Talk:fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu

RFD discussion: August 2019–February 2020

The following information passed a request for deletion (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu

I don't even know where to start. Clipping? --Robbie SWE (talk) 19:55, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Delete. Canonicalization (talk) 19:57, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

@Canonicalization: What is the rationale for deletion? Is the rationale based on WT:CFI in any way? --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:34, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky: No, I just don't like it, find it totally useless and would like to see it deleted. But fair enough; the person closing this discussion can count my vote as an abstain. Canonicalization (talk) 14:15, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Another example of a voting editor being pressurised. @Canonicalization: The strike was made by another editor, do you want to reverse it? DonnanZ (talk) 17:47, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Donnanz, your opinions here have been very valuable, and Dan and Canonicalization did the right thing. rfds are not popularity contests, and i believe strongly that everyone should have a right to their opinion without being pressurized by anyone, even in an indirect or subconscious way. i think engaging our community of good-faith editors with discussion is so important for that to happen, and Dan and Canonicalization did the right thing in their discussion. discussions like these make us better at judging deletion targets because we can connect our opinions / "gut feelings" which i think are actually very important in the context of a dictionary, with the written policy and see whether they align. ultimately, the policy should reflect our will if not. --Habst (talk) 19:04, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

No, let's leave it at that. I agree with Habst comments. I find Dan Polansky's manners incredibly grating, but I can't deny his habit of challenging me at every turn tends to be for the good of the project. Canonicalization (talk) 12:14, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

cited, there is no reason to delete and this should have been put at RFV, not RFD if there was no deletion rationale provided. it is an elongated form of a clipping. search the term and you will see it has many results, peaking in popularity around 2012 but certainly spanning more than a year to the present so it meets CFI. the term is referenced in this NYT article from 2012 as well as many other articles. --Habst (talk) 20:17, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

For what it is worth, the term is not mentioned in that NYT blog post. The subreddit name is mentioned, but we are not talking about "f7u12". - TheDaveRoss 03:10, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

also, the specific number of F's and U's (7 Fs and 12 Us) is significant with this term, so it's unlike e.g. fffffuuuuuuuuuuu with any arbitrary amount of elongation. speedy keep because no deletion rationale was provided, and the term is cited to meet CFI. --Habst (talk) 20:31, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) We actually had a vote over terms with internal repetition, and it was decided to limit it to no more than three repetitions in a row of the same component. This is basically [a bunch of "f"s]+[a bunch of "u"s]. I sincerely doubt that there's any significance to the fact that there are 7 "f"s and 12 "u"s in this spelling. If you take the possible variation in the number of "f"s and multiply it by the possible variations in the number of "u"s you get an astronomical number of possible entries for what are all lexically the same thing. Which ones are sufficiently attested is just a matter of random chance. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:39, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

that vote does not apply to this term, because as you mention, the fact that there are 7 "f"s and 12 "u"s is significant. the term is referenced as "f7u12" as a shorthand, which has thousands of uses online and in books. it is not random chance, the term "f6u12" for example or the terms "f7u13" do not exist. --Habst (talk) 20:43, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

In that case, can the entry please explain what the significance is. Mihia (talk) 21:04, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

done with a reference for now but i plan to expand the etymology later. --Habst (talk) 21:39, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

@Habst: Thanks. Mihia (talk) 00:27, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

My explanation of why I agree with the vote isn't the wording of the the actual vote- it has no such exception. The fact that a particular number of "f"s and "u"s have been arbitrarily memorialized doesn't make this worthy of an entry. The long spelling can be redirected to one that meets cfi and the reason for the 7 "f"s and 12 "u"s can be explained there and in any f7u12 entry (which wouldn't be affected by the vote). Chuck Entz (talk) 21:08, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

i don't think the vote applies to this term, because the elongation is not used to only add emphasis -- instead, it is used to refer to the /r/f7u12 / rage comic community. even if the vote did apply to this term, there is a section that says, "The above treatment may be overriden by consensus, for example where a variation having four repetitions is more common, or where an additional repetition would cause the word to shift to a different pronunciation or intonation." which in my opinion pretty clearly applies to this term because the specific repetition count is notable. --Habst (talk) 21:52, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

to rephrase, the vote applies to words that are only repetitive-emphatic. fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu is not only repetitive-emphatic because it carries extra meaning as a reference to the "screaming man" meme, f7u12 community, or rage comics in general. it differs in meaning from any other arbitrary elongation length of fXuX, so it passes CFI and deserves to be included. --Habst (talk) 21:58, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

