Wiktionary talk:Word of the day

I don't understand these instructions at all. What are they trying to say? - dcljr 01:01, 19 March 2006 (UTC) (Instructions have been removed. - dcljr 17:03, 20 March 2006 (UTC))

---

It would make much more sense to link to past WotDs rather than future ones. Ncik 03:10, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

You might want to post this at Template talk:wotd, as well, since Template:wotd is where the link actually comes from. - dcljr 17:07, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I've made this change. See also Template talk:wotd. - dcljr 18:52, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

RSS?

What do you guys think of an RSS feed for the WOTD? I'd like to see one, though I don't know how to go about making or doing one at all. Often times, the Dictionary.com WOTD sucks, and I don't like having to type URL's or click through favorites to see this one. I'm sure there are others who are like-minded as well. What are your opinions?Cosmo 20:31, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to see this as well so I can get it on my Google Home Page. Maybe I should have made an account to say so? 207.166.7.209 — This unsigned comment was added by 207.166.7.209 (talk) at 20:48, 22 May 2006 (UTC).

Yes, it is easier for people to reply to your questions if you get an account. Please do! Rod (A. Smith) 05:44, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm rather disappointed that only one person actually commented on the idea at all. Doesn't anyone care for this? Cosmo_{let's chat} 17:06, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Especially, I might add, since it's been two weeks. Cosmo_{let's chat} 17:07, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not familiar with methods of setting up RSS feeds. Perhaps this should be asked again in the Grease pit. --Connel MacKenzie T C 20:08, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not entirely sure if this relates or not, but is there a way to put the Wiki Word of the Day on one's blog site? Not exactly a link to the WOTD, but in a way that each day's new word shows up on one's blog site... --Bloody rox 19:52, 14 June 2006 (UTC)Bloody_Rox

I have only just noticed this. It is a Very Good Idea. Widsith 20:11, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I would love to see a feed for this. JeffieAlex 03:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be a great idea too. Ged3000 16:21, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I want RSS WOTD FOR SURE!!!!--68.127.243.61 00:11, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

This feature on yet???--68.123.225.181 01:51, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Release coming soon?--68.127.37.78 01:21, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

THIS ISN"T WORKING FOR ME ON IGOOGLE.COM ???? — This unsigned comment was added by 69.105.172.174 (talk) at 23:44, 28 June 2007 (UTC).

WHEN FINAL COMING OUT??? — This unsigned comment was added by 69.111.8.199 (talk) at 22:43, 15 August 2007 (UTC).

Sorry for missing this notice; I had only announced it elsewhere. I have two that function currently: http://tools.wikimedia.de/~cmackenzie/wotd-rss.php and http://tools.wikimedia.de/~cmackenzie/wotd-rss-b.php. The second one sends the title + 1st definition as the RSS announcement title, while the first sends only the word, with the definition given in the RSS content. Both have been operational for a while now. --Connel MacKenzie 23:00, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I've created an atom/rss1/rss2 feed. They can all be found here:

• http://www.xvpa.com/wotd/?feed=atom (atom feed)
• http://www.xvpa.com/wotd/?feed=rss1 (rss 1.0 feed)
• http://www.xvpa.com/wotd/?feed=rss2 (rss 2.0 feed)

If they're acceptable please change the links on the following pages:

• http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page
• http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Word_of_the_day
• http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Word_of_the_day/Archive

--Jamesdlow 18:43, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I've updated the references to the RSS feed that I can, but I need someone to help update the link in the code that is produced by {{Word of the day}} on the 3 links above --Jamesdlow 15:46, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Which of your three versions should be used: atom, 1.0, or 2.0? --EncycloPetey 15:50, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

