User talk:Connel MacKenzie/archive-2007-3

Hi! Few questions

Hi! I'm new to WT, but I edited WP for half a year, and already this place has confused me. Is there a page here like w:Wikipedia:Maintenance where cleanup stuff is listed? I noticed a few pages in a transwiki namespace and started cleaning one up, but then I stumbled upon Wiktionary:Administrators and saw that two of the three candidates mention that they have 100 transwiki cleanups - is there a place where these are assigned out, and are the pages such as Transwiki:Glossary of bagpipe terms meant to be cleaned up? Once this is done, I assume that it is meant to be moved into mainspace, is that right? Finally, and Wiktionary:Administrators isn't clear at all, are there some standards for adminship? Also, and I just noticed this on the RC feed, is there a version of wikipedia's Administrator Intervention against Vandalism here, or do the admins mostly catch stuff themselves? Thanks! ST47 01:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

To preempt Connel, I'll answer what I can. First, our WT:RFC is probably the closest thing here to w:Wikipedia:Maintenance. It's admittedly not as complex, but we run a somewhat smaller operation here. Since all transwikis need to be cleaned up to a certain extent, it's not considered terribly useful to list them there (generally). If you're looking for more to do, Versageek has a button on her user page that'll give you as many as you can stand. Connel knows the transwiki process much better than I do, but as I understand it, anyone is more than welcome to tackle the cleanup of any transwiki they see fit. Once cleaned up, they are to be moved to the mainspace, but I am unsure of the procedure for that (it might simply be a page move). Connel'll know the answer on that one. I'll leave our standard welcome on your talk page. It's not terribly warm, but it is quite useful. I would especially recommend checking out the third bullet (Entry layout explained). If you would like to do transwiki, you'll definitely need to get the hang of our formatting policies (we have quite a few, and many are rather important). One of the things about running a smaller project is that our standards for adminship our somewhat more flexible than Wikipedia's. We run a small enough project that just doing what you're supposed to be doing will get you noticed by just about everyone here. So, if you're looking to that goal, just work hard (and get your formatting straight, the bane of newcomers :-)) and you'll be set. As for vandalism, both of the two options you presented are correct. The admins here catch most vandalism as it happens (or shortly after) and there is also WT:VIP where you can bring attention to stuff that's happening. Any more questions, feel free to ask (but I wouldn't get in the habit of leaving all your questions on Connel's page. He's kind of the star of Wiktionary, and his talk page is constantly being filled up, and it makes him cranky). Atelaes 03:00, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• I have no idea what w:Wikipedia:Maintenance is, but I'm guess it is probably equivalent to our WT:DW or perhaps Wiktionary:Community Portal#Help us with entries needing attention.
• Transwiki cleanups of lists and glossaries do not move to mainspace (NS:0) but rather to the Appendix: or Index: namespace.
• Welcome Newbie! As a veteran Wikipedian, you may have some preconceptions that can get you into trouble here. I strongly advise reading WT:CFI and WT:ELE closely. Those two pages function as the pillars of Wiktionary. Discussions all happen on WT:BP, not my talk page.  :-)
• Note that others are more likely to reply on my talk page, for now, while I have very limited access for a few days.
• We don't have formal standards for "sysops" but generally, a solid understanding of Wiktionary conventions is the main thing. --Connel MacKenzie 15:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Please transwiki those palindrome pages

Hi Connell,

You suggested that I might nag you about the palindrome pages discussed at the Information Desk page. The middle one here has been transwikied, the others haven't. I've put transwiki proposal tags on the two that haven't.

• Wikipedia:List of palindromic phrases in English
• Wikipedia:Palindromic words
• Wikipedia:Palindromic phrases

The deletion debate is here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of palindromic phrases in English

Thanks for your help!

Noroton 15:06, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the nag. I've done the import step here (the part that requires sysop intervention) but if that was in error, they can always be {{rfd}}'d. One of them won't do the full import properly (server timeout - too much history) so only the current version is available right now. When I'm back on-line for real, I'll look into it further. --Connel MacKenzie 20:07, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

By a strange coincidence, I came over to let you know about the deletion review of these lists. I see from the transwiki log on Wikipedia that you got w:Palindromic words; if you want a temp-undelete of the other two to facilitate the import, drop me a note on my talk page or in the deletion review entry and I'd be happy to push the button for you. —Cryptic (talk) 12:41, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the ban

I would like to extend my apreciation to the work you make here, I must admit it is an original idea to ban someone three months just for editing an articole. I know you could have just blocked the page, but I appreciate the elaborate actions you took, probably to catch vandals on this highly vandalised word, as you called it, pizda. Of course, it was nice of you to also revert my contributions, after all one more language added on that word would be, I assume, troublesome, as your readers do not need to know that it is used in yet another language.

