[Wiktionary-l] Re: De-capitalisation-isation

Sun Jun 27 23:51:29 UTC 2004

Andrew Dunbar wrote:

> There's no need to be short-sighted and settle for
> quick fixes just because they are "a lot easier". I'm
> sure that's not the kind of thinking employed by the
> founders of the OED or Websters.
> 
> If Wiktionary is a good project, and I'm sure we all
> believe it is, then it will survive long enough for the
> real fixes to come along.

This is so typical. This argument is *always* going to brought up for 
*everything* that is not a complete miracle cure. Hence nothing will 
ever change and hence we will be stuck with the same problem forever 
just because people wouldn't accept at least a partial solution!

> Cleaning up after the side-
> effects of the quick fix and cleaning up again in the
> future when a solid fix comes along will be a pointless
> drain on the time and patience of the contributors.

That is ungrounded and probably false. What you call a "quick fix" is a 
step in the right direction. Any "cleaning up" needed to do after the 
next fix (whether or not it is a miracle cure) will complement, and not 
override, replace, or render useless, the cleaning up needed now.

> Also, going with the quick fix now will reduce our
> chances of getting the developers to implement a solid
> fix later on, because they will believe they had
> already fixed the problem.

You are forgetting that you *already* have no chance of getting a 
developer to do anything. The only reason why we can do this now is 
because *the feature is already there*. I don't know why it was written 
(maybe for Toki Pona?), but we have it now, and we can flip a switch to 
make it work. I (not really a "developer") have volunteered to write a 
script to do the moving in order to spare you from 40,000 page moves, 
but even without that script I am sure the Wiktionary userbase can fix 
all of that manually over time.

> It may be even more unfortunate that some feel the need
> to put down others rather than improve their arguments
> or consider that other opinions might be valid and not
> just the "contrary ignoramuses" who have been depicted
> in the email I'm replying to now.

I do think I have considered the arguments brought forward. I have 
thought about them as much as I could, and almost all of them struck me 
as separate issues that were not arguments against this particular change.

Timwi