If you were to link to a single version RSS 2.0 --Jamesdlow 23:48, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually I've looked at what's produced by the current feed, http://tools.wikimedia.de/~conrad/wotd/ its getting the latest word unlike the other code, but its producing invalid RSS code. Maybe someone should have a look at that if possible. --Jamesdlow 02:43, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm using Mozilla Firefox 11.0, and none of the RSS feeds seem to be working. All of them redirect to onoko.com; the Atom and RSS2.0 feeds redirect give a 'page not found' error, and the RSS1.0 gives a 'rss1.0 not a valid feed template' error. Is anyone else having this problem? Or is it something to do with my computer? The original RSS feeds worked fine. Hyarmendacil (talk) 22:03, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Hyarmendacil, you're right. None of them work right now. Shnizzedy (talk) 05:29, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Present, future, past

Okay, I've added links to future (nominations and those already ready to go) and past WOTD pages. Someone else can flesh out any instructions that should be given at the top of the page. - dcljr 17:01, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Restructure proposal

Due to a baffling MediaWiki bug in the parsing of the magic words "fullurl", "fullurle", "localurl" and "localurle" I propose a new naming convention for all of these.

1. No WOTD link should contain spaces or commas.
2. Edit links must exist to each mini-page from themselves.
3. Only one month of WOTD's should be linkable from Main Page.

This would shuffle the maintenance from sysops to regular volunteers (for the 31 semi-protected pages.)

It would also make it later expandable to 366 days (when we have 366 WOTDs entered) and the reclycling of the words + the archiving of old words could then likewise be delegated from sysops to confirmed users.

For phase one (one month) I think the naming convention should be:

Wiktionary:WOTD/1
Wiktionary:WOTD/2
Wiktionary:WOTD/3

etc.

For phase two (one year) I think the naming convention should be:

Wiktionary:WOTD/1/1
Wiktionary:WOTD/1/2
Wiktionary:WOTD/1/3
...
Wiktionary:WOTD/12/31

This would provide a finite number of pages that sysops need to semi-protect. Registered users can then maintain the archives to their pleasure. And "missed" cycles would simply use the previous cycle's WOTD.

--Connel MacKenzie T C 18:10, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

We had something like that earlier, based on the French "mot du jour" (fr:Wiktionnaire:Mot du jour), which can be found here. --Expurgator t(c) 18:42, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Very good idea. Can we please proceed with it? (It's quite urgent, as you know). — Vildricianus 16:57, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, distracted by a million other side projects. Please Be Bold. --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:21, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Word of the day/New version, like the French one is where that old version of the page now lies. It looks so much easier to manage, with only 31 pages that ever get changed. However, with this I guess that archiving past WOTDs would be a little more difficult, but archives aren't as useful. However, Wiktionary:Word of the day/New version, like the French one is an ugly name for it, but it gets my point across well. --Dangherous 13:08, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Clear on the proposal?

Just to see if I understand the proposal... (1) We would have a single set of 365 (366) WOTD templates/pages. (2) After running WOTD for a year, the templates/pages would be altered to reflect the new content. (3) Each current month of pages would be semi-protected in some fashion. Are these the salient points, correctly interpreted?

There is one point which I do not understand, and that is the rationale for having a different pattern of pagename for the first month. Why not simply start the new pattern at the beginning of May (if we're ready to begin then, or with June otherwise)? I would also prefer to see names that did not use forward slashes to divide them, unless there is a strong rationale for so dividing them -- it looks like an overly divided directory structure to me. I prefer periods or dashes. I also strongly recommend against using a numeral for both day and month. There is no univerally accepted standard for ordering the elements of a date, and this could lead to confusion later. I thus recommend instead:

Wiktionary:WOTD/Jan.1
Wiktionary:WOTD/Jan.2
Wiktionary:WOTD/Jan.3
...
Wiktionary:WOTD/Dec.31

This format makes it clear what the month and day of the month are to be. I can also forsee potential issues regarding archiving, but let's wait to burn that bridge. --EncycloPetey 20:41, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd prefer to stick with the {{CURRENTMONTH}} (05) format for month names. Note that for all thirteen "months" (the current cyclic one called "WOTD", plus the twelve real months) there would be 29 to 31 pages/sub-pages. Only 31 of these (under WOTD) would need semi-protection. --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:21, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