I also wish to congratulate you on your – again, original – method of leaving messages to users, that in a one-day ban message, after you realised my actions were not vandalish, as you probably asumed my neandarthalish nature of not periodicly checking the discussion tab on my IP. You will of course recognize my ban log. After all, we have a saying in our country that can be traslated into ,,a fool is not foolish enough, until he is arrogant”.

I would also wish to thank you for not answering my mail and loosing your time to such petty problems as an one-day unnecessary ban, I know that you must have a lot of work to ban users for reasons like ,,nonsense” or ,,messing” with words that you know will be vandalised, but which you do not bother to lock from editing or even posting a big announcement like ,,edit this page and you’ll be banned for three months without prior notice, we don’t have time to actually check what you wrote or to write here that this page was vandalised and is off limits to users, but we do have time to block your IP”. Your actions should be an inspiration to all admins, which to learn to intimidate users so they will not file any complaints after they were unjustly banned. Keep up the good work!

Thank you for your comments, and thank you for vandalizing Wiktionary with misspellings. Particularly repeat vandalism, of terms we've already wasted the time on, to refute. Thank you for arrogantly, stubbornly thinking that everything done on Wiktionary is wrong, and that you are the only person alive who can possibly be correct about a particular misspelling of a vulgar term. Most of all, thanks for vandalizing an entry that links the correct spelling already! --Connel MacKenzie 14:30, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, thank you for your e-mail, (sent long after the ban was shortened) with its insults and threats. It is nice when people identify their motives so clearly. --Connel MacKenzie 14:35, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn’t know making some mistakes at spelling while trying to contribute to words is considered vandalism here, I should ask around sometimes, but to me that seems a form of snobism by itself, after all we weren’t all blessed by the American Lord to be born and live in the US. Further-more, I do not remember mentioning other admins or refutting the competency or integrity of this site, just yours, and I continue to consider you incompetent for giving me that 3 month ban without even looking at my modifications, I thought in a democracy the rule is ,,innocent until proven guilty”, and you already sentenced me for just editing a word, without knowing the content of it.

The mail I sent was late because, indeed, I did not notice the three month ban, but I did notice the one day one, which lead me to look at the recent modifications and further, to my IP’s ban log. The one day ban I consider just your way of retaliation to the fact that you yourself gave a wrong ban and had to go to the trouble of fixing your own mistake, in stead of pretending it never happened, or from a less ego-ed person, even appologiazing. I do not consider myself the only just one, I consider you unjust, you should have at least figured that out.

As for my intentions, they were of staying in a normal annonimacy, like most users, but someone made me reconsider. 86.107.8.10 15:25, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Willy on Wheels

Willy on Wheels is back motherfuckers IO am the ultimate vandal and i have a baby with Anencephaly on wheels! — This comment was unsigned.

Um, would the real WoW please stand up? Sheesh, trolling is not characteristic of WoW. (Hrm, feeding trolls is a characteristic of me, however.) <shrug> There's a whole batch of new sysops who need practice using the the blocklog/rollback stuff that works so well for "WoW" vandalism, so it is good I'm not around much this month. Remember that it all gets rolled back, so don't bother going ape when there's no sysop around to tease. (Hrump, and WF has numerous active accounts today. Sigh. I thought he was giving you lessons or something?) --Connel MacKenzie 15:34, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

WilliamKF≠Primetime

You blocked this user on February 13 as a sockpuppet of me. However, that network you blocked along with him is in Los Angeles, California. His format is totally different than mine, as well. I strongly encourage you to research this matter further. You also reverted his edits, which is probably not appropriate either given he is not me.--Primetime 13:35, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Happy Spread-the-funny and-slighty-random-love day!

:) pschemp (talk) 00:30, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

CopyToWiktionaryBot

Tssk, tssk, your bot has irked me by tagging w:Thomas Derrick. Can it be taught to avoid taggin biographies? Cheers! bd2412 T 05:04, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Erm, no. Humans "tag" the wikipedia articles with {{w:dicdef}}. 'Tain't nutin to be done abouskt it.  :-) Other than judicious use of the [delete] button on Transwiki:Thomas Derrick.

