Wiktionary talk:Votes/2019-05/Excluding self-evident "attributive form of" definitions for hyphenated compounds

A request for clarification

The vote should specify whether it's about SOP hyphenated compounds, non-SOP ones, or all. From the vote description —

Hyphenated compound modifiers can be created in arbitrary and virtually limitless combinations, from "aardvark-skin handbag" to "zebra-stripe stockings" to "never-to-be-repeated opportunity".

— it sounds like it's at least about SOP ones. But it should really be clearer.​—msh210℠ (talk) 06:38, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Mihia, IMO this vote should not start until this point is clarified. Here, by "SOP" I mean that the underlying non-hyphenated compound is SOP (I don't mean SOP in the way TDR describes below).​—msh210℠ (talk) 08:45, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

@Msh210: All definitions like "X-Y = attributive form of X Y" are SoP. They are the sum of "X Y" and the hyphen. Whether "X Y" itself is SoP is not something that my proposal concerns itself with. Mihia (talk) 17:25, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

And my point was that it really should, Mihia, because people's votes may depend on that. For example, if we were to vote right now I'd vote to exclude such terms if the base form is SOP and include them if it's not. I recommend restricting the vote to specifically such terms as the base (without-hyphens) form is idiomatic, for a cleaner vote. Otherwise, you'll get people voting based on the description, most of whose examples have SOP bases, and the result will be ambiguous unless people specify in their votes what kind they're voting about.​—msh210℠ (talk) 06:49, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

The proposal, as stated, is that Wiktionary policy should be not to include entries that define hyphenated compounds merely as an attributive form of the individual components. The prototypical example "X-Y = attributive form of X Y" is given. I fail to understand how anyone could deduce from this wording that some subset of the definitions so described is to be excluded from the proposal, when no exclusion is anywhere mentioned. It is like saying "The notice says No Parking, but it doesn't say No Parking on Sundays, so it should be OK to park here seeing as it's a Sunday". If, on the other hand, people unilaterally choose to vote to allow certain subsets of these "attributive form of" definitions and exclude others, then I guess that is their prerogative. Mihia (talk) 22:06, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Two arguments against this proposition - and my counter-arguments

Two arguments which will surely be raised against this proposition are that we aim to include all words, and that someone might look up these terms. While I fully agree that both of these assertions are true, I don't believe that means we ought to keep attributive forms in the manner we currently do.
Re look up - this is the simpler case, MediaWiki automatically redirects hyphenated forms to spaced forms when the former does not exist. The example in the vote demonstrates this; periodic-table redirects to periodic table when searched.
Re all words - this is certainly more subjective, but I do not consider these words any more than I consider the possessive form of every name a distinct word, nor the compound of a noun and an article. There could be arguments made that, if we have Dave we ought to also have Dave's, and if we have truck we ought to also have a truck and the truck, but I do not agree. I believe that grammatical constructions such as these move from the realm of semantics to the realm of grammar. As mentioned this is subjective, but I cannot see an obvious distinction between keeping all attributive forms and keeping all possessive forms as well. - TheDaveRoss 12:55, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

I think the all-words and the look-up arguments are the same: we aim to include all terms that someone might look up, after all, not all terms period. We've decided on a refining of that: if something is attested and idiomatic (which means, for us, not SOP), we include it. If this vote is about attested forms (see my question atop this talkpage), then that aspect is accounted for. And I don't see how someone can say that periodic-table is SOP but periodic table is not. So the vote here (if this vote is about attested forms) is effectively whether to add an exclusion to the usual attested-and-idiomatic rule: include attested, idiomatic terms except for English terms that are multiword terms with hyphens that are attributive forms of nouns with spaces instead of the hyphens. And for what purpose? Because we're running out of room? I don't see the purpose in adding the exclusion. The vote proposal puts forth only the reason that they are many and easy to construct and we editors shouldn't waste effort on doing so: but that's never a valid argument: each editor works on whatever he wants and can skip creating these entries if he so desires. In sum: this is a new exclusion rather than an interpretation of the usual rule, and the (stated) reasons for such exclusion are very weak at best.​—msh210℠ (talk) 06:51, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

I suppose what I am saying is that these terms are SOP, except instead of being the sum of their component words, they are the sum of their component words and a grammatical rule. Again, just like possessive nouns or compounds with articles or any word followed by particular punctuation. These are idiomatic in the sense that they convey a meaning distinct from that of the modified term or terms, but that meaning is a transparent grammatical construction and not a distinct semantic meaning.

