Wiktionary talk:Word of the day/Nominations

Page formatting
I've been bold and reformatted the page to make it more compact and (therefore) easier to scan. - dcljr 01:05, 19 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay, I've been bold again and completely reversed the page to be in reverse chrnonological order, so that new entries can be added to the top of the page in the first section. This enabled me to provide an automatic link for users to nominate new words (sort of in the style of the Beer parlour). - dcljr 22:47, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

What kind of words we should feature
Apart from having to be English, currently the only criterion for selecting a word as WotD seems to be its (in)frequency of appearance in speech and print. We should also feature words that have comprehensive and up-to-date entries, as well as non-English words. Ncik 03:18, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with varying the kind of word chosen, so that quality entries are featured instead of just obscure words. I also feel that selections should more often than not be words that can be used in conversation, or which have some interesting background to them. However, I disagree with featuring non-English words. Most non-English entries are minimal, and deliberately so. Besides which, this is the English Wiktionary, so we should feature English words. There are plenty of other Wiktionaries out there in other languages, and they will choose to feature words in their languages, so we need not duplicate their efforts. --EncycloPetey 13:08, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
 * But the purpose of Wiktionary is to provide English-language definitions of all words in all languages ... is it not? -- Visviva 13:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * No -- we include all words in all langauges, but for non-English words the goal is to translate those words into English. We explicitly do not include definitions of foreign words on the English Wiktionary.  We only translate them into English, and expect users to look up the definition in the corresponding English entry. --EncycloPetey 16:41, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I strongly disagree with you on this, EncycloPetey. We want proper entries, including definitions, for all words. Ncik 21:04, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Then you disagree with the community view. There are many things we include for English entries that are purposefully excluded from existing in non-English entries.  Put it to a vote, if you'd like to change current practice. --EncycloPetey 21:48, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * This is one of these Connel policies declared law and enforced as such by him and his disciples. Ncik 21:55, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I think Eclecticology would threaten you us with physical violence again, if he caught you calling him a "Connel disciple." The "translations only" was not my doing - that rule predated my arrival here at en.wiktionary.  The guideline to use translations (or at most a gloss, when needed) makes a tremendous amount of sense.  My involvement in that controversy was that someone (was it you?  Now I don't remember) wanted to change the practice, mid-stream, with no regard for how much cleanup of older entries it would cause.
 * At that time, you made compelling arguments for including more detail than a gloss. But you also made weaker, seemingly nonsensical arguments (I'm thinking of Hand.)  Given that the automated editing tools have been more widely accepted, I'm personally much more inclined to give some support to the notion of including more than a gloss in foreign entries, today.  I think Encyclopetey's suggestion of starting a vote has a great deal of merit.  --Connel MacKenzie 07:00, 3 November 2006 (UTC) (edited) 07:12, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I think you're overstating. I disagree with Connel on a regular basis, but still I stick to this principle most of the time.  After all, there are words that simply don't translate adequately, and so require a definition.
 * Again, if you want to poll the community with a vote, do so. As for WOTD, I think it's most reasonable to stick to a WOTD in the same language as the Wiktionary featuring it. There are some languages that don't even display properly in some browsers or platforms.  And with more than 200 languages already on Wiktionary, there's no fair, logical, consistent system for selecting what non-English words are featured or how often.  In any cae, one of the primary principles of WOTD is to select words that might be useful.  If we select a non-English word, the majority of users won't be able to use it in conversation. What's the point of knowing only one Polish word? Or only one Korean word?  It makes more sense to stick to a single language for WOTD.  At least in English, there are still many many loan-words, and the latter half of December will feature many such words, indirectly featuring the non-English words from which they derive.  --EncycloPetey 22:55, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Themes
How does everyone feel about having themes to our WOTD's? You'll notice that on Valentine's day, the WOTD was amative I thought that was a nice touch. Maybe some springy words for march? Or maybe things about Mars, or Tui, or plants?
 * springy words sound good. I'm liking the April Fool one too. --Expurgator t(c) 22:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I like having a thematic word from time to time, with restraint. I note that blarney was up on St. Patrick's Day, and haywire is up for May Day (albeit an oblique reference). I'm thinking that it might be nice from time to time to have a week or so with some Withtionary appropriate theme as well. In particular, I'm thinking about using a week or two in June to feature words with etymologies that can be traced back to "unusual" languages -- not Latin, Greek, German, French, or the usual suspects. If a theme gets enough impetus, we could create a special section for appropriate nominations to use. --EncycloPetey 08:08, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

The suggestions
Could we, just as a rule, never have words like tomfoolery and poppycock? Lets try and distance ourselves from Urban dictionary. Also, this isn't wiki-dumbass. Iamnotanorange 21:37, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * poppycock and tomfoolery are awesome words! --Expurgator t(c) 22:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)


