Guettarda wrote:
It would appear that lists of words violate the provision that Wikipedia should not have articles which define individual words, nor should it include Lists of such definitions. However, we have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_words , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_slang and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_phrases , among others. Policy is descriptive, not prescriptive. Is this policy still being applied (in which case, *all* of these articles must be deleted), or not (in which case the wording of the policy needs to be changed). I have raised the issue at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Lists_of_W...
I don't know if all of these articles need to be deleted, or whether policy needs to be modified to reflect reality. But I think this needs to be determined in general, not determined piecemeal
When Wiktionary was formed it was intended to be complementary to Wikipedia in this direction. Nevertheless, it was inevitable that there would be some degree of overlap. When I randomly view some of these lists I find that there is no one solution to determmining which belong on which project. There are some that clearly belong on Wiktionary like the [[List of idioms in the Portuguese language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_idioms_in_the_Portuguese_language]], but there are many others that are specialized glossaries that could do well in either project as long as there is proper linkage.
Perhaps the most significant factor would be whether there is something about the items on the list that would not be found in an ordinary advanced dictionary. Defining words is perfectly acceptable in Wikipedia, and stubs which have a future beyond the definition should also be acceptable.
It's in the nature of policy to be prescriptive as long as people treat it as something to be enforced. A purely descriptive policy is a guideline that reflects what is actually happening, and suggests what people might do. The best approach would be to consider each of these articles one-by-one.
Ec