D'oh! I guess we could use the new {{CURRENTMONTHABBREV}} (May) instead! --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:25, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

My preference is a hyphen, but I see no problem with a period delimiter. For archives, I'd prefer "comparison date format" of yyyy-mmm-dd or yyyy.mmm.dd. --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:28, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

But would alphabetic mmm be feasibale, as opposed to numeric mmm? That's the question I'm still uncertain about. I prefer alphabetic for clarity. --EncycloPetey 07:52, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

WOTD Newsletter?

I've heard that there's a Wiki newsletter, or a "daily dispatch" or something, which includes Wikipedia's daily Featured Article and Wikiquote's Quote of The Day. It seems very sensible for Wiktionary to participate, and include our WOTD on the newsletter. Where can one suggest such proposals, and do you think it we are ready for it to actually work? I think we have enough spare "featured words" to deem this a worthwhile addition. --Dangherous 12:58, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

That souns like a good idea, but we might want to hold off for a few days. The process by which WOTD is automated has just undergone a major change, and there may be additional bugs or changes to work out. Otherwise, the system is regular enough and automated enough to make the suggestion eminently doable. --EncycloPetey 13:01, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

New system in brief

I've been bold (as suggested above) and changed some things. It's still in progress, but would like to receive some feedback first before completing the process. I've immediately implemented the 366-day structure.

The proposed system of having a cycle of returning pages that are semi-protected brought the need to split out the monthly WOTD pages in two sections: one being the archives, the other the recyclable pages. That's where it is now; if it meets agreement, I'll proceed with creating and semi-protecting all 366 pages, and then the WOTD people can see decide further. — Vildricianus 13:28, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Just to see if I understand how this will work: New entries will be put into the Recyclable pages, then at the end of a month (or when the page has been deemed complete), the page will be copied into the Archive before the next cycle of using that month. Is that the jist of it? Will it be automated? --EncycloPetey 13:36, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

The recyclable pages are a cycle of pages at Wiktionary:Word of the day/CURRENTMONTHNAME CURRENTDAY, e.g. Wiktionary:Word of the day/April 28, simply the old pages without a specified year. They will automatically appear on Wiktionary:Word of the day and thus on the Main Page, and you can view them here. The archives are where the contents of these pages should be moved, anytime between the end of the day and next year's instance of that day. As such this moving can't be automated, no. — Vildricianus 13:50, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Future WOTDs?

Over the years I've collected a fair few "interesting new words" and added them all into the Archives. A few of these may well be WOTD-worthy. Thanks --Newnoise (Shout louder) 19:43, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

US-centric

Okay, I recorded rustic audio in UK Engligh, came here to add it to the WOTD (June 4th) and found that I couldn't: it's hard-coded into the template. Is there some reason why only US audio is added, or is it just convention? --Celestianpower ^háblame 14:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

You need to add the fourth parameter with the audio file's name (i.e. en_uk_rustic.ogg) otherwise it defaults to the Dvortygirl pronunciation. It does so, only because she has been good about making sure pronunciations are added in advance. --Connel MacKenzie T C 20:06, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Said a different way: UK pronunciation files are encouraged...we just haven't had anyone who really got into doing them, with the regularity we've enjoyed from Dvorty. --Connel MacKenzie 05:08, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

External reuse

I am not entirely sure if this relates or not, but is there a way to put the Wiki Word of the Day on one's blog site? Not exactly a link to the WOTD, but in a way that each day's new word show's up on one's blog site...