 * WOW, I'm sorry but pshaw is one step closer to us becoming Urban dictionary. Why don't we just have Hell yeah or Damn, son. I realize they can't all be winners, but lets keep it smart and try to find words that are worth clicking on. Iamnotanorange 21:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm in favor of including the occasional (once every four months or less) interjection to vary the parts of speech that we're using. Did you look at the literary citations? If an interjection can be cited from standard literary works by Dickens, James Fenimore Cooper, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, then it's a legitimate entry, and not as base as you've made it sound. That's the difference between the entry for pshaw and Hell yeah. --EncycloPetey 08:04, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, how do people feel about aah being the upcoming WOTD for 7 May? (I didn't put this one up, and it was never nominated.) --EncycloPetey 13:10, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Stricken
I suggested in the page instructions that we strike out words that have already been, or are in the queue to be, WsOTD. I just noticed, however, that it doesn't quite work the way I'd hoped: brobdingnagian, coruscate, eschew (on my browser, at least, the linked words don't actually get struck out — I assume everyone else sees the same thing). So how should we deal with this? Unlink them when we strike them out ( brobdingnagian, coruscate, eschew )? Change the font in some way? Change the default style sheet so linked words do get struck out? - dcljr 18:00, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah! Did someone change something or is this problem actually just an IE thing? I now see the linked words as struck out, but I'm now using Firefox on Linux (home) instead of IE on Windows2000Pro (work). FYI. - dcljr 07:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
 * To answer my own question, this is an IE thing. In IE (5.0, anyway) the "struck out" linked words don't appear to be struck out at all. - dcljr 22:44, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Unsigned, resigned
Okay, I've given up attributing all the anonymous nominations using the tag. It was being used so much that some anon users were actually signing their comment with it (instead of ~ ), which doesn't work at all. So I've removed the tag everywhere except one case where I moved the comment was from another page, and another where a registered user left their nomination unsigned. - dcljr 18:13, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I've taken it upon myself to modify the instructions for entering WOTD nominations by inserting "log-in" before "typing four tildes." It seems elementary, but there are some naive users. (Shit, why can't I get access to the I with two dots over it, even when I import it from a word processing program?) Dick Kimball 19:14, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

redlink noms
What do we do about nominations that are redlinked? JillianE 16:25, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Leave them in, certainly, but we won't consider queueing them until someone's created the appropriate entry. Hopefully, the red-linked nominations will spawn new entries. --EncycloPetey 07:59, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Features of Featured words
Does anyone feel up to adding some guidelines as to what qualifies a word to be a featured word? Currently it just says to list nominations on the page, not what makes a good nomination. JillianE 21:17, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm already working up an essay of how I've been selecting from nominations, with suggestions for people on how to help braoden their nominations. --EncycloPetey 04:53, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
 * We definitely need more verbs (which is why my last nomination was ululate); most of the noms seem to be nouns and adjectives. - dcljr 08:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Function of this page
Folks seem to be mistaking this page for Appendix:List of protologisms. Can we set a rule that an article has to exist before it can be nominated for WOTD? Redlinks belong on pages of needed articles, not here (especially preposterous redlinks). bd2412 T 22:31, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Guidelines
I started a draft of proposed guidelines for WOTD at Wiktionary talk:Featured word candidates (comment)/guidelines. Once it is improved to a satisfactory degree it could be added to Word of the day/Nominations. RJFJR 16:29, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I put the proposed version of the guidelines on the project page. (I got tired of the weird entries people kept nominating). RJFJR 13:24, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I dig your proposed guidelines and swear fealty to them. bd2412 T 16:43, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposed reformatting
I've put together a proposed format at Word of the day/Nominations/Format Proposal. Any ideas, questions, or productive angry rants are welcome. Foxjwill 05:35, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Since no one's objected, I've gone ahead and reformatted the page. Foxjwill 19:03, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Additional "What not to nominate"
I'd like to add:
 * Avoid multi word terms. While some idioms are particularly interesting, most compound nouns are not.  While they may be topical to a current event, they don't convey lexical excellence as succintly as single-word terms do.  Idioms of limited scope are, well, of limited scope.  Rule of thumb: if the idiom doesn't contain interesting translations (to, say, equivalent Russian or Chinese idioms) then it probably isn't unusual enough, and common enough, to be a word of the day.

