Wikipedia talk:Glossary

barnstaritis
should we add "barnstaritis" to the list 92.24.91.127 (talk) 09:20, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
 * What is it? -- DB 1729 talk 11:22, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I imagine it's a "disease" (obsession) related to using barnstars. Even better, there's a WP page for it. – The Grid  ( talk )  13:46, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah, thanks. I must have mistyped my search for it. -- DB 1729 talk 16:12, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * @The Grid, we should add the term to the list, I wanted to post this on the talk page so I wouldn't make edits and then get them reverted for vandalism, that is annoying, 88.110.61.147 (talk) 15:07, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

base name
Hi,. You may not remember this edit adding "A base name is an undisambiguated article title", as it's been some years. I did a targeted advanced search, and couldn't find a lot of backing for that definition. In particular, I'm concerned about possible confusion with Magic word.

I found one page that seems to support your definition, at Wikipedia:Cleaning up after a move where it is used in that sense, but there don't seem to be a lot of other cases like that one that I can see. Other pages seem to use it more as a shorthand for BASEPAGENAME, such as at Help:Page name and Wikipedia:Page name. Afaict, that seems to be the majority usage, but maybe the usage is just blurry, and either we should remove the glossary entry entirely, or call out the variability of usage, and provide some of these links.

The more I deal with the glossary, the more I think this kind of blurry variability of usage may be pretty common. See for example, my recent rewrite of the term anchor, where I tried to keep the definition short for those who don't want a wall of text, while including the gory details in an explanatory note, explained at the bottom if they click through. I have a feeling that there are quite a few glossary items that might benefit from additional explanation of this nature, and explanatory notes could be a good way to deal with it.

Could you look into base name a little more, and see how you'd like to handle it? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:15, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Dropped. Mathglot (talk) 07:11, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * @Mathglot: I've just come across the removal of base name from noticing that Base name didn't redirect to a specific entry on this page; and I came across Base name from, which includes a piped link to that redirect (in the context of base name being a synonym for unqualified title). That link seems to have been inserted in Special:Diff/905866534 - pinging , who made that edit. Anecdotally speaking, I think of the term base name to mean an undisambiguated/unqualified article title (except in the special case of the magic word), though I can't remember exactly where I picked that up from. Best, &zwj;—&zwj;a smart kitten[ meow] 21:21, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
 * (I forgot to mention it in the above reply, but I also noticed that the term base name is referenced in a number of other glossary definitions, along with section links that no longer work following the term's removal.) &zwj;—&zwj;a smart kitten[ meow] 21:29, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
 * , thank you for this. One of my concerns is terms used with multiple meanings; Reference is classic for this. I think that as long as we can provide multiple definitions that are actually in use and have support, such as with Reference, it's fine, and very helpful. If we have a word that seems a bit fuzzy (maybe only to me?) like base name, then either we have to improve it, or delete it. The last thing we want to do in a page labeled "Wikipedia:Glossary" is lead people astray, or provide idiosyncratic definitions that maybe come from a Talk page somewhere without really being adopted enough to determine a consistent meaning (or multiple consistent meanings).
 * A bit o/t, but while I'm here: this should be a Wikipedia Glossary, only; it is not an English dictionary. Words like hagiography have no business being here. The very next term after that one, handwaving is not exclusive to Wikipedia, but is a jargony term used in a lot of debate or academic discussion contexts. Perhaps it is unfamiliar to a lot of people who might see it mentioned here, and to that extent, I'm not strongly opposed to retaining it, but since it is available in standard dictionaries (and has its own encyclopedic article here), I feel it's not necessary. I won't militate to remove it, but I don't think we should have too many like that here. We should stick to terms that match the title topic, as much as possible; any exceptions should have some clear benefit to a reader coming here. Mathglot (talk) 21:52, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Those should be fixed. Or maybe it's easier to just add it back, but then we need a authoritative definition. Mathglot (talk) 21:54, 18 January 2024 (UTC)


 * thank you for the ping, A smart kitten! This seems to be a context problem, that is, there are many words in the English language and terms on Wikipedia that have different meanings in different contexts, as you know. The term "base name" appears to be one of these terms. In the context of page titles it has meant essentially a bare, undisambiguated title for all the years I've been registered. I've used it many times in that context, so I think it is incorrect to remove it just because there are other meanings in other contexts. The correct solution seems to be to improve any blurry items by expanding them to usages in different contexts. I think it's a mistake to just slash a term off the glossary and make editors wonder where it went. It's a bit like "Oh darn, I missed the bloke with my sword, so let me cut off my arm." I do intend to restore the term as it was, which will fix many links to it I've made. Then hopefully, other editors will find good ways to improve it.  P.I. Ellsworth &thinsp;, ed.  put'er there 09:56, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

'top'
User:ZappaOMatic, ages ago you added, "Top: Same as (current)" in this edit. I have no idea what this means. Can you provide some context or reword it so it's clearer? Also, if we are going to keep "top" in the glossary, we should probably mention some of the other ways it is used, for example, in the edit summary, it's the default section name placed by mw software in the edit summary field, to lead off a "section edit" of the lead. There are page nav templates that skip to bottom, or top, of page (such as Top of page, Back to top) and there's a whole series of templates that come in two parts, like defining the top and bottom of a closed discussion (atop}}), collapsed discussions (cot), and others. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 18:43, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Altered section name to 'top' (with apostrophes), as the section name "top" (without punctuation) automatically goes to the top of the page: see . Mathglot (talk) 19:44, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
 * For the record, the entry was dropped in Special:Diff/1197406289.
 * Mathglot, I think that by "Top: Same as (current)" User:ZappaOMatic meant the bold and parenthesized (current) which shows up at contribs pages. For example at this view of your contribs, User:Mathglot/sandbox is listed with "(current)". Relevant glossary entries are listed at WP:G and WP:G.
 * If this is indeed the "(current)" which was meant, then "top" could be interpreted as "the revision of a page, which appears at the of the page's history". —⁠andrybak (talk) 21:21, 5 June 2024 (UTC)