--64.81.68.198 19:48, 14 June 2006 (UTC)Bloody Rox

Not that I know of. Yet. Any ideas on how to implement it? --Connel MacKenzie T C 20:06, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

See #RSS above, but remember to mention the GFDL anywhere you'd be tempted to put a copyright statement, or if the site it is included on has a generic copyright statement. --Connel MacKenzie 01:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikinews

I was browsing some Wikinews stuff, and discovered the print version, a daily digest of top stories, also containing Wikipedia's "Current events". I was thinking how useful it would be if that digest included our WOTD. About three seconds later I scrolled over fissiparous. Who did the PR for that? :-)

Now their print version includes an RSS feed, which means that our WOTD is included in that. — Vildricianus 22:09, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Audio file license info

The copyright info for the audio files is not displayed in Word of the day-template on the main page. I know that there are plenty of (justified and reasonable) complaints of a cluttered layout, but as far as I can tell a properly formatted license link simply isn't optional since it's a violation of our own copyright policies. It also obscures any information about the person who recorded the file. This should be amended as soon as possible.

Peter ^Isotalo 12:40, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Um, what? You see the link at the bottom of this and every page? The one that says "Content is available under GNU Free Documentation License"? What is ambiguous about that? --Connel MacKenzie 08:35, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

All audio files aren't submitted under the same license just like other types of media files. That the most common form of license is provided at the bottom of the page also doesn't solve the fact that it's impossible for outsiders without knowledge of how Commons stores sound files to figure out how to check out who recorded the file, something very relevant if you want to know if the person is a native or not and what dialect the person is speaking.

I assume you wouldn't accept your own argument if someone tried to remove the image license links for pictures and photos.

Peter ^Isotalo 16:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I still don't understand what you are complaining about. All audio content linked on en.wiktionary is GFDL, particularly audio for WOTDs. (Often released under additional licenses as well, but that is irrelevant to the WOTD display.) Perhaps if you rephrased your question? --Connel MacKenzie 01:05, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Words in other languages.

This is a multi-language dictionary. Why are all words of the day in English? SemperBlotto 14:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Because it's the English Wiktionary. If you want to see non-English words, can you recommend a fair and equitable way to select them? I can't. My feeling is that each Wiktionary project can select words of the day from the language of the project. Let the French Wiktionary feature French words, the Bulgarian Wiktionary feature Bulgarian words, the Vietnamese Wiktionary feature Vietnamese (or Khmer) words, and so on. --EncycloPetey 06:05, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

context

Along with the brief definition and audio clip demonstrating pronunciation, there needs to be a use of the word in context. As an educator, I can say with certainty that all people have greater difficulty appreciating and absorbing new vocabulary without understanding its use in context and feeling able to use the word/phrase generatively in original communications. — This unsigned comment was added by 68.252.8.149 (talk) at 21:25, 31 August 2006 (UTC).

That's why we have the link to the entry. The entry should have citations or sample sentences to demonstrate usage. Putting them on the WOTD template would be messy for words with multiple definitions anyway. The WOTD is meant to be as clean as possible, with the additional information available in the full entry. --EncycloPetey 21:35, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Defining adjectives

Today (Nov 15th) is (was) the second time I've seen an adjective Word of the Day defined in a way that makes it more like a noun (or, to be more precise, a gerund). On October 30th, the word flabbergasted was defined as "Being appalled, amazed or stunned." I changed it to "Appalled, amazed or stunned." Today, inebriated is (was) defined as "Behaving as though affected by alcohol." It should have been something like "Under the influence of alcohol; intoxicated." Adjectives should not be defined using gerunds! - dcljr 00:31, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you concerning the definition of flabbergasted. The definition was copied directly from our entry, though, so it is the entry that was the problem, not just the WOTD. As for inebriated, I disagree. The term inebriated refers to behavior that may or may not be the result of alcohol consumption. The definition given works in parallel replacement, so I don't see any problem. Compare:

The girl was inebriated.

The girl was behaving as though affected by alcohol.

Compare:

Behaving as though affected by alcohol, the old man passed out.

The inebriated old man passed out.