Any objections or suggested rewordings? Stronger? Weaker? Split? --Connel MacKenzie 06:33, 6 December 2006 (UTC)


 * While I understand your point, I don't think there's a simple or elegant way to phrase it as a criterion for the nominations page. This is more likely to be a post-nomination filter rather than a stricture on nominations themselves.  As long as the entry has reasonable frequency of use, or reasonable utility, or an interesting etymology, or interesting citations, or interesting translations to other languages (see: it's all Greek to me), the nomination could still be a good candidate for word of the day. --EncycloPetey 01:09, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * That's an excellent example of what my later sentences were suggesting, with that rule of thumb. Oh well.  I think you are right, that filtering them after nomination is probably better.  Still...can't we suggest they be avoided?  --Connel MacKenzie 01:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Only if we can think of a brief way to suggest that. I don't think it's so important that it should end up belabored as a point on the nominations page.  I just haven't seen such nominations come up that often.  The only real run of them we had was the month that Vildricianus set up the WOTD queue.  I've tended to avoid them myself, and limit even the idioms to about one a month.  With such a small fraction of nominations of the sort you're describing, I don't feel the need to write a specific caution against them. --EncycloPetey 01:48, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * As a frequent user (albeit one who has only just started editing) I prefer the idea of featured words of all types. I like the variety displayed by previous words of the day.  I don't think we should allow redlinks or protologisms (although I like neologisms, so I'm fine with them), and I think the rule against profanity is probably sensible, as is (to an extent) the one against non-English words.  Other than that, though, I think anything should go - idioms, slang, neologisms, jargon, American and Commonwealth.
 * The Word of the Day should always be interesting and entertaining. The English language is a remarkable thing.  I think we should aim to show as much of it as possible.  RobbieG 18:51, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I respectfully suggest that the guidance, "At the other extreme, antidisestablishmentarianism — a perennial favorite of WOTD nominators — is simply too unusual..." might be in need of revision, since "antidisestablishmentarianism" was WOTD on 29 March 2006 and is so listed in the WOTD Archives. Dick Kimball 15:56, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

In the category of multi-word idioms, what is the consensus regarding "as hard as Chinese arithmetic?" Does anyone who is actually Chinese find it racially offensive or not? In fact, I'm not even all that sure about the actual difficulty of Chinese arithmetic. Dick Kimball 12:00, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not worth featuring, regardless. It's a comparison snowclone for "as hard as X", for which many, many different "hard" things have been substituted to make the comparison. --EncycloPetey 13:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Lovecraftian
I nominate Lovecraftian for word of the day on March 15th this upcoming year.

Merge INE?
This was on the WOTD candidates main page. Imoved it here because I'm not convinced this is decided on.
 * Someone please merge in the contents of WT:INE and make that page become a redirect to here.

Qualifying for INE does seem to me to be the same as beign a good WOTD candidate. INE says interesting or quirky. WOTD says an example of WT's best definitions. I'm not conviced that they should be merged without due rumination and I'm not conviced INE should be eliminated and redirected top WOTD. RJFJR 14:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed. For one thing, INE makes no restrictions on the word's language, but does assume the word is recently entered.  A word may also be quirky without being a good WOTD candidate.  I view INE as wiktionary's equivalent to Did you know... (Recent additions) or Unusual articles on Wikipedia. --EncycloPetey 01:51, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Floccinaucinihilipilification
From the project page:


 * also, floccinaucinihilipilification, although long, has not been featured and is a very interesting word IMHO. RobbieG 15:55, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
 * But when was the last time you used it in conversation? And did you have to define it? RJFJR 12:49, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Point taken, but then again, I can't think of the last time I used the words profligate, obdurate or bring owls to Athens in conversation, and I'm sure there are people who wouldn't know what I meant when I did. I thought the great thing about WOTD was that it encouraged the use of interesting words people might not know.  RobbieG 14:06, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
 * But the examples you've cited (all past WOTDs) are words that you can run across in works of English literature or might encounter during the normal course of events, even if infrequently. I have yet to ever see an author use floccinaucinihilipilification for anything, but have run into the word obdurate on several occasions.  Your nomination thus fails the criterion above of exotic usefulness. --EncycloPetey 16:12, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


 * If you don't want to use this word as word of the day, that's fair enough, but I don't see what's wrong with me nominating it. In terms of usefulness, I see it as a potentially useful word, albeit one that is not in widespread use (and never has been, and probably never will be).  I also think it is interesting because of its fame for being cited as the longest nontechnical word in the English language.  By the way, I have encountered this word in conversation, although jokingly.  And yes, an explanation of its meaning was provided.  RobbieG 21:58, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I thought we were discussing if it was a good choice for WOTD, not whether it was a good nomination. Who said not to nominate it? RJFJR 13:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Um, no-one. Sorry, my bad, I read it wrong.  RobbieG 15:19, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I think floccinaucinihilipilification is great to use, personally. It has been used on television commercials, cartoons, in Senate debates, musical recordings, movies, and even in books (used in proper sense, without explaining it, and in non-interesting-words books. I happen to use it myself all the time, simply because it is fun to say and is an impressive word. sewnmouthsecret 16:11, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

