On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 9:56 PM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> wrote: I'm ok with that one because there can be many recipes for each dish, and it quickly becomes very arbitrary. But each word only has one etymology, so there isn't that problem. Steve

On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 12:39 AM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote: I think your "meh" example is perfect. Wiktionary: what does "meh" mean? Wikipedia: why is "meh" even a word? In this example, the concept *is* the word, with its cultural history, associations etc. The word's Simpsons origins, the debate over whether it was a real word, its inclusion in the list of 20 words that "defined a decade" - all of this is interesting, notable, relevant, and probably out of place in a Wiktionary article. You wouldn't do it for just any word, perhaps, but this one even has a referenced claim to notability. I think what I'm trying to say is: any word which is itself notable deserves an encyclopaedia article explaining why. Steve

By the way, I just want to point out that Wiktionary, like most dictionaries, contains more than just word meanings. It also contains usage and etymology, which seems to me to be exactly what that Wikipedia article contains. The only difference is that Wikipedia contains it in a more free-form article, and that it is more complete.

On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 10:23 AM, David Levy <lifeisunfair(a)gmail.com> wrote: That might be a relevant question if we were discussing whether or not has television episode guide entries. As it stands we're discussing whether or not it has dictionary entries. And that's my whole point. Wikipedia *does* contain lots of dictionary entires, even though there is a page saying that it shouldn't. Disambiguation. I guess [["meh"]] would be acceptable, though. It's not so important with interjections, but any word which is a noun would suffer from the problem. [[shithead]] should be about shitheads, not the word shithead, just like [[dog]] is about dogs, not the word dog.

On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 11:25 AM, David Levy <lifeisunfair(a)gmail.com> wrote: That point is not relevant, though. What makes something an "encyclopedia article about a word"? Sounds to me like another way to describe a "dictionary". So "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" is a formatting guideline, and not an inclusion guideline? I didn't take it that way, but if you think that's what it says, maybe I should reread it. I guess that could work, though it would be nice to have something more standard. Instead I see: *troll (gay slang) *faggot (slang) *Harry (derogatory term) *Oorah (Marines) *Uh-oh (expression) Anyway, not that big a deal. So the next problem I have is that there don't seem to be any notability guidelines. Is the word "computer" notable? If so, why isn't there yet an encyclopedia entry for such a common word? There's certainly quite a lot that can be said about the word. And I guess if "Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary" is more explicit about being a formatting guideline, and not an inclusion guideline, that would then reflect the de facto policy.

On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 12:44 PM, David Levy <lifeisunfair(a)gmail.com> wrote: I agree with your point. But it has nothing to do with whether or not the "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" guideline is being widely ignored. It isn't comparable. Could it be comparable? I don't know. That begs the question. Wikipedia obviously only includes articles about anything only when encyclopedia-formatted articles are justified. But what is it that's *different* about words, which justifies the guideline, which you say is an inclusion guideline? Sounds like formatting to me. I wasn't disagreeing with you. Wait a second. If "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" is about inclusion, isn't *it* that notability guideline? What is a reliable source for a word? Do dictionaries count? If so, then wouldn't pretty much all words have reliable sources on them? On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 3:49 PM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud(a)fairpoint.net> wrote: Do dictionaries count as reliable sources? On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 4:18 PM, Stephanie Daugherty <sdaugherty(a)gmail.com> wrote: So Wikipedia shouldn't have articles (verbose dictionary entries) about words?

Quoted every time we've had a policy discussion regarding material that was inappropriate for one reason or another. If you are getting a divorce and want to describe your wife's sexual behavior in detail Wikipedia is censored. If you want to include current troop movements Wikipedia is censored. Or unload an child pornography image. Examples go on and on. Essentially all it means is that if extremely offensive or inappropriate material has been widely published we can't keep it out of Wikipedia. Fred Bauder

On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 4:49 PM, Stephanie Daugherty <sdaugherty(a)gmail.com> wrote: I think that's roughly the way the guidelines is interpreted by most, though with a special de facto exception for offensive terms (I think the way it works is that no one wants to write an encyclopedia article about the concept behind the offensive term, so the article becomes one about the word, and not the concept).