If we were to put the main content at a "minimal" form (like argh), I'm curious about what it would be. I can't imagine somebody yelling fu! or fuu!. Equinox ◑ 13:13, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Delete this rubbish. DonnanZ (talk) 12:03, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

User:Donnanz it's fully cited in durable media and it meets CFI. the nominator didn't give any reason at all for deleting, which would normally be grounds for speedy keep. the term's etymology is more complex than it may seem at first. why are you voting to delete, and may i ask if you would reconsider knowing that now it is cited? --Habst (talk) 15:06, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

@Donnanz: What is the rationale for deletion? Is the rationale based on WT:CFI in any way? --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:32, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Hey, I'm not the one who's on trial. I don't care whether it's cited or not, it's still rubbish / garbage / nonsense, and I very much doubt that it's useful and anyone is going to look for it. It may meet CFI as a single word, but I consider "SoP" terms such as spelling mistake far more useful than this nonsense. Guess what happened to that? It was deleted. My vote stands. DonnanZ (talk) 09:40, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Do I understand correctly that your "delete" is a WT:CFI override? --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:01, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Whatever. This word is "standing trial", not me. DonnanZ (talk) 10:06, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

If the word is standing trial, and you want to participate in that trial, you should refer to the applicable law or indicate a law override. Otherwise, your motion related to that trial should be dismissed. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:56, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

The vote stands, unless an admin decides otherwise. DonnanZ (talk) 11:35, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

You are violating your own metaphor of "trial". --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:29, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky: This is not appropriate, there is no call for harassing people because they voted in a way you don't prefer. There is nothing in our policy which requires editors to provide rationale for their votes, that is your own criteria. You are within your rights to ask people what their rationale was, but if they decline that should be the end of the conversation. This is a pattern for you, and one which should end. If you think we ought to require rationale for all votes, create a vote to amend our policies. - TheDaveRoss 12:27, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

TheDaveRoss, i could not agree more that harassment is unacceptable, in the strongest possible terms. we should be able to have the most productive possible conversations and that includes pointing out holes if they exist in arguments. Dan was absolutely doing the latter and not the former, he and Donnanz both did the right thing here, in fact by tying in opinions to policy it helps create a clearer picture of the oppose vote that is helpful for a closing admin. there is no call for rationale for all votes, but users are certainly allowed to communicate with each other on their own will in a respectful manner as they did here, it's what i believe to be the best part of wiktionary. thanks to dan, this argument has more elaboration that we would not have seen otherwise without any harassment. --Habst (talk) 23:12, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I cannot compel anyone to provide a rationale, but I can ask questions and I can point out that a user is violating their own metaphor of a "trial", which they brought into discussion. Let me note that there is in fact no policy in this matter: there is no policy requiring rationales to be provided in RFD and there is no policy that RFDs are mere votes. I see no policy that I am violating. You can create a vote that formally establishes that RFDs are mere votes, if you prefer; that's the other side of the coin. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:51, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Keep per above. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 16:11, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Thought it could be a good idea to return to the scene of the crime and provide the reason for my nomination. Apparently not doing so might get you a good old scolding. I apologise for not writing it in the first place – it was pretty late and to be honest, I was stunned that this entry was willingly created by a registered editor. I disagree with Habst that it should have been put at RFV – it initially had one cite, so I wasn't contesting its existence. I truly didn't think – and still don't – that it warranted an inclusion. Taking into consideration that it was marked as a clipping (oy vey!), made it dubious to say the least. It has now been altered, but I still think it's rubbish and shouldn't be included here, because a) it sets a dangerous precedent (if you dig deep enough I'm convinced you would find endless variants) and b) I highly doubt users will look it up (is it at least a hotword?). I honestly don't care how many quotes from Reddit, 4chan, 8chan, blogs, forums, etc., are provided – it's junk and it discredits Wiktionary. --Robbie SWE (talk) 20:17, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Robbie SWE, thank you for returning and providing explanation. thank you for your edits over the years here, i do greatly respect all of your contributions even if we disagree on specific points. i think it's important to give a reason for nominating an entry for deletion every time, even in entries that might not seem serious at first. i also think this term warrants inclusion, both on a policy level and on a broader "should this term be in a dictionary" level.