"Featured word"?
At the risk of sounding nitpicky, why is this page "Featured word candidates" and not "Word of the Day candidates," as the concept is referred to everywhere else, including the main page? Dmcdevit·t 04:43, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Support moving.
 * Ditto. Something like "Proposed words of the day" or "Word of the day proposals" might be even better. —Ruakh TALK 17:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The WOTD template on the main page currently calls these "nominations", so perhaps "Nominations for Word of the Day". --EncycloPetey 21:55, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. :-) —Ruakh TALK 22:30, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I support the move. Word of the Day Nominations sounds good. DaGizza 00:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


 * FWC is a lot easier to remember than NFWOTD. Or is that NFW?  Or plural nominations being NsFW ?  :-)     --Connel MacKenzie 09:28, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * If we make it "Word of the Day Nominations, then we'd have WOTDN as the shortcut. That just adds "N" for "nominations" to the current shortcut of WT:WOTD. --EncycloPetey 23:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * There is no need to remove the shortcut, I support the move. Conrad.Irwin 19:32, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

How to nominate & check WOTD
In the "How to nominate" section, I think we should change it remind people to do a quick websearch of wotd's. Since it does seem to be abused a bit, perhaps we should have a  /  template(s) that wikifies the term and provides a link to  http://www.altavista.com/web/results?q=%22word+of+the+day%22+  to A) remind people that we do check, B) make it one step easier for those of us that do check. Taking it a step further, we could have a template for the pages themselves, that drops them alphabetically into a category, with a description of the nomination process and another link to an external web search, e.g.  http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22word+of+the+day%22+ . It could remind people to add it to WT:FWC if it checks out clean, presumably. --Connel MacKenzie 09:25, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * With no objections, being bold testing it out. --Connel MacKenzie 19:10, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * As a relatively infrequent participant here, I find WT:FWC rather daunting. Connel suggests we "remind people to do a quick websearch", but that assumes they know they're supposed to do this in the first place and have merely forgotten. There isn't a single word on the page even hinting about this or why we should do it.


 * Connel's templates are an excellent start to giving newbies and other inexperienced Wiktionarians an indication of the desire to do a little research before committing a nomination. Could we close the loop by adding a few sentences about why we should do this? (Don't explain it to me here; we need to explain it to everyone who may wish to nominate.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 12:32, 10 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what you mean by "daunting." I've added a couple sentences in the "what NOT to nominate" as you requested.  You are right, that I suggested it be added as verbiage, first, then the template just sortof happened.  The nice thing about the template, is that nominations can be checked easily by other people, then stricken before it has gotten very far.  If it gets stuffed into one of next month's templates and then discovered to be a poor nomination, it is a pain...but if stricken early, only a little time is wasted on it.  (Not necessarily an entire waste, of course...just not clogging up the WOTD process.)  --Connel MacKenzie 07:23, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Broken Nominate buttons
Some of the "Nominate a Word" buttons are busted links and need to be repaired Dick Kimball 22:12, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, sorry - I forgot to change them when I moved the page. Conrad.Irwin 22:36, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

propsed new criteria for section on what not to include
How do people feel about adding a line that says something to the effect "Avoid words that only have senses that are tagged as rare, obsolete or dated." RJFJR 13:26, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Discussion of "what to nominate" change
I think that the change from "antidisestablishmentarianism" to "bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk" is fixing something that isn't broken. Yes, "antidisestablishmentarianism" was a word of the day, but that was before the 'What to nominate' section was written. And the former wording was clearer in my opinion. What is response to suggestion we change it back? RJFJR 14:21, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk was chosen because, well, it's even weirder. You can reword it all you want, I'm just saying that putting antidisestablishmentarianism would be pretty hypocritical- sure, one shouldn't nominate it, but for a completely different reason than the one in bold. Teh Rote 14:28, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Could we find another weird word that is shorter? RJFJR 14:41, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * How about zenzizenzic? Teh Rote 22:39, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's better (and it's pronouncable). Thank you.  RJFJR 00:08, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