The definition may be in the form of an adjectival phrase, but it's still an adjectival phrase. --EncycloPetey 01:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Um, no offense, EncycloPetey, but the fact that an entry is wrong is no excuse for the mistake to remain on a WOTD entry. (The word shouldn't even have been selected in the first place if its entry contained an incorrect definition.) As for your discussion of inebriated, your point about the cause of the behavior not necessarily being alcohol is well taken, however your second example pair of sentences are not equivalent. The correct equivalent in the second sentence would be, "Being inebriated, the old man passed out." This reinforces my original contention that using the gerund implies that you're defining a gerund. (But then, I'm not an English major, so maybe I'm off base about this.) In any event, a small sample of definitions from other sites reveals different approaches:

1. exhilarated or confused by or as if by alcohol : INTOXICATED (Merriam-Webster)
2. drunk; intoxicated (Reference.com)
3. having drunk too much alcohol (Cambridge.org)

So, take that for what it's worth. - dcljr 21:31, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the definition couldn't be improved, I just don't see the current definition as grammatically incorrect. If the sentence makes sense to the typical English speaker, then it's consistent with the grammar of English as it is spoken. --EncycloPetey 22:16, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I've just realized one of the points of confusion here. You're referring to "behaving" as a 'gerund' (verb part acting as a noun), but in fact it's a 'participle' here (verb part acting as an adjective). I can demonstrate this by pointing out that the phrase "as though affected by alcohol" is an adverbial phrase, since it describes how the person was behaving. Since 'behaving' is modified by an adverbial phrase, it must logically be either a verb or an adjective, not a noun. In the sentence "Children behaving badly will be punished", 'behaving' is a participle / adjective that modifies the noun'children', while 'badly' is an adverb that modifies the adjective 'behaving'. To be a gerund, the word 'behaving' would have to function as a noun, namely as the subject of a verb, or as the object of a verb or preposition. --EncycloPetey 00:30, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'm mostly giving up on this, but I just wanted to point out one entry where I have no problem with an "-ing" word (actually, two) being used in the definition of an adjective: anisogamous, defined as "being married to someone whose age differs by an unusually large degree from one's own" and "having a sexual partner whose age differs by an unusually large degree from one's own". Being and having are both clearly participles, as you were talking about, EncycloPetey. In light of this, I agree that my use of the term gerund was incorrect. Still, it seems to me that the definitions given for anisogamous are perfectly correct, whereas the definitions I cited (and objected to) for flabbergasted and inebriated are both flawed. I'll leave it for someone else to figure out why this should be. - dcljr 23:59, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

today is not november 15th so why are they sayig it is november 15th they are so retatrded jk jk jk — This unsigned comment was added by 71.53.42.173 (talk) at 20:59, 19 October 2009 (UTC).

Optional images for WOTDs?

Looking at the Turkish Wiktionary (congrats on the milestone, BTW!) I see they employ images in their WOTDs. Did we reject images for WOTDs out of hand? Seeing how well they've done with it, perhaps we should reconsider? --Connel MacKenzie 21:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

The German, Russian, and Turkish WOTD entries have all done this. The reasons it works are (1) they actually feature a Word of the Week, so that only one image is needed per week, and (2) they only feature substantive nouns (e.g. Frau 'woman', молоко 'milk', or anahtar 'key'), for which a picture is regularly possible. If you look back through our WOTD selections, only a fraction are amenable to images. While I like the idea behind images for WOTD, I think the practical gains from the work necessary to implement it would not be worthwhile. We would either be instituting a complicated change to the WOTD template that would only occasionally be used, with images edited and protected to be featured for a single day, or we would be completely changing the kind of words we feature on WOTD. I don't see either avenue as worth pursuing, personally --EncycloPetey 01:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Update: The Polish are also doing a word of the week, but seem to have chosen a format modeled on ours (and without images). --EncycloPetey 05:10, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

What ensures accuracy?

