Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Is this wiki a dictionary, or not? Different pages seem to have a different view. :-/ -- Tango

This page was just copied from the Full English wiki. The consensus does seem to be that certain dictionary functions have to be covered here, because there are words that just aren't in the vocabulary, that we can't keep totally out of articles. Thus for those words at least, those not in the list of 2000 words, we are serving as a dictionary. That doesn't mean we have to include a full dictionary entry for each of the 2000 words, however, so this page is half right. Also both the Full English Wikipedia and this one must serve as an idiom dictionary, since idioms are not in the main Wiktionary, but used often in articles. Someday we have to find, or write, a Simple English Dictionary. Anon

It's still under discussion Tango. I'd say it's not, but that stub articles which aren't much more than a definition would be tolerated, and would in many cases be quite useful. What are your views? Angela

FWIW, I think it's confusing to potential editors to have entries like Favorite in an encyclopedia. I think I agree with Anon that a dictionary is a worthwhile endeavor, and I also think it should be clearly delineated from this encyclopedia, but often linked. (Otherwise, remove "is not a dictionary" from this page.) JMO - PhilipR 7 July 2005 19:52 (UTC)

My 2 fen (分) - A dictionary tends to have rather dry and bare-bones definitions, which are often not very helpful to a new learner. Perhaps Wiktionary is better, but I've often ended up chasing down chains of dictionary definitions trying to figure out whether I've really understood what 'Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitaenskajuetenschluesselloch' means. When an entry is needed (judgement call), what I think should be found here at Simple are entries which are more than what a dictionary has, without trying to replace a dictionary. It should help learners 'place' the word ('hoof'=cow, 'hood'=hat), give a little usage information, and best -- give links and relationships to other entries in Simple.

I guess this subject touches upon something I'm still thinking about. How can Simple really work as a whole without forcing users to always have windows open in English and Wiktionary ? Shenme 8 July 2005 03:20 (UTC)

Good points. How would you classify information such as that presently found in Favorite and About? I don't really have a problem with the existence of such pages, since they could be helpful to an English learner. I do, however, have a problem with leaving them in and then telling people that SE Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Perhaps SEWP does need to be a hybrid encyclopedia/dictionary, or perhaps there's another way to organize things. I just don't like the idea of adopting the policy wholesale from en: but then not following it. Eager to hear yours and others' ideas. - PhilipR 18:44, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] SE Wikipedia and SE Wiktionary

Now that an SE Wiktionary exists (with 146 entries as of this writing), I think that all the dictionary definitions should be moved there, with the links changed to direct people there. SE Wiktionary doesn't have to try to do the same thing as the English Wiktionary tries to do (definitions in English of all words in all languages), but I think it would be good to keep the definitions in Wiktionary and the encyclopedia articles in Wikipedia. Ultimately, SE Wiktionary should be quite large (going beyond the 2000+ less common words we need for these articles) to work as a dictionary with Simple English definitions. This would fit perfectly with "What Wikipedia is not" and would be logically consistent as well. --Cromwell|Talk 07:17, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

From SE Wikipedia's creation, the intent was to provide simple descriptions of the basic words here, but not actual dictionary entries. We would use the EN wiktionary as a source. I wasn't aware anyone was even working on Simple Wiktionary, as it seemed to be abandoned. Has activity just been recent? -- Netoholic @ 08:37, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it was started in Nov 2005, about the time that Brian Merz migrated his Wikipedia:Simple English Dictionary there. As I mentioned above, now would be a great time to move all the dictionary-ish entries to Simple English Wiktionary, and then we don't need the English Wiktionary as a source, which is often too complex for Simple English users anyway. --Cromwell|Talk 10:57, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I apologize: I was mistaken. He mentioned the migration in Jan 2005, but no notable activity (at least in the Multilingual Wiktionary Statistics page) happened until November. --Cromwell|Talk 14:05, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

On another note, I have a beef with "What Simple English Wikipedia is not" number 2. I think that an encyclopedia, including SE Wikipedia, by definition includes things that interest some people and not others. We should not limit our scope to only things that everyone will be interested in. How do we know what they will or won't be interested in, anyway? Wikipedia is meant to be a repository of knowledge, useful as a reference on things that people don't know much about but would like to know more. That is why I think that if I (for example) want to write about a license to hunt bald eagles in North Dakota in January, as long as it exists (including fiction, etc., of course), is notable (this is somewhat subjective, and I'm sure my example wouldn't qualify unless something exceptional happened regarding such a license, like the US President got one), and is not against one of the other "What Wikipedia is not" items (such as propaganda, diatribe, or patent nonsense), I should be able to create an article about it. Wikipedia thinks big, and makes great claims about being the biggest encyclopedia on earth (hopefully not a sign of megalomania or delusions of grandeur). Let's let their attitude infect us. Let's think big and be bold! Happy editing! --Cromwell|Talk 07:35, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Simple: is a different Wikipedia. Our entries should have wide interest on the most encyclopedic topics, in simple English for easy reading and translation to other Wikipedias. For more specific topics or topics which are only known in few countries, the other Wikipedia's are better. Our core list of articles is at Wikipedia:List of articles all languages should have. -- Netoholic @ 08:37, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Once we've covered "the most encyclopedic topics," why should we stop there? Don't people who are learning English (and other users of Simple English Wikipedia) want to know about more specific topics? I know I would. Remember, m:Wiki is not paper. --Cromwell|Talk 10:57, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's one thousand quality articles we need to have before we should worry. Beyond that, we still have some basic word lists that need good articles (see BE 850, etc.) and also a number of articles related to the 1000 quality ones would need to be made. This project (like the SE wiktionary) has languished without focus. Other Wikipedia's may not need that focus, but the only reason this one is distinct from the en: wikipedia is this specific role. -- Netoholic @ 15:54, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

As mentioned above, I strongly suggest that those basic word list articles be encyclopedic, linked to the word definitions in the SE Wiktionary. I agree that it is a good idea to focus on the articles most people will be interested in, but I still don't think it should be actual policy that we deter people from creating lesser articles they want to create or know a lot about. Out of curiosity, now that Netoholic and I have both stated our opinions, is there anyone else with an opinion about this (feel free to respond to this comment as well, Netoholic)? --Cromwellt|talk 00:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that basic word list articles, like Water should be encyclopedia entries. I'm also not looking for us to have actual dictionary entries for those that can't be made into articles - take Against as a good example of what I see us having. A simple description of the word at the top of the page, and a link to the en:Wiktionary. -- Netoholic @ 01:14, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia is not a democracy

I take issue with the idea expressed in the section on the Wikipedia Community. While it is technically true that "Wikipedia is not a democracy" (it is a benevolent dictatorship, headed by Jimbo Wales, with elements of technocracy, democracy, and several other ideologies, as explained in great detail on Meta), even Jimbo himself in the note that Netoholic linked to says "We *are* a great social experiment of course. But not _primarily_." This shows that while it is true that Wikipedia's main focus is creating an encyclopedia, democratic elements are an important part of that process. This helps us avoid things like major POV from, say, a steward, who doesn't let anyone else change an article with his POV. I think this point regarding democracy, if it stays (its importance is slight unless someone is pushing a counter-democratic agenda, IMO), must be clarified to reflect that. Ideas/opinions? --Cromwellt|talk 16:00, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Simplify

I've attempted to simplify. --Quentin Smith 21:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)