WOTD December 24
I am quite chagrined at the fact that the WOTD for dec 24 is 'listen'. This word is a fundamental, basic verb used in everyday life from an infant to a grown man. There is no doubt that this word extends one's vocabulary. Where is its 'exotic usefulness'? --Dictionman 17:11, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * While it is true that we usually select a more "exotic" word, we do (on very rare occasions) select a word that may not be considered so exotic, in order to maintain variety. The entry for  is one of Wiktionary's best-formatted and most fully fleshed-out entries for all areas we cover in our pages.  Further, the entry does contain three current definitions, and most people do not realize there is more than one. --EncycloPetey 01:56, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Archaic and Rare Words
Are Archaic and rare words potential candidates for WOTD? Just wondering. --Dictionman 18:19, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Ultimately it hinges on the WOTD selector (aka EncycloPetey most of the time). Fully obsolete or exceedingly rare words are generally considered inappropriate, but we're not very consistent. When I looked at it, I was entirely unable to find a single non-dictionary use of (even though  has healthy use in medical publication), which looks like a typical "dictionary zombie", a word found in dictionaries pretty much only because it is found in orevious/other dictionaries. Circeus 18:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

catechumen WOTD 16 Oct. 2009
WTH? this is clearly in the not file according to the guidelines on the WOTD page. - Amgine/talk 18:23, 16 October 2009 (UTC)


 * "Clearly" to you, perhaps, but not to me. Which guideline in particular? —Ruakh TALK 18:43, 16 October 2009 (UTC)


 * An ideal WOTD candidate is a word (or phrase) likely to be encountered in a newspaper or in literature. It should be exotic enough that it adds to readers' vocabularies, but not so unusual that it cannot be used in everyday conversation.
 * Is this term ever likely to be used in everyday conversation?
 * What not to nominate
 * No long words - We've already featured all the interesting words over 15 characters long - please wait until after 2011 to renominate any of them.
 * Four syllables?
 * Avoid purely obsolete words - Words whose definitions are only obsolete, archaic, rare or similar should be avoided as hard to use in practice. A word that has a sense marked as rare, etc, in addition to a more common sense is fine.
 * Although perhaps not obsolete or archaice, it's certainly rare or hard to use in practice.


 * Likewise today's term abigeat, which is what reminded me of this discussion actually. - Amgine/talk 05:41, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I think it's very subjective. "Catechumen" gets hundreds of Google Books and Google News Archive hits over the past ten years (some of which are reprints of older works, but most of which do seem genuinely new). I'll admit that I'd never heard it before, but I imagine that's because I don't know all that many converts to Catholicism or Orthodoxy. As for "long words", I really don't think this is one; it's the same length, in either letters or syllables, as "redundancy", "cumulative", "renovation", or "pediatrics". (I believe that rule is there because some people seem to think that length makes a word interesting, and want us to feature very long words, many of which are barely attested. Honestly, I can even think of some longer-than-fifteen-letter words, such as "dysfunctionality", that I wouldn't consider too bad, though in most cases there's a shorter, related term, such as "dysfunction" or "dysfunctional", that would serve just as well for WOTD purposes.) Perhaps "catechumen" errs too far on the side of "exotic", if no one uses it in conversation — I don't know, and I don't know how to tell for sure — but conversely, I can easily imagine an Orthodox editor coming in and thinking it errs too far on the side of "not so unusual", if they've spent their whole lives in a church that offers a weekly "Catechumen and Inquiry Class" (as the St. Andrew Antiochian Orthodox Church in Pensacola apparently does). —Ruakh TALK 06:41, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


 * As apologetics goes, it ended after the first sentence. And in my opinion, that can be countered by the "spirit of the WOTD" phrase likely to be encountered in a newspaper or in literature. But, equally obviously in my opinion, you and I will be unable to share the interpretation. I surrender utterly to your verbiage. - Amgine/talk 13:40, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

score off (closed page)
Hello, I "do not have permission to edit this page". Could someone please nominate for me the "score off" I made? TIA, 62.147.25.146 18:38, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * (1: to defeat in an argument; 2: to delete from a list)


 * Done.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 11:58, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

French interwiki
The French interwiki was for "propositions of featured articles". That's because the French word of the day is a 'word to create' of the day (that is, a red link or an entry with no French). Still, I think the two are separate enough to not link to each other - "propositions of featured articles" is very rarely used. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:26, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

About my suggestion
I don't know if this is the right place to discuss single WOTD proposals - or wether there's a place for such discussions at all. Anyway, I wish to question the deletion of my proposal «draegerman». Please consider http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/draegerman and further sources. Null-null-drei 06:27, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * WOTD is meant to showcase good quality entries of interesting words that are Wiktionary. Sometimes (often?) that means bringing the entry up to scratch, but expecting the team to  the entry before evaluating it seems a mite uncharitable. — Pingkudimmi 10:11, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

06/01/2011
I'd like to nominate "repurpose". Ylem 08:43, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

initial letters — Not all interesting words start with J, K, Q or Z.
It says "initial letters — Not all interesting words start with J, K, Q or Z.". This is confusing, why is it on the page? --Newfriendforyou 12:16, 21 July 2011 (UTC)


 * You missed the first part of the sentence: "Also keep in mind that featured words are chosen to reflect a variety of: ● ●  ● initial letters — Not all interesting words start with J, K, Q or Z." —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 14:25, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

apotheosize
apotheosize would be a nice WOTD--Rockpilot 12:27, 13 September 2011 (UTC)