There was a time when I manually scanned the list of entries to be done. Now it is simpler; if it is tagged, it is copied over the wall, and marked not to be touched again. Even though the Transwiki: namespace has expedited rules for deletion, I imagine it can be annoying. But but without copying it first, it wouldn't get the many pairs of eyes from Wiktionarians, to review it.

I guess the real question is, is the automation an improvement? Are we deleting the non-dictionary stuff faster now? Are we providing proper outlets for lexical information entered on Wikipedia? I suppose I should take a survey or something. I understand Wikipedians to be very evenly split...the deletionists disproportionately delighted, the inclusionists grabbing pitchforks and torches (as if a transwiki means the content is lost - very rarely the case, but always the assertion.) Bah; silly peasants. Probably related to the increase in vandalism lately.

Oh, I think it's definitely an improvement. But I don't think that article was tagged as a dic-def; rather, it was tagged because it was a vocabulary-stub (although why it was so designated is beyond me - I guess because the guy's claim to fame is having a word named for him). Cheers! bd2412 T 04:24, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I do suppose I should have a poll, at some point. Ugh. --Connel MacKenzie 05:56, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Spaces in headers

Hi Connel,

I saw you remove spaces between the = signs and header titles. I tend to put them in there, because that way the header is easier to find with Ctrl+right/left to edit/copy/do whatever with it. Is this important? I noticed they render the same. If people are annoyed by those spaces, I can leave them out, but as said, I find them more practical. H. (talk) 16:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The idea was to make them uniform for the dozens of various bots to interpret. The choice was with spaces, or without; the arbitrary choice (years ago, here) was to leave them out. (Yes, my bots generally account for either condition, but simple things like a regex become annoyingly more complicated when one has to search for the optional space as well...annoying only when you forget to, of course!) As far as ctrl- ← & ctrl- →, they work correctly for me (here in this window) with our without the spaces...so I'm not sure what you mean. Yawiktionary and Ninjawords may also choke in non-obvious ways with the inconsistent spaces. And at least one of my /todo lists will identify such entries as "erroneous." --Connel MacKenzie 21:33, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Grumble, grumble, OK then. (ctrl- ← & ctrl- → jump to the end of the = signs, not to the end of the word, before the = signs, this is in Firefox 2.0.0.2, both Win and Linux, IIRC). Note that the wiki software introduces the spaces itself, which you can see if you edit this section... H. (talk) 14:43, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Grumble, indeed! I'm using FF 1.5.0.10 at the moment. Yes, the MW default was considered when the choice to eliminate the spaces was made. I don't recall seeing where the delimiters are identified, but I suppose it might be in about:config. --Connel MacKenzie 14:57, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Sad how WIKIMEDIA doesn't have a standard on a simple thing like this --69.110.129.127 01:49, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The most strange and annoying thing is how FF changes its behaviour if non-Latin signs/letters are on the same line. Then it suddenly treats [[, {{ etc. as words, whereas otherwise it jumps over them. Guess I’ll have to file a bug for this somewhere. H. (talk) 11:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

You probably want to look at/mess with Firefox config parameters layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation and layout.word_select.eat_space_to_next_word.

• Bug 98546 - Better word-break detection (double-clicking, Control+arrow keys, Control+Backspace/Delete)
• Bug 190615 - make stop_at_punctuation=true the default on unix (double-clicking shouldn't select punctuation)
• Bug 193025 - Pref "layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation" can't be set in user's user.js.
• Bug 194925 - Split layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation behaviour in two prefs, one for keyboard, one for mouse

If the non-latin text includes RTL text, look at bidi.edit.caret_movement_style. TMI? Robert Ullmann 12:53, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation was exactly what I was looking for! The bidi stuff does not seem to work as I want it though. (I.e. purely visual). H. (talk) 11:40, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia transwikiing