I also believe that there are good reasons not to include extraneous terms (beyond "space"). From a usability perspective I think it is a better overall experience if the user who searches periodic-table lands on periodic table where there is a significant amount of useful information (etymology, translations, images, external links, pronunciation, a full definition) rather than a stub page which has only a link to the non-attributive form, and I think forking the etymology, pronunciation, etc. is strictly worse than having it at the lemma. Further, from a technical usability standpoint, it simply adds complexity without adding any value. From a maintenance standpoint it adds surface area to the project which needs to be kept up with changes, a small thing I would say but keeping extra pages just makes every task take longer. From an "effort" standpoint, I do agree that editors should be allowed to work on whatever they want, but I would say any effort here is wasted and some of that effort would be likely placed elsewhere if these were disallowed. Even if a small fraction of the effort were diverted elsewhere I would consider it a win. - TheDaveRoss 12:53, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree completely with you, TDR. Canonicalization (talk) 09:53, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

By that argument, TDR, we should exclude all form-of entries where the form is regular. Clearly we've decided against that.​—msh210℠ (talk) 06:50, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

In my view, irrespective of considerations such as space and editors' efforts, it is positively worse to have a separate entry for e.g. "periodic-table = attributive form of periodic table" than not to have it at all. This is because such an entry encourages users to believe that there is something special about the formation "periodic-table". The user is better off understanding the underlying principle, that they can then apply to any similar case that they encounter, rather than depending on looking up individual cases in a dictionary, and imagining that other cases don't exist when they are not specifically listed in a dictionary. Mihia (talk) 17:38, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

By that argument we should exclude all form-of entries where the form is regular. Clearly we've decided against that.​—msh210℠ (talk) 06:49, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

We have decided in favor of exclusion for compound forms, such as to run, was running, ran to, etc., as well as possessive forms, capitalized forms, punctuated forms, and on and on. These are more akin to compound forms than conjugations or declensions as they are rarely (if ever) irregular, and because they are reasonably handled by search. This decision would not be out of line with other comparable policies.

But to your point, the dictionary would probably be better and more useful if somehow we could have all forms of a given word in a single entry, but still be able to have other words comprising the same letters be represented in their appropriate entries as well, and have users land in the correct place every time. I am not sure how that is possible on this platform (or at all), so we have opted for an inferior (in theory) but practical solution which gives every form their own entry. - TheDaveRoss 12:59, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Title of the vote

I'm not sure I like the title: why "definitions" instead of "entries"? Canonicalization (talk) 09:53, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

First sentence

"Wiktionary policy should be not to include entries that define hyphenated compounds merely as an attributive form of the individual components": does that mean that if we were creative and could sport a definition for periodic-table that wasn't merely "attributive form of periodic table" (but were functionally equivalent) that entry would suddenly become includable? I don't like this idea, and I think periodic-table should be deleted regardless of what definition we provide.

Of course, I understand that some reference to the definition must be made, because we don't want to delete all attributive-form entries. cookie-cutter springs to mind, being a good example of an attributive form that should be kept since it has acquired a life of its own, a second meaning that isn't reducible to (can't be defined as) "attributive form of cookie cutter" (or equivalent). Canonicalization (talk) 09:53, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

@Canonicalization: I hope that the phrase "merely as an attributive form of the individual components" will be understood to mean that we exclude definitions that are equivalent to, and mean no more than, "attributive form of ~", however they are actually worded, while retaining definitions that have additional content. Mihia (talk) 19:37, 27 May 2019 (UTC)