 * So, nominate it! —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 13:18, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Can't. This account is too new. Will do so in a few days. --Rockpilot 17:23, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

pornophobe
I would like to nominate: pornophobe, pornocopia, acculture, and ellisizationAcdcrocks 07:08, 12 October 2011 (UTC) Acdcrocks 09:52, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

roriferous
roriferous is a coolish word

Wiktionary Day
WT:Wiktionary Day is 12.12 (the twelfth of December), and this year will be 12.12.12 in the common system of numbering years... what kind of word should we pick? Hm, this gives me the idea to suggest that b'ak'tun and other words of Maya origin could be featured in December (or any time this year, really)...but we probably want to do something more Wikty for Wikt day. - -sche (discuss) 02:13, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

to watchlist all of the WOTD templates
Anyone interested in watchlisting all of the WOTD day templates (for whatever reason) can copy the text of into their raw watchlist (edit page). Cheers, - -sche (discuss) 05:04, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Nomination
Hi, I would like to nominate salad dodger.
 * I've nominated it for you. :) Cheers, - -sche (discuss) 03:18, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Some content erased
Check here and here. Celloplayer115 ♬ 16:41, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for spotting that. I fixed it the first time... this time I've just rolled back the bad edit. - -sche (discuss) 16:48, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

atomic wedgie as WOTD
I'd like to nom atomic wedgie as WOTD. It is epic, and linguistically interesting --Maria.Sion (talk) 23:28, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

don't protect
I think mere mortals should also be allowed to nominate a WOTD. Esp. as there's been few new ones lately. --81.9.217.33 01:40, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * unstinting would be a good one, BTW
 * I agree about not protecting it. -sche? — Ungoliant (Falai) 02:09, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure, I've lowered the protection. Apparently there was a lot of vandalism two years ago... hopefully it won't come back. By the way, I'll note that the reason there've been few new words is not so much that there haven't been good nominations, it's that no-one has the time to run WOTD. (Fortunately, the brilliant failsafe system means old words are just recycled.) - -sche (discuss) 02:19, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Why not?
What is wrong with lecherous and mignon? --Æ&#38;Œ (talk) 01:11, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
 * If someone nominates a group of words at the same time, I may only select one or two of them, because I want to ensure that as many users as possible get to see a word they nominate become WOTD. You nominated lecherous, mignon, and orgulous at the same time, and I went with orgulous. I also take into consideration whether an entry has cites at the time it is nominated, or how difficult it would be to cite on my own. Mignon lacks cites for the adjective senses, and I've had trouble finding some. I could give it another go, or use the Henry III noun sense, which only needs one more cite. Per the "no offensive words" guideline, I also generally pass up words like lecherous and eunuch. They're not vulgar or profane, but at the same time they don't strike me as words you could typically "use in front of your boss or your grandmother," so I figure it's best to play it safe. Astral (talk) 02:25, 25 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't think lecherous is any "worse" a word than, say, tawdry or meretricious, but I think it's already quite well known. I like mignon. Would be a good WOTD if the citations are findable. Equinox ◑ 02:33, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Who picks the winners
How, why, and by whom is the Word of the Day selected?


 * Normally a volunteer does this, but currently no one is interested, so Words of the Day from last year are being automatically reused. — Ungoliant (Falai) 18:58, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Can't post yeasayer
Hello, could someone please nominate this for me? (I can't do it because "A brief description of the abuse rule which your action matched is: New user adding external link".)

* (newly created) ~

Thanks, 62.147.24.34 01:05, 11 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Done, though I must tell you that WOTD doesn’t have anyone maintaining it, so it might be a while before the word is featured. — Ungoliant (Falai) 01:23, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Nomination
Can't unregistered users be allowed to nominate words? Or, if not, can there at least be a sensible handling of it, rather than a random and completely irrelevant error message appearing? While I'm unable to do it, could someone please nominate on my behalf Croydon facelift, another of my most favourite terms! 86.160.214.202 20:17, 16 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Nominated. Unregistered users are supposed to be able to nominate words. Very recently there have been a number of major changes in the wiki software that all the Wikipedias and Wiktionaries use, and it has caused a lot of bugs. We are trying to work through the bugs, but it takes time. The error message that you see is appropriate for someone who is trying to create an external link to another internet site, which could be harmful to others who click on it, and which is not permitted. When we get everything working correctly again, you will be able to nominate words and you won’t see that error message. This is a problem that can’t be fixed in a few hours ... it’s going to take months. —Stephen (Talk) 21:42, 16 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you! BTW, having now read some messages above, I see that new words are no longer being put up anyway because no one is looking after the system any more. That's a shame. What does it entail exactly? Is it more than just looking at the list of suggestions every day and picking one (or every week and picking seven)? That does not seem like a big effort. I would volunteer myself... 86.160.214.202 23:02, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Words are becoming more unusable
I believe that the English WOTDs are becoming more and more outlandishly used. I was going to nominate dragonless, only to realise that it has a very rare usage, yet the next day, I see peri. When is the last time you used the names of mythical beings in speech? I especially detest today's word which has 100% obsolete usage. Воображение (talk) 01:40, 17 November 2013 (UTC)