Being a firm beliefer in GNU and free software, I think this is a solid idea. However, I also belief that the general public consists mainly of idiots and I have no faith in the ability of the average computer user to understand the difference between a connotation and a definition. Along the lines of Stephen Colbert's comments on Wikipedia, what ensures the definitions on this site to be accurate, and not comprised mostly of misconceptions? I have to assume there is some sort of review system in place, because if there isn't, this will be the end of genuine etymology as we know it. — This unsigned comment was added by 65.79.1.34 (talk) at 15:26, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

The end? Even if your worst fears were true, I don't think that it means that the maintainers of the OED et al are going stop what they do or the way they do it and rely on Wiktionary instead. If any website has the ability to alter public perception of the facts, it doesn't imply the impossibility of the discovery of these facts by those who have and will continue to take an earnest and scientific approach to these things. Public opinion, majority or minority, has never been the sole source of information for those in search of the truth. While I agree that "wikiality" is a concern which should be discussed, it is not a threat to knowledge itself. At worst, it could only be a threat to the accuracy of public belief, which has never had a history of being accurate to start with. I also think that by-in-large, inaccuracies in the information found here and elsewhere in wikimedia will be more likely to dissipate over time rather then become written in stone. Also that traditional, professional sources for these types of information services (OED, Britannica, for example) are likely to enter direct and/or indirect dialog with the wikimedia-like sites to the mutual benefit of both, both in content and accuracy of said content. (also, why is this on the WOTD:discussion page?) Noogenesis 00:01, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion, Words of the Week

For a supplement to the word of the day, I think it would be great to have a list of 20 to 30 words (updated weekly), which could be called Words of the Week. These words would consist of, possibly, last week's WOTDs, words suggested for WOTD but not selected (aka runner ups), worthy mentions, etc. In addition, there could be some category for which there is a weekly word (or set of words, when that makes more sense). One such category could be words that are commonly misused or misunderstood, for which one word would be selected each week, along with an explanation. In addition to any categories which always appear each week, yet another possibility is to have a "focus" each week, for example, one week's focus could have a short list of words that have changed their meaning in the last 20 years. Another week could feature foreign words that have recently been integrated into the local lexicon (which in my case is US-English). What think ye-alls? (PS I've enjoyed using the WOTD beta RSS feed for about a week now =]) _noogenesis — This unsigned comment was added by Noogenesis (talk • contribs) at 23:27, 5 May 2007 (UTC).

Maintaining an additional WOTD related project is unlikely. Each language Wiktionary has thus far either opted for a Word of the Day or a Word of the Week. Each project usually has a single ardent and long-term support provider who ensures that the project continues. There have been noises made in the past to start a page featuring non-Enlish words, or other such offshoots and none of these has ever advanced beyond the proposal stage (if it can be caled even that!). Having a second-tier group of words just isn't within a reasonable scope. It would amount to having two Words of the Day. But, if you look closely at the past selections for WOTD, you will see that there have been certain themes hiding among the selections. In December 2006, we featured words of unusual foreign origin for about two weeks. There are other patterns and such hiding in past selections as well, but I'll leave it to others to find out what and where they are. --EncycloPetey 04:08, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Please proof-read entries!

Can we take more care with the words of the day, please? Twice recently I have had to correct a typo in the definitions ("kaleidoscope" was misspelled a few days ago, and I have just fixed today's entry, which spelled "herdsmen" incorrectly).

It makes us look amateurish when we have a typo slap-bang on our front page. Please let's be a little more thorough.

Thanks. — Paul G 09:00, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you volunteering? I would appreciate the help. Please note that WOTD entries are chosen and put up two to four weeks ahead of time and may be corrected at any point in the interim, long before they appear on the main page. Why is it that no one bothers to help proofread entries, but then people complain that no one does this, that makes us look amateurish. The entries you complain about were up and available for proofing since the middle of April, yet you waited until they were on the main page to act. One person working alone cannot catch and fix all the problems all the time, but two people might just. Instead of bemoaning the lack of foresight, why not use your foresight, please? --EncycloPetey 15:39, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'll gladly do this. I complained because I expected the responsibility for doing this to lie with whoever manages Word of the Day, but of course I could easily have done this myself. I'm happy to take this on board. — Paul G 08:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Today to end of June done. I hope I've June 7'd myself, that I have managed to June 19 you and you are no longer June 12. :) — Paul G 08:35, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Spaces in word in daily-article-l.