i am a registered editor and i have created over 1,000 entries here at wiktionary, the vast majority of them being noncontroversial and having nothing at all to do with internet culture or slang. i said it should have been put at RFV because it only had one cite, and not the requisite three cites when it was nominated (two minutes after i created it), but this issue is now fixed.

it was and still is marked as a clipping because it is a clipping, of an elongated form of fuck (or perhaps an elongated form of a clipping, but i don't think the distinction is that important here). the first revision noted that in the definition, and later i updated the etymology to note that as well.

i disagree that adding fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu sets a dangerous precedent. in fact, i think it is a step in the right direction for wiktionary to begin including a wealth of attested internet slang that has never been comprehensively catalogued before. if a variant of fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu also meets CFI and can be attested enough times, then of course we should include it. if it does not belong in a dictionary, then we should delete it. i personally remembered learning this phrase around 2011, and i remember reading the NYT article referencing it and being pleasantly surprised that "old media" had covered new internet slang in this way. i looked it up on wiktionary before creating it, and i imagine other people have done that too before. as for T:hot word, the template is not necessary because fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu has been attested for more than a year.

none of my quotes on fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu are from reddit, 4chan, 8chan, blogs, forums, or other related media -- i took special care to only take quotes from publications that i believe to have been printed on physical paper (a book, a newspaper, and a magazine) to leave no doubts about their durable archival. --Habst (talk) 21:59, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

Keep There are a lot of things that discredit Wiktionary in people's eyes, starting with being a Wiki. Our policy that we record English as it is used is certainly one of those things, but it's one of the things that makes Wiktionary valuable in other people's eyes. It certainly is attestable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:05, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Weak keep BTW. Equinox ◑ 12:04, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Delete per CFI, especially this vote. The fact that this is a common elongation does not change the fact that it is an elongation. - TheDaveRoss 12:15, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

That is not how I interpret the vote, which I would have thought referred to extensions of entire words (fuck) and not of fragments (fu alone is not a word). Equinox ◑ 12:22, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

While fu may not be (I would guess it is actually just as attestable as most of the variants) in order for the term at issue to not fall under the rule it would have to be the shortest attestable elongation (by my reading). - TheDaveRoss 16:52, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

hi TheDaveRoss, thank you for your vote. there are three reasons why WT:REPEATING does not apply to this word:

1. fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu is not only repetitive-emphatic because its specific repetition length carries extra connotations related to the "screaming man" meme, rage comics, or internet culture in general. per the first sentence, the vote only applies to terms which are only repetitive-emphatic (emphasis mine) by the wording "and having no other meaning", this is also clarified in the discussion below.
2. words like fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu are specifically exempted from WT:REPEATING by the sentence "The above treatment may be overriden by consensus, for example where a variation having four repetitions is more common, or where an additional repetition would cause the word to shift to a different pronunciation or intonation." firstly consensus is currently in favor of keeping, but even if it wasn't, this term is a clear example of one where "having X repetitions is more common" (in this case 7 and 12) and one where any additional repetition would change the connotations of the word to no longer be f7u12.
3. per Equinox's comment, there may not even be a "base form" of this expression at all, or at least we haven't been able to identify one yet on wiktionary or in this discussion. in my opinion the concept of a "base form" for terms like fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu which are not solely repetitive-emphatic is kind of flawed, because the elongations in between that base form and f7u12 may not be attested and more importantly they carry a different meaning (not just varying in their emphasis) than f7u12.

thank you, --Habst (talk) 18:54, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Some very cursory Googling shows that point 1 applies to other variants of "fuu" e.g. fuuuu and fffuuuuu, I don't have the inclination to figure out which forms are most common in CFI compliant media. Re point 2, all local rules can be overridden by consensus, that doesn't mean that I should vote with consensus if I disagree with it. Point 3, eh, this might live in a weird space since it is an elongation of a clipping, but I don't think there is any argument to be made that it isn't an elongation. - TheDaveRoss 19:04, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