Hi, I was somewhat involved in the conversations when you were first setting up your Copy to Wiktionary bot on wikipedia, and I seem to be the sole caretaker of the Wikipedia transwiki log. I was mostly absent from this for the last several months, but I've started handling the W:Wikipedia:Transwiki log/Articles moved from here/en.wiktionary entries again, and I noticed the entire Glossaries subcategory was contained in the Copy to Wiktionary category there, and most if not all of those glossaries have already been copied over. I am going to be removing the Transwikicleanup templates from many articles, assuming this is ok. I wanted to make sure that doing this wouldn't result in the articles being transwikied a second time, as they are all still in the glossaries category. Also, in case you're curious or have any input on this, I've tried to simplify the W:Template:TWCleanup template to make it easier to understand, as editors were unsure what it meant or what they should do about it. --Xyzzyplugh 04:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, thank you, yes.  :-) --Connel MacKenzie 04:17, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe transwikied glossaries can be put in a category to indicate that they've already been transwikied? bd2412 T 04:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, to clarify, I probably won't allow any more sub-category transwikis to happen anymore. Individual entries can be tagged for transwikiing, if they got missed, but there is simply too much confusion and too many irate Wikipedians when sub-categories are done. So, for glossaries, you can remove any tag you like. I will not re-enable recursive selection without some *very* good reasons. (And I think I'll take the approach of bot-adding the tag to every item in a given category, even then, rather than allow the sub-cat confusion again.) --04:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

And yes, please Be Bold rewriting w:Template:TWCleanup entirely. --Connel MacKenzie 04:27, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi, something else I've noticed: your bot is putting two different tags on the transwikied articles, one on the article, one on the talk page. Each of them basically says the same sort of thing, including that it hasn't yet been decided what to do with the article. However, the talk page template also says not to remove the template or it will be readded. Are you thinking that this template should stay on the talk page permanently, or that it should be removed, assuming the article stays on wikipedia? If it is meant to stay permanently as a record that transwikiing has been done, then it should not really say very much besides the fact that transwikiing has occurred, we can't have a permanent template saying "this doesn't belong on wikipedia, fix it, but don't ever remove this tag". If the template is meant to be removed once the article is fixed up (assuming the article does get fixed up or kept rather than deleted), then the template should say "Remove this template once the article is fixed" rather then "don't ever remove this or I'll just put it right back". --Xyzzyplugh 14:53, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I didn't think that one through all the way. I use the talk page tag to help my s/w skip entries that are tagged for copying. But with the sub-category mess, it was getting pretty disruptive having well-meaning dingbats removing the talk-page tags. At this point, the talk page template should remind people not to remove the talk page tag without first (one day prior) removing the article page tag.

There are lots of "special" cases though. Some terms are re-added to Wikipedia, re-AfD'd, and re-tagged as dicdefs over and over. In those cases, it is helpful to just leave the talk page tag permenantly.

Alternately, I could keep a list of entries I've auto-transwikied, and never re-transwiki an entry if it has been transwikied once this year already. Dunno about that, though. --Connel MacKenzie 15:02, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer to leave the talk page template in place permanently, as a record that the article has been transwikied, which would tend to keep it from being tagged and transwikied again. This would mean the talk page template would have to be changed, removing all the bits about how the article needed to be cleaned up and such. I'll rewrite it myself. Is there anything else you would like left in place, besides telling people not to remove the template? --Xyzzyplugh 15:56, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The one thing that Wikipedia doesn't seem to have is #lcfirst:. At least, it didn't work, when I tried it. The Wiktionary article will usually be at the lower-case first character version. To me, it would kindof be nice to have links to the Wiktionary 1) transwiki page, the Wiktionary 2) UC page, the Wiktionary 3) LC page, the Wiktionary WT:RFV page for all three of those, the Wiktionary WT:RFD for all three, and the Wiktionary Special:Log/delete for all three of those. But that becomes a nightmare to lay out in a coherent manner. (But if the goal is to give Wikipedians useful links, to figure out "what happened to my article"...) --Connel MacKenzie 16:37, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Help with false sock puppet accusation

Hello Connel,

I see that you have reverted several of my changes, blocked my account, blocked my IP address, and accused me of being a sock puppet of User:Primetime. For example you reverted my change to materteral. As it turns out, your revert was subsequently reverted by another user back to my version, which I feel supports my edit being well intentioned. I do not know what led you to feel my changes were not well intentioned. Therefore, I can only offer my Wikipedia account as evidence of my long standing history of well intentioned contributons to many of the different wiki projects. Please let me know what else I can offer up to support my defense. I'd appreciate my account being unlocked and my IP address being unlocked, thanks.