The link from today's word in the daily-article-l mailing list didn't work because of the spaces. Please replace the link's spaces with underscores where ever this is picked up. -- Jeandré, 2007-08-23t12:38z

Thank you...checking now... --Connel MacKenzie 15:35, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Should be fixed for all future WOTDs. http://tools.wikimedia.de/~cmackenzie/wotd-rss.php and http://tools.wikimedia.de/~cmackenzie/wotd-rss-b.php seem to work correctly now. I'm surprised no one noticed before. --Connel MacKenzie 15:52, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Ta. -- Jeandré, 2007-09-03t07:26z

HTML in daily-article-l.

The description from today's word in the daily-article-l mailing list has some HTML that doesn't work for text emails: "sublimate: (<i>physics</i>): To". -- Jeandré, 2007-09-03t07:26z

Should be fixed for all future WOTDs now. --Connel MacKenzie 07:54, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

purge page cache

Hi, I look at this page quite often and often find it as if it was "word of a few days ago". If there was a button or link to something like "purge page cache" I'd gladly push it, but there is none. If I knew how to add it I'd try to add it but I don't. So could someone please add it - it could make this page even more alive.

Thanks, Per.

— This unsigned comment was added by 130.229.26.22 (talk) at 07:14, 26 September 2007 (UTC).

Check your Special:Preferences (misc tab) and check off "Disable page caching". --Connel MacKenzie 07:22, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I guess that requires me to be logged in and I do not log in. I have this and lots of other pages that I visit each day (that are also updated each day). One of them is http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Picture_of_the_day and as you can see there is a button for purge under the section Current Month but over the list of days in this month. If the date on the page is wrong I just purge the page cache and I get the new image. I do not think this is a setting from my part - I guess all media wikis have some sort of caching to speed the page up - but that cache needs to be purged once a day or so on this kind of pages. /Per — This unsigned comment was added by 130.229.26.22 (talk) at 07:14, 27 September 2007 (UTC).

I think what you're saying is that that link would be http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Word_of_the_day&action=purge right? You'd like this link somewhere on the template? That must be a new feature (bug?) as in the past, purge was only supposed to affect images/media files, not templates. --Connel MacKenzie 07:19, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately I am not sure how I want this solved or what the best way to solve it is. My goal is just to be able to purge whatever needs to be purged in order to read the word of the day (for today) by clicking a button. If the purge should act on the template (and not on the project page) then I guess a link from this project page that purges the template should be fine (this would avoid tinkering with the template).

On the other hand if the purge action should work on something else (this project page - then I guess a button for that is better). Perhaps both pages need to be purged (first the template - then this page) for the current day to be displayed? And so on - I guess you get my point. -- PER9000 11:26, 27 September 2007 (UTC) (just got an account [:)]-|--< )

I just saw the refresh button - perhaps it has been there all along and I just haven't seen it. Anyway: it does exactly what I initially wanted. PER9000 06:26, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

No, I added that "refresh" at the anon's request. It works then? (I don't see any difference when I view it, logged in or out.) --Connel MacKenzie 20:42, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Idioms

Today (22/10/2007) the WotD was an idiom (beat around the bush). Surely this should not qualify as a word. I feel that idioms should not be chosen in future. A seperate category would be more appropriate: "Idiom of the Day". 82.41.10.20 — This unsigned comment was added by 82.41.10.20 (talk) at 19:30, 22 October 2007 (UTC).