 * The only time I encountered peri was in a book of The Arabian Nights. Equinox ◑ 01:48, 17 November 2013 (UTC)


 * What should we do about this? Воображение (talk) 21:20, 17 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Simple. Only nominate words that are in common usage, but that people don’t know. —Stephen (Talk) 04:45, 18 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Feasible, but obviously not everybody is following this policy, as proved by this. My question is how to make sure this doesn't hinder the public if someone does submit an eligible word and it is selected. Воображение (talk) 00:25, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Edit protected
Can an admin please edit Word of the day/Nominations/Archive 2006 to close the runaway element in the entry for "fonduk" (nominated by "Pepito")? (Note that full protection for pages such as this is not really necessary, since users can watch such pages and get e-mail notifications when they are changed. I myself watch several similar "archives" at Wikipedia, and simply revert any unhelpful edits.) - dcljr (talk) 01:32, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Please also close the runaway  element on the same page, in the April 2006 comment by "Expurgator". - dcljr (talk) 01:39, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I've fixed the tags you pointed out; thanks! I have kept the protection on the page, though, because I think most edits to an archive from 2006 would be illegitimate. The few valid edit requests can be made the way you just made these. - -sche (discuss) 03:06, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Easy way to check nominated words of the day
There's no easy way to check for the nominated words of the day. Sometimes I find the link and othertimes I don't. It takes some time checking for the link for a simple task. Even if I'd realize to save the link, it's nothing that I use frequentely, and I use differents devices and browsers to access Wikimedia sites. So I suggest to move the link into a easy and obvious place to find.

Thanks.

Dorivaldo de C. M. dos Santos (talk) 20:07, 21 April 2016 (UTC)


 * You can bookmark "Word of the day/Nominations" using your browser. Thanks for your contributions! — SMUconlaw (talk) 11:09, 22 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry, what I actually mean is the dificult to get the link where the words of the day already nominated can be found or checked, not candidates to Word of The Day. It's to avoid nominating the same word more than once.


 * Thank You.


 * Dorivaldo de C. M. dos Santos (talk) 12:49, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
 * @Dorivaldo, the template generates some useful links the first of which (R) when clicked searches the nominated word in a way that if anything comes up it is most probably a repetition. See  which has been wotd-ed and  which will never be a wotd. --Dixtosa (talk) 18:07, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Also, the entry page of a word that has already appeared on Word of the Day should have a note like "WOTD – 23 April 2016" on the top right corner showing the date when it appeared. You can also click on the "What links here" link in the menu on the left side of the screen, select the "Wiktionary" namespace, and check the pages that link to the page. If you see a link that looks like "Wiktionary:Word of the day/Archive/2016/April", it means that the word has appeared on Word of the Day before. — SMUconlaw (talk) 16:26, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
 * It doesn’t help that is so often located outside the English section. — Ungoliant (falai) 19:36, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
 * We could get these relocated by bot. Shall we do that? — SMUconlaw (talk) 06:32, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Can we re-nominate words that have been nom'd in the past but have not become featured?
Can we re-nominate words that have been nominated in the past but have not become featured as WOTD? For instance, the word "imbroglio" is not currently a featured WOTD but has been nominated once in July 2006 and once again in March 2012. Is there a specific reason why this word has not been 'promoted'? Or is just 'luck of the draw' and given enough nominations it will eventually get promoted but for a lack of volunteers to run things here? -- OlEnglish (Talk) 06:59, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, I don't see why not. I suspect that what happened in the past was that too many words were nominated at once and there weren't enough editors to update WOTD, so some of the nominations just became stale and were eventually archived. To avoid such a situation, take a look at the number of unprocessed nominations, and if there are a lot don't nominate too many additional ones. — SMUconlaw (talk) 15:09, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Nice WOTD/FWOTD pairing
...or perhaps the etymological connection is just pure coincidence – Jberkel (talk) 08:48, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Hmmm! Is there an etymological link between and ? It's actually not clear from the entries ... — SMUconlaw (talk) 09:16, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * The link would be 🇨🇬, via 🇨🇬. – Jberkel (talk) 17:40, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * And are one-eyed people supposed to be decadent or disreputable? Is that the link? — SMUconlaw (talk) 18:02, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * In French the word originally just meant somebody who could not see well ("une personne louche"). Then by extension this was applied to things which were not clear or could be seen clearly; in a strictly literal sense, like cloudy wine ("vin louche"). Then this meaning was applied figuratively to people, someone who is obscure, shifty. Portuguese literally means (somewhat redundantly) obscure / blind darkness – Jberkel (talk) 19:03, 22 August 2016 (UTC)