72.232.214.186 05:01, 8 March 2007 (UTC) (User:WilliamKF)

Repeating what I said on your talk page on Wikipedia, no, DAVilla did not revert my change; he simply followed process to close an RFV (as opposed to just removing a tag.) Displaying prowess in evading blocks proves what point? That you can't read my e-mail address above? I do see that you and friends wish to make a public spectacle. If this were an honest mistake, I'd be inclined to to think recent activities were unrelated. Again, please refer to the beer parlour archive: under no circumstances can any of the copyvio OED material be used. --Connel MacKenzie 05:06, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Connel, I'm glad that I have gotten in touch with you now we can begin to get to the bottom of this issue. Thanks for responding on my wikipedia page, I had not noticed that post when I applied the above post. I am glad to hear that you will be looking into the matter in more detail. I apologize for not being diligent enough, or as you put it, being 'unable to read your email address above'. Clearly that was an error on my part. I've never been blocked before, this is new territory for me, I'm not used to using email for wiki things, normally I communicate via talk pages. When I did belatedly notice the email address, I sent you an email alerting you of my issue. Being somewhat unexperienced on wiktionary, I was ignorant of the the RFV process, and so verified the article on my own and via the talk page at Wiktionary_talk:Criteria_for_inclusion#Oxford_English_Dictionary by --Enginear so I thought it was verified and removed the tag. Sorry for not following the process. WilliamKF 72.232.214.186 05:21, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for unblocking my account! If any issues arise in the future please contact me on my wikipedia talk page as I read that more often. Thanks again. WilliamKF 06:21, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Finding template expert?

Who is the local template expert I should go to if I have a question, please? RJFJR 16:35, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd nominate User:Rodasmith for that post; he's very good at designing templates, and he's created many of the templates we use. -- Beobach972 16:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

• I've done some fairly esoteric stuff with templates, it is true. DAVilla has done some pretty extreme stuff as well. I think WT:GP is the best place to contain such conversations. --Connel MacKenzie 02:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

(Sorry if I sounded terse there - most of the time, people answer their own template questions, in the process of asking the question "How do I...".) --Connel MacKenzie 02:35, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

WT:ELE

Thank you for your help on formatting and the link WT:ELE. I have not been using the popups from WT:PREFS. Tim Q. Wells 00:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

OK. Well, if I can plug WT:PREFS anymore... --Connel MacKenzie 00:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

-ship words

They are rare words and are in few dictionaries but I will remove the {{obsolete}} tags since none of the entries says they are obsolete. Also I decided to get the WT:PREFS popups which are very useful. Tim Q. Wells 01:44, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad you like it (the popups enhancements.) If you think of feature requests, or other feedback about the Wiktionary popups-flavor, I'd appreciate hearing it. --Connel MacKenzie 19:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I moved the discussion...

...to Wiktionary:Votes/2007-03/BD2412bot. Cheers! bd2412 T 04:36, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

skull-fuck

I'd like to request the undeletion of skull-fuck. I don't see any reason why it should have been deleted in the first place. --Ptcamn 11:14, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

WOTD tags for April

Umm... take a look at what happened to avarice, and other words that were word of the day in April 2006. They're now double tagged (and shouldn't be), so the top line link to WOTD looks really odd. I haven't put up any of the WsOTD (yet) for April 2007 except for April 1st. --EncycloPetey 16:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh snap. That's why it looked so wrong. Drat, drat, drat. I suppose you want me to clean up the mess I made, too? (Good catch, by the way.) --Connel MacKenzie 18:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, all better now.  :-) Thanks again. --Connel MacKenzie 19:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

By the way, don't wait for me, to update the page. I'll just be using the history page to get to the subst:s, again, if I need to. --Connel MacKenzie 18:27, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Of course. I usually try to have the WOTDs for the following month picked out by now, but the last two weeks have been very busy at work. --EncycloPetey 06:03, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The entries for April 2007 are all in now. --EncycloPetey 03:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Ugh, you didn't {{was wotd}} them, as you went? {sigh}. --Connel MacKenzie 08:41, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Transwiki question

Just out of curiosity, what are you all at Wiktionary doing with all these thousands of articles which have been transwikied from Wikipedia, anyway? Are they languishing away in the Transwiki space, totally ignored? Are some of them actually good enough to be wiktionary entries? Are they being used to find new words which could have wiktionary entries, but the actual text being mostly ignored as it is rarely suitable for a dictionary entry? Not that it probably matters to us at Wikipedia overly much, you could dump our entire 1.7 million articles to your transwiki space if you wanted them, I'm just wondering. --Xyzzyplugh 22:47, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I have not compiled any statistics at all, regarding transwikis. Some become entries here, some get deleted, some get moved to the Appendix namespace, some get RFV'd and deleted. Most languish for a long time, given the considerable backlog. The people that do clear them, usually start from Special:Randompage/Transwiki or WT:TW. So very recent transwikis will usually ferment for quite some time. --Connel MacKenzie 06:41, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Shmutz - No, no! The article!