Anthony wrote: In reference to the concept of an article about a word, its cultural history, associations, et cetera, you wrote: "Can you give an example of that in a traditional encyclopedia?" This appeared to imply that because entries about words are present in dictionaries and absent from traditional encyclopedias, Wikipedia's deviation from this convention can only be described as the inclusion of dictionary entries. My point is that Wikipedia contains a great deal of content, handled in an encyclopedic manner, that traditional encyclopedias lack. And some of these subjects are traditionally covered, with varying degrees of similarity, in other reference works. But just as Wikipedia's inclusion of articles about television episodes doesn't make Wikipedia a TV almanac, its inclusion of articles about words doesn't make it a dictionary. Unless I've badly misunderstood Wiktionary's scope, its current rules wouldn't allow this. Of course, Wiktionary's scope is tied to that of a traditional dictionary to no greater extent than Wikipedia's is tied to that of a traditional encyclopedia. So if the Wiktionary community were to decide to permit such entries, I would reconsider my position. Are you seriously suggesting that Wikipedia's "Black people" article and "Nigger" article cover the same subject? One is about a racial classification of humans. The other is about a word commonly used as an ethnic slur. Come again? As I said, the guideline addresses the inclusion (actually, the exclusion) of dictionary entries, *not* words. Of course, for most words, nothing beyond a dictionary entry is appropriate. The guideline explains that content suited to these formats is appropriate and inappropriate (respectively) for inclusion in Wikipedia. It isn't about reformatting dictionary definitions to make them fit. See above. As I noted, a dictionary indiscriminately lists and defines terms from the language in which it's written. So while typically reliable, it isn't contextually relevant. -- David Levy

Anthony wrote: This is a public discussion. Okay, thanks for clarifying. Perhaps so. The terms' contexts differ wildly. Do you advocate that we redirect "Nigger" to "Black people"? Agreed. No, because the primary topic for both "petrol" and "gasoline" is the aforementioned petroleum-derived liquid mixture (so both titles should lead directly to its article). Conversely, the word "nigger" is known primarily as a slur applied to black people, *not* an accepted synonym for "black people." A "Petrol (word)" or "Gasoline (word)" article would be fine, provided that reliable sources and Wikipedia consensus back the assertion that the word itself possesses cultural/historical significance warranting an encyclopedia article. This probably isn't the case. I'm referring to articles formatted as dictionary entries and articles whose subjects should not (according to consensus) be presented in any other manner. The latter. The aforementioned "Nigger" article contains a great deal of material that one would not find in any dictionary with which I'm familiar. But again, I acknowledge that Wikitionary isn't bound by this convention and _could_ contain such information if its scope were expanded. My point is that a dictionary typically lists and defines terms with little regard for their societal impact. "Door" is included because the object that it describes is a common, everyday thing, *not* because of any special attributes on the part of the word itself. -- David Levy

And most of the material I think would be *more likely* to be in a dictionary than an encyclopedia. Meaning, etymology, usage, derivatives. These are all things more likely to be found in a dictionary than an encyclopedia. Basically, if you took a dictionary, and removed the space requirements, and then took an encyclopedia, and removed the space requirements, the content of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger would likely be in the former, and not the latter.

The point of our projects as a whole, is to provide information,; it is much more important to make the information easy to find so people will not miss it, even by their usual habit of relying on the google hit & not following even the most obvious of cross-references, rather than argue about which of two places to put it. On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 8:30 PM, Stephanie Daugherty <sdaugherty(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG

I wrote: Anthony replied: Yes, provided that each of the two words independently met the aforementioned criteria. The text in question (the wording of which could be improved) is intended to refer to the concept of having two articles about the same subject (a particular petroleum-derived liquid mixture, in this case). In 2005, someone actually attempted to create separate "petrol" and "gasoline" articles for this very purpose. Hypothetical "Petrol (word)" and "Gasoline (word)" articles would cover separate subjects (the two words themselves). But of course, I don't advocate the creation of such articles. Indeed, I've acknowledged that such material is not traditionally included in an encyclopedia. My point is that it isn't traditionally included in a dictionary either. I note this to refute the assertion that it constitutes a dictionary entry. Wikipedia doesn't include articles about words (as opposed to the concepts to which they refer) unless there is consensus that the words themselves carry extraordinary cultural/historical significance (as corroborated by reliable sources). I plainly stated that "we apply our general notability guideline [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability#General_notability_guidel… My references to "cultural/historical significance" and "societal impact" are informal descriptions of how a word can comply with that guideline. Again, that policy pertains to the exclusion of dictionary entries. Most articles about worlds, even if written in Wikipedia's normal style, would essentially amount to dictionary entries (and therefore be inappropriate). But if a word happens to meet the criteria outlined in our general notability guideline, we treat it as we do any other subject. If you interpreted anything that I wrote to mean the latter, you misunderstood. To quote an earlier reply, "I'm referring to articles formatted as dictionary entries and articles whose subjects should not (according to consensus) be presented in any other manner." In other words, articles formatted as dictionary entries are inappropriate (even if they pertain to subjects for which legitimate encyclopedia articles could be written) and dictionary entries dressed up as encyclopedia articles (i.e. articles containing no more than one would find at Wikitionary, apart from formatting imitating that of Wikipedia) are inappropriate too. Taken as a whole, these articles fall somewhere between the the types of content found in conventional dictionaries and encyclopedias. I don't assert that it inherently makes more sense to include them in Wikipedia than it does to include them in Wiktionary, and I probably would support a proposal to permit the latter and transwiki them en masse. For whatever reason, that isn't how things have turned out. Perhaps we should shift our focus toward exploring the possibility. -- David Levy

