23:48, 10 February 2024 (UTC)