First someone misspelled Schmutz and created w:en:Shmutz with what indeed was accurately called a dicdef. But... it was a misspelling. Someone then set it to be transwikied, and it does now exist as a Transwiki:Shmutz entry. In the meantime, I've copied the text to Talk:schmutz, and created a redirect from Shmutz to schmutz. How do I get the Transwiki entry killed? Shenme 03:37, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The easy way is to replace it with a redirect to the main namespace entry. The hard way is to tag it with {{delete}}...as that could take hours to go away. (I recommend the redirect method, for transwiki cleanups...helps prevent re-transwikiing.) --Connel MacKenzie 03:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Oi! Isn't Shmutz a misspelling of Schmutz, and shmutz a misspelling of schmutz? --Connel MacKenzie 03:42, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Ugh. Quick reminder: no redirects in the main namespace. If you want to use a redirect, and it is not a multi-word idiom, you're probably wrong. (WT:ELE/WT:CFI.) From Transwiki:, on the other hand, redirects are a Very Good Thing indeed. --Connel MacKenzie 03:45, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I didn't know about redirect problems, as I only occasionally venture into wiktoria-land. As to shmutz vs. schmutz, it is the same problem I have in real life. English-speakers prefer to spell the sound with a leading 'sch-'. The Yiddish apparently spelled it as 'shmutz' pretty consistently, and that is how I learned it. But looking in various web references, 'schmutz' definitely wins. (Note that any search with Google will be skewed by all the people whose last names are 'Schmutz') So I'd say have the main entry under 'schmutz' is correct for English wiktionary. Now I'll go look how you fixed all this. Thanks. Shenme 01:22, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

day's

Hey Connel, you added this a while back - but aren't possessive cases generally outside of our purview? bd2412 T 02:20, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Generally, yes. I don't know what I was thinking - perhaps a non-obvious pronunciation? Or a non-personal possessive? A "y" ending?

Oh, I see now. It was one of the Project Gutenberg top 100 undefined terms, somehow. There are probably quite a few other oddball entries from that time period. I don't think it is much of a precedent, though - some other possessive would need to be in the "top 100 undefined" now, to be comparable. --Connel MacKenzie 05:53, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

dive / dove / diven?! dove?! dived?!

Thank you for helping me move the healthily entry and for your comments on the dive/dove/dived controversy. Actually, by claiming that dove is a past participle of dive I have made a very controversial claim. The usage note at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dive claims: The past participle of dive is always dived. I have noticed, however, by using Google.com that "have you ever dove" occurs 2,630 times (see http://www.google.com.pe/search?hl=es&q=%22have+you+ever+dove%22&btnG=Buscar+con+Google&meta= ) while "have you ever dived" occurs 8,070 times (see http://www.google.com.pe/search?hl=es&q=%22have+you+ever+dived%22&meta= ) and "have you ever diven" only has a pathetic 16 occurences, one of which is clear is a typo and they meant "driven" instead. The usage note is a trial balloon to see if others object to my characterization of dove as the past participle. I'd be interested to hear your opinion. Should the sentence "Have you dove into the pool, yet?" be changed to "Have you dived into the pool, yet?" Encuesta española 16:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

This is clearly a US/UK issue. I would never say "Have you dived into the pool, yet?" in American English. To sound less pretentious, I'd avoid saying "dove" too..."Have you taken a dip in the pool, yet?" or "Have you jumped in the pool, yet?" sounds much more natural. On the other hand, "He dove into the pool." is wildly more acceptable than the incorrect "He dived into the pool." --Connel MacKenzie 16:24, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