I wrote: Anthony replied: Indeed, and the text refers to the possibility of Wikipedia having separate articles for "petrol" and "gasoline," which briefly occurred in 2005. This was problematic because unlike the corresponding dictionary entries, both articles covered the same subject (the substance to which those terms refer). The policy's editors weren't thinking of the highly unlikely hypothetical scenario in which Wikipedia articles about the words "gasoline" and/or "petrol" were written. Inclusion guideline != notability guideline Most elements of "Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not" (to which "Wikipedia:Inclusion criteria" redirects) are unrelated to notability. No, I'm not saying that. As previously noted, formatting issues are tangential. That's part of what I'm saying. I'm unfamiliar with the situation. And I respectfully disagree with your interpretation of the policy. -- David Levy

On 28/12/2010, David Levy <lifeisunfair(a)gmail.com> wrote: Mostly true, but on the other hand there is no way to add extended dictionary articles in the Wikipedia in an encyclopedic way, whereas you probably could with television episodes. it simply can't be done. For example even if you add all notable terms from all possible languages, and relate them to the encyclopedic concepts, after you did that, you could always look up those terms in a dictionary anyway, so there's little point. But right now the WMF doesn't have an encyclopedic dictionary, so if we put those articles in the Wikipedia, and labelled them, and gave them their own policies, then the people that want to write them will be happy, and the people that want to read them won't learn much if any encyclopedic information, but at least they'll know what they're getting, whereas right now the Wikipedia is implying that they're getting encyclopedic stuff, which they really aren't. -- -Ian Woollard

On 29/12/2010, David Levy <lifeisunfair(a)gmail.com> wrote: I'd like to borrow your magic machine that you seem to think you have that you apparently think tells you what entire communities think some time. Irrespective of that perhaps we should try to ensure popular buy-in to sensible decisions, as opposed to popular buy-in to popular decisions. That is so often so very easy, but not always so very helpful. -- -Ian Woollard

Well, is there interesting or relevant material published in a reliable source? How did we get from "difference engine" to "computer"? Appropriate, although that language has been there probably since Larry Sanger. Fred Bauder

Extensive information on the development of a concept is inappropriate in a dictionary. For example the word "robot". Fred Bauder

Anthony wrote: Not sure I'd call Wiktionary a "failure". But if it is, it's arguably a failure of Mediawiki to adequately support that structure, which is necessary for a dictionary (especially a multilingual one).

We must also take into account the popularity factor when it comes to comparing WMF wikis. It is obvious of the advantage Wikipedia has over all the other wikis in that is immensely more popular and is received much more widely than all other wikis. After pondering that for a while, one can conclude that we have come full-circle with regards to previous thread, which discussed briefly the dominance and level of "monopoly" Wikipedia has over the freely-editable portion of the Internet. -MuZemike On 12/28/2010 7:56 AM, Anthony wrote:

Ok, hold that thought. How about creating, within Wikimedia, a fork which incorporates some or all of the ideas we've been discussing. For example a dictionary which does discuss the development of concepts at length. Fred Bauder

This thread seems to have spawned several subthreads, none of which are to do with the original topic - maybe those continuing the discussions might rename the subject line, or is it far too late to do that now? Carcharoth

On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 4:48 PM, quiddity <pandiculation(a)gmail.com> wrote: It would be more helpful to move the on-wiki discussion here. Very limited meta-discussion of the nature of Wikipedia should be placed on the site itself.

This has always been the place for such (IMO, healthy) meta-discussion to occur, which what I think this is. -MuZemike On 12/31/2010 12:04 AM, quiddity wrote:

So does that mean we can restore the article on "the"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/The