[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia has no policy on word articles

[Keith Old]

On 3/25/07, bobolozo <bobolozo at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Wikipedia has no policy on articles about words.  We
> have "Wikipedia is not a dictionary", and that's it,
> and that only states that we shouldn't have articles
> that are merely dictionary definitions.
>
> This still leaves open the possibility of having vast
> numbers of articles about words which go beyond a mere
> dicdef, but our current vague nonsensical practice
> mostly puts a stop to this.
>
> Our current practice is as follows: an article is made
> about a word.  If the article can be rewritten into
> one on a topic (that is, an article on the word "shoe"
> becomes an article on the subject of shoes), we
> rewrite it, and it's no longer an article on a word.
>
> If the article cannot be rewritten into an article on
> the topic the word represents, and if the article is
> SHORT, we transwiki to wiktionary and delete it for
> being a dicdef or redirect somewhere.  However, if the
> article is LONG, and well written and wikified, we
> generally keep it as being "more than just a dicdef",
> and if there are no sources we hope some are
> eventually found.
>
> This is a bizarre and ridiculous and totally
> unintentional way of handling articles on words, but
> it is exactly what we do.
>
> Imagine if this were our policy or practice on
> astronomy articles.  "If at all possible, rewrite to a
> non-astronomical topic.  If none exists under this
> title, and if the astronomy article is short, redirect
> to a non-astronomical article or delete.  If rewriting
> is not possible, but the article is long and
> well-written, only then do we keep it".
>
> Obviously we do want some articles about words,
> though.  We have "Thou", which is a featured article,
> we have "Truthiness", and many other well sourced and
> well written articles.  We don't want to delete all of
> these, so we must want some articles on words.
>
> But which ones?  There are probably tens of thousands
> of english words which have been written about by
> etymologists, meaning we have sourced content on them.
> Furthermore, Wikipedia is supposed to be global in
> perspective, and has articles on people, places, and
> things from non-english speaking countries, so why
> would we not have articles on non-english words?
>
> But this could end up with us having hundreds of
> thousands of articles on foreign words, do we want
> that?
>
> One way or another, some sort of policy would be
> better than "Rewrite into a non-word article.  If not
> possible, delete if short, keep if long and nice looking".
>
>
>
>
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Bobolozo,

Thank you for your question.

We have a dictionary called Wiktionary for all words. The guiding principle
should be whether an encyclopedia can be written about it. An encyclopedia
article can be written about shoes. It is doubtful that one could be written
about shod which is the past participle of shoe.

A person looking for shoe in Wikipedia would be interested in footwear. That
doesn't mean that we couldn't have a paragraph explaining the origins of the
word and its meanings but the bulk of the article should have material on
the origins and history of shoes, how they are made and the varieties of
them.

Regarding policies on word articles, we also have a policy banning
neologisms stopping people from making up words and then sitting down and
writing encyclopedia articles on them.

In my view, a majority of words could have encyclopedia articles written
about them but many couldn't.

Regards


Keith Old
User:Capitalistroadster