The second usage note (from AHD) seems to be much clearer, than the dictionary.reference.com one. AHD correctly avoids absolutes, while dictionary.reference.com seems to be incorrect. --Connel MacKenzie 16:28, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• With a little more thought on this, I'm not convinced "dove" is a valid/common past participle. I know my inclination is to recast the sentence; in "Connel English" there simply is no past participle of "dive" but I doubt that all American English speakers adhere to "Connel English" rules.  :-) I am equally intruiged to see how your test balloon goes. Please remind me to check back on this, in 1, 3, 5 and 10 years. (Seriously.) --Connel MacKenzie 16:39, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello

I changed the page fine according to your advice. What is the reason that Pronunciation sections aren't numbered but Etymology sections are? I also noticed a problem with the Translations to be checked headers. The two innermost ='s don't get interpreted as part of the header. Is there anything I can do about this? Gaston 22:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever seen anyone try seven heading levels deep before. I was unaware we are limited to six levels deep (I thought the limit was 9, for some reason.)

I thought I also said that pronunciation sections are subordinate to etymology sections. That would save you the trouble of two levels of heading-depth. (The pronunciation, repeated for etym 1 & 2, would then be at the same heading level as the part of speech headings.) Perhaps someone has hit this limit previously, causing the current structural limitations. Anyway, simply correcting that entry's layout seems much more consistent. --Connel MacKenzie 00:46, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

lang=English

Hi, I really appreciate you handling the BD2412 problem, it was pretty tough to look at recent changes. Since you seem to be a bigwig and have connections, maybe you can help address the underlying challenge: we really do need a SECTIONNAME variable. Or some other way of substituting the section into a template. We have a lot of delicate problems with manually entering languages, but if you stop and think about it, that's just silly.. the languages are right there, enclosed within == ==, and the computer can easily see them. Of course, adding a variable will require hardcode change... I was hoping maybe you might be able to pull some strings to get that done :-) — This unsigned comment was added by Language Lover (talk • contribs).

But the problem is that sometimes and lang= requires the name of the language, and other times it requires the ISO code. We also have users who regularly enter non-standard names of languages. --EncycloPetey 16:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Good point on the ISO codes :-) Even so, a variable for language would be highly useful. As illustrated by the "plural of" template. Imagine if we could simple add this so the "plural of" template: <includeonly>[[Category:{{subst:LANGNAME}} plurals]]</includeonly>. And the "plural of" template is just one of hundreds of templates which could really benefit from such a variable :-) Signed, Language Lover

Whoa. We do have a perennial problem with garbage language names, and we do also have a problem that 639 codes vs. names need a solution for the Translation tables, as it is. (And wait, for those target interwikis, we need 3166, not 639, anyhow.)

I think I pissed Brion of pretty extraordinarily with the "Virgin" sponsorship/matching thing during the last fund-raiser. I'll see what Hippietrail has left in the favor bank. Erm, wait, he's running a deficit there, right now, too.

Brion's stock answer to such requests is "show me some code of what you want." If I write something to parse a page into section components, it would be astronomically trivial to then expose an XML view of such...which would yeild much greater benefits offhand, than just SECTIONNAME.

This needs some more thought. As EP pointed out, one extra MW variable is no silver bullet, even if it seems like it, in this one case.

Hmmmm... --Connel MacKenzie 17:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Just one note for now (the net here has been off for 2+ days, I'm catching up ;-) 3166 doesn't apply; the language codes in the WMF project domain names are the same 639 codes. (The Japanese wikipedia is ja.wikipedia.org, not jp.wikipedia.org). A lot of the trouble here is that people keep trying to patch fixes in (like lang= in plural of) without thinking through the whole thing, then they try to "fix the fixes" and "fix the problems that the fix fixed".... More later. Robert Ullmann 18:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Otch. I'd need a way to ask for level two section name, not the current section name. No WAY that Brion will go for that. Hrm. --Connel MacKenzie 18:25, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Recursive calling until section level = 2 ? --EncycloPetey 06:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• This really, really, belongs in WT:GP, BTW. --Connel MacKenzie 19:02, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

bot to remove lang=English

Connel, you were going to have a bot remove the "|lang=English" from the "{{plural of}}" templates? Or should I get back to that? bd2412 T 00:21, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Lemme try again. Thanks for the reminder. --Connel MacKenzie 06:42, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think it is done. If you spot any I missed, please just fixit. I suppose next up, are the entries that have the explicit category, but don't have the singular form wikified. --Connel MacKenzie 08:38, 13 March 2007 (UTC)