 * It's coincidence. I don't look at WOTDs when I set the FWOTDs (perhaps I should, but I barely have enough time at the moment to set them, let alone make cool pairings). —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 17:47, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Suggested change to wording of instructions
The instructions say that a nominated word should not be "so unusual that it cannot be used in everyday conversation".

This restriction is widely ignored (when was the last time you used "epitrachelion" or "bahuvrihi", for instance, in "everyday conversation"?), and rightly so in my opinion. Should we just get rid of this wording? Mihia (talk) 21:37, 23 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes, I suggest rewording the instructions so that they suggest that both unusual terms and terms that can be used in everyday conversation can be nominated. — SMUconlaw (talk) 18:35, 24 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I forgot all about this conversation. After I've got rid of the stuff that seems irrelevant in the light of the above, all I seem to be left with is this:


 * Any interesting English word or phrase that appears in Wiktionary may be nominated for WOTD, including both rare and exotic terms and terms that are used in everyday conversation.


 * Do you think this is sufficient? Mihia (talk) 21:46, 29 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Very well, since there have been no comments in a long time, I have inserted that wording. Please make any further changes that you think are appropriate. Mihia (talk) 03:00, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry, forgot about this. Yes, that should be fine. — SMUconlaw (talk) 05:09, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Another nice WOTD/FWOTD pairing
Today (July 2, 2020), the WOTD is "could care less" and the FWOTD is "ne pas être sans ignorer". When I saw the WOTD, I was annoyed that a malapropistic phrase was featured, but then saw the FWOTD and clicked through to its entry (because of the apparent similarity and the fact that both definitions were listed as proscribed) and was rewarded with "For a typologically similar mistake, compare ~ ." in the etymology section.

I'm guessing it's not a coincidence this time. Unfortunately, I've been unable to figure out who nominated or set these. ← PointyOintment ❬t &amp; c❭ 08:02, 2 July 2020 (UTC)


 * You can go to, click on "What links here", find the WOTD archive page where its nomination was archived, and see who nominated the term. If I recall correctly, it was PUC. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:44, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's me! PUC – 10:52, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Is pronunciation info required for featured words?
I don't see such a criterion on the "what to nominate"/"what not to nominate" lists, nor in the "updating guide". However, in a cursory look at the archive for June, I found only two WOTDs that didn't have audio, and those two did have IPA. The status template links to User talk:-sche, where User:-sche says "Featured words should have pronunciation info (either IPA or audio)", but that seems to be only one user's opinion (which I happen to agree with). Also discussed there is that a word may be nominated without pronunciation, as long as pronunciation is added before it's featured (which I think is fine). Anyway, whether or not pronunciation info is required, that should be documented somewhere. ← PointyOintment ❬t &amp; c❭ 17:27, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
 * No, it's not a requirement, I think. But I try to make WOTD entries as complete as possible, if I have the time, since it's a bit like the "Featured Article" on the Wikipedia Main Page. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:41, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Updating link in Older sections
Currently, this section says:

Note to administrators and interested editors: If you notice words that have already appeared, or are in the queue to appear, as Words of the Day, please strike them out by using <tt>&lt;s></tt> and <tt>&lt;/s></tt> HTML tags.

The first link should point to Category:Word of the day archive instead, as Word of the day/Cumulative Index is out of date. Like this:

Note to administrators and interested editors: If you notice words that have already appeared, or are in the queue to appear, as Words of the Day, please strike them out by using <tt>&lt;s></tt> and <tt>&lt;/s></tt> HTML tags.
 * ✅ Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 07:44, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

aplomb
Would be a stylish WOTD JillianMiles (talk) 10:17, 8 July 2023 (UTC)


 * relocated this to the nominations page. — Sgconlaw (talk) 13:04, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

plinky-plonky
Is a silly word, therefore excellent for WOTD 40 Fewer Heads (talk) 09:16, 22 July 2023 (UTC)


 * relocated this to the nominations page. (Not sure why you put the nomination here—is it because you are blocked?) — Sgconlaw (talk) 13:03, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the blocking of his accounts is so rapid now that they usually dont make it to autoconfirmed status, so he couldnt edit the proper page. — Soap — 13:12, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * thanks. As I suspected, then. — Sgconlaw (talk) 17:15, 22 July 2023 (UTC)