TheDaveRoss, thank you for your response, i agree strongly that we should be vigilant about applying the vote to not introduce hundreds of elongated forms with only slight variations from one another, which would be too difficult to maintain. in my eyes, keeping this entry was exactly what that vote states both in letter and in spirit.

the other "fXuX" forms may exist in expanded form, but they do not carry the same meaning as f7u12 (search for any other "fXuX" term and i have not been able to get any hits, like "f1u4" and "f3u5" as in the two terms provided). we agree that every rule has wiggle room, but some are certainly more flexible than others, and i think by including that explicit disclaimer in WT:REPEATING, which does not exist in many other stricter policies, that gives us more freedom to include fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu. i agree with you on point 3, because it is an elongation of a clipping though, i do not think a base form exists. --Habst (talk) 23:06, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

@TheDaveRoss What I'm getting from you is "It's an elongated form, and no matter what, it should be deleted because it's an elongated form." Well... but this is a special case, one that even I thought would never come up. Due to an Internet phenomenon it seems, this specific amount of letters (f*7, u*12) is used in this specific case of elongation. It seems pretty clear to me that this needs to be kept because of that, especially if it's clear in the citations that the term is being used in a manner that suggests it has to do with the Internet phenomenon. To my understanding the vote on elongations was meant to exclude random variants, but this specific variant is backed culturally. Habst made sure to include that information. The deletion reason you gave seems to ignore the fact that this is not a random variant. PseudoSkull (talk) 20:07, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

That has been said, but when I searched other variants I saw several of them being used with reference to the "rage comics" and other memes which are supposed to make this special. I don't think it is as special as it has been made out to be. - TheDaveRoss 03:06, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

• Delete, though I acknowledge this isn't technically prohibited by the CFI clause on repetitions ("fu" and "ffuu" don't seem as readily citable to me), it is a repetition of a truncation of fuck and I consider a delete vote in keeping with the spirit of the rule. Generally speaking, I don't think that repetitions that are this long (by amount of repetitions of the repeated element, not word length) are useful or should be kept. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 11:38, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

  If I am reading WT:CFI#Repetitions correctly: even if it were broadened to apply to this case, it would ask for a hard redirect rather than deletion. The voted on WT:CFI#Repetitions policy puts no limit on for how long repetitions the hard redirect should be created, provided the form is attested. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:57, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

• Keep because the amount of letters are deliberately specific (assuming it's attested as such). PseudoSkull (talk) 19:57, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
• This is an example of why Wiktionary:Votes/2014-01/Treatment of repeating letters and syllables exists and was enacted. Find the shortest attested variation of this, create an entry for that, and then redirect this entry there. bd2412 T 12:25, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

  What about the specific etymological info that would not apply to any shorter f^muⁿ?  --Lambiam 10:05, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

  That "etymology" is spurious. It is a cart before the horse thing, it happened to be the elongation which was used as the name of the subreddit, it isn't special in and of itself. The "original" (no idea if it was actually the original) comic didn't have this specific elongation, and there are myriad different elongations which are used in the copycat comics which have come since, and in other media. Reddit also has a subreddit called "nononono", that doesn't mean we should have an entry for that particular number of repetitions, there are lots of instances of no1, no2, no3, no4, etc. in use. - TheDaveRoss 13:54, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

If the etymology is indeed spurious (it does seem at least potentially suss, but I wouldn't know how to go about investigating this), then I vote delete. But also, if it is the name of a subreddit, then surely it is a proper noun that isn't famous enough to qualify. Do all subreddit names have entries? - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 09:15, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

• RFD kept: no consensus for deletion. I count 4.5 keeps and 5 deletes. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:30, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Quite a lot of useful stuff has been deleted around here, but this crap stays. Change the rules if they lead to absurd results like this. Maybe admins should get the right to vote delete for "blatant nonsense". 178.1.250.55 22:39, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Wiktionary is a descriptive dictionary. If a word is attested, then it is our job to document it to the fullest extent possible. Even if a word is "crap", pretending it doesn't exist would be a disservice to our readers. Imagine someone unfamiliar with internet slang trying to find out the meaning of fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu, and being unable to find any decent sources. Binarystep (talk) 07:43, 14 April 2024 (UTC)