[Wiktionary-l] Re: De-capitalisation-isation
Timwi
timwi at gmx.net
Sun Jun 27 23:51:29 UTC 2004
Andrew Dunbar wrote:
> There's no need to be short-sighted and settle for
> quick fixes just because they are "a lot easier". I'm
> sure that's not the kind of thinking employed by the
> founders of the OED or Websters.
>
> If Wiktionary is a good project, and I'm sure we all
> believe it is, then it will survive long enough for the
> real fixes to come along.
This is so typical. This argument is *always* going to brought up for
*everything* that is not a complete miracle cure. Hence nothing will
ever change and hence we will be stuck with the same problem forever
just because people wouldn't accept at least a partial solution!
> Cleaning up after the side-
> effects of the quick fix and cleaning up again in the
> future when a solid fix comes along will be a pointless
> drain on the time and patience of the contributors.
That is ungrounded and probably false. What you call a "quick fix" is a
step in the right direction. Any "cleaning up" needed to do after the
next fix (whether or not it is a miracle cure) will complement, and not
override, replace, or render useless, the cleaning up needed now.
> Also, going with the quick fix now will reduce our
> chances of getting the developers to implement a solid
> fix later on, because they will believe they had
> already fixed the problem.
You are forgetting that you *already* have no chance of getting a
developer to do anything. The only reason why we can do this now is
because *the feature is already there*. I don't know why it was written
(maybe for Toki Pona?), but we have it now, and we can flip a switch to
make it work. I (not really a "developer") have volunteered to write a
script to do the moving in order to spare you from 40,000 page moves,
but even without that script I am sure the Wiktionary userbase can fix
all of that manually over time.
> It may be even more unfortunate that some feel the need
> to put down others rather than improve their arguments
> or consider that other opinions might be valid and not
> just the "contrary ignoramuses" who have been depicted
> in the email I'm replying to now.
I do think I have considered the arguments brought forward. I have
thought about them as much as I could, and almost all of them struck me
as separate issues that were not arguments against this particular change.
Timwi
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