User:Dogears/text2

Glossary policy
Do you know anything about the consensus of opinion and WP policy about glossaries? Many lists and glossaries get removed at Articles for deletion. The reason claimed is that WP:NOT a glossary - but that official policy document does not really address this issue directly. The AfD community has also voted to keep a number of glossaries. In the discussion at Category talk:Glossaries it appears that wikified glossaries can be considered encyclopedic enough to keep (organizing jargon, etc.). I've searched for documentation on en.wiki and meta-wiki, but find no specific policy statement. Obviously no consensus on article naming: "Glossary of…" or "List of …", 'Terminology" or "Terms".

The architectural glossary started life as stubs from the old Encyclo.Britanica gathered together into one article. It's a scattershot of words, while missing out on many of the basic ones (see:  list of basic architectural topics - not much better). Oh, and I just found list of architecture topics, (yuck). Putting stubs together in a glossary may actually reduce the chance that the topics will ever get expanded. But, many of the entries in architecture are archaic and too small to be a separate stub article.

I'm considering moving uncommon Greek and Roman architectural terms from the architectural glossary to the List of classical architecture terms, or to individual articles (see this diff. at: Molding (decorative). Also, considering upgrading the List of classical architectural terms to a Glossary by adding brief encyclopedic content to the simple list of wikilinks that exist now. Any advice or comments are appreciated. —dogears (talk &bull; contribs) 01:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * My feeling is that there has never been a strong, or even very interested, community opinion on glossaries. While they basically fit into WP:WINAD, there is no explicit statement abou glossaries, and it might be controversial to add one, though I think eventually we'll have to clarify the matter. I personally dislike them in general at Wikipedia, because I feel they are more appropriate at Wiktionary. (In fact, I've been trying to help out with Wiktionary's coverage in this area.) However, some are well-developed and wikified, so they, while they have been deleted before, they are more complex AfD cases. If you are interested in glossaries, I would suggest you direct your efforts towards producing the same material as a wikt:Wiktionary:Appendix.


 * The ideal solution for a glossary like the architecture one is now is, in my opinion, to transwiki it to wikt:Appendix:Architecture, to add Appendix:Architecture to the top of Architecture itself, and then to nominate the article for deletion from Wikipedia itself. Wiktionary actually deals with definitions like these much better, and the kind of organic growth we want in these articles is the kind Wiktionarians are more likely to give it (part of speech, pronunciation, etymology, synonyms, etc.) than Wikipedians, and something they can do better, since their internal links will lead to explanatory definitions, where we have redlinks or redirects for words-without-encyclopedic-concepts.


 * As to naming: glossary signifies a list of specialized terms with definitions. Terms-only should be "List of X terms" (better than terminology, I think). Glossaries should be at "Glossary of [concept]". Terms should only have articles if they are encyclopedic. This means, per WP:WINAD, they need to have articles that describe more than meaning, usage, and etymology of the term itself. They need to be able to describe whatever the term represents. Creating masses of stubs copied from information we already have in one coherent place is not likely to be helpful, though. I hope this is helpful; have I answered your questions? Dmcdevit·t 03:28, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the explanation. My only questions are: Is there an in-line link to Wiktionary for words in a Wikipedia article? It's impractical to have a big row of Appendix:Architecture infoboxes to provide links to definitions for several words in a technical article. Something easier than the syntax: [[wikt:peristyle|peristyle ]] . Maybe some kind of footnote template function or tag that can output the required wikt. definitions, in a terse form, at the bottom of a Wikipedia article? - that would be useful.


 * Can the anchor link syntax: "Wikt:Appendix:Architecture#word" be used in-line to go directly to the word, rather that the top of a long list? (The arch. glossary uses the ===x=== header instead of the "; word : definition" syntax to allow anchor links from other articles to directly jump to the glossary word). Is each definition in this appendix a /sub-page of the domain wikt:Appendix:Architecture?. Then, the syntax of a piped link on wikipedia would be: peristyle ??). How does "Wiktionary actually deal with definitions like these much better"? —Dogears 06:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, there's no transclusion across projects, so the answer to your first, so if I undersand your first question, the answer is no. foo is the best we can do. We could easily do a definition footnote like you suggest, but it would have to be inputted manually (and note that technical terms should usually be explained in context anyway). Take a look at, for example, wikt:Appendix:Theatre_terms. This is the best anchor linking I think is possible. It's not per word, but per section heading. A piped link like Anti-naturalism should do the job most times though. I mean that Wiktionary deals with definitions better because that's what it's for: when we want a definition, we want those things I mentioned like part of speech, pronunciation, etymology, synonyms, etc. that help better define the word, and Wiktionary is beter and more organized and standardized at doing that than us. Dmcdevit·t 04:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
 * What happens to all those redirect for each word in the glossary once the glossary is nominated and deleted? —Dogears 00:36, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, which redirects? Only the Wikipedia article is plausibly in danger of deletion, but all the links to it should be changed to the Wiktionary article, so that no links become dead. Dmcdevit·t 07:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)