Thank you. I don't think there is anyone willing to dedicate themselves to maintaining the "Idiom Of The Day" but I agree that idioms shouldn't be called "words." Note: the RSS feed is not working today (don't know what changed, since I last fixed this problem.) --Connel MacKenzie 20:40, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

We've had idioms before, but not often. From time to time, we feature a compound word, a phrase that behanves as a single word, or an idiom. The idiom beat around the bush functions as a verb, even through it is a phrase. --EncycloPetey 23:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Picture

If you change Image:Writing star.svg for Image:Writing star.gif on Template:wotd, then the words aren't obscured. See User:Keene/Sandbox. --Keene 20:23, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

RSS Feed is dead

Am I the only person who's noticed that the RSS feed for Word of the Day is dead? -Codingmasters 12:37, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I've noticed too. It's been dead since December 23! --Gwern 15:51, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I just noticed also, maybe the RSS link should be removed from the homepage? --217.155.35.3 10:01, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I've created new feeds that work, and there is an atom feed to. Please see above http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary_talk:Word_of_the_day#RSS.3F --Jamesdlow 18:46, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

History of words?

Is it just me, or do none of the words here contain history of the words, or some sort of extra information on it. Wouldn't it be more useful if extra details were shown about the word, for example where it originated from, or the instance it was first used etc that gives us a better understanding on the word? — This unsigned comment was added by 81.145.160.2 (talk) at 13:27, 26 January 2009 (UTC).

That isn't necessary for a nomination, but yes, adding that information would be useful. --EncycloPetey 14:47, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

help

hello everybody. can anyone help to use this "word of the day" feature in turkmen wiktionery? regards. http://tk.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Umyt

--144.122.250.219 14:29, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Audio files

It seems wise to have an audio file before something becomes Word of the Day, or at least an option to remove the link for the audio file. tight as a tick lacks an audio file. Slokina 01:43, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

That would be nice, and I used to regularly add them. However, there are only two individuals (including myself) who have ever regularly added audio to our entries. Neither of us is currently adding audio, so restricting WOTD to entries with audio files would limit us to only the most basic of English words. --EncycloPetey 17:13, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Word of the day...how are they picked?

I've nominated a couple words for word of the day...but how are they picked after they have been nominated? Ks0stm ^(T•C) 05:14, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

"Theosophic"

Just saw the current WOTD (theosophic) which relates to theosophy. Not only was the latter word's page not particularly well written (I had to change some of the grammar and punctuation) but the definition on the homepage substantially differs from the one in theosophy. This should be addressed pronto. Thanks. — This unsigned comment was added by 86.2.165.237 (talk) at 23:49, 9 May 2010 (UTC).

iPod

My wife has requested an iPod app for WOTD. ~ heyzeuss 23:21, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

She should just need a newsfeed reader, like an RSS reader, as there is a feed for WOTD (though it seems to be broken lately, from some user comments I've seen). Equinox ◑ 14:34, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

to watchlist all of the WOTD templates

Anyone interested in watchlisting all of the WOTD day templates (for whatever reason) can copy the text of [1] into their raw watchlist (edit page). Cheers, - -sche (discuss) 05:05, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Can we bump words higher if they are particularly topical?

Right now Higgs boson is very topical and it has been nominated, but by the time we work through the list it will have lost much of its topicality. Would it be possible to bump it up higher in the list so that it becomes the word of the day sooner, perhaps within the week? —CodeCat 12:45, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

That would be appropriate, and Robin has bumped it up. And Internoob, and Ruakh and I when we used to set it — try to set topical things, like holiday things on holidays, though sometimes the focus is more short-term on just making sure there's a word set tomorrow. PS, WT:WOTDN itself would probably be a better place to leave this sort of comment (be bold and bump the word yourself with a comment like this, like Robin did). - -sche (discuss) 20:54, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't really understand the WotD procedure yet but it seems that there is a queue, and that new nominations are added to the end of the queue. So even if a nomination is at the top it would still go to the end of the queue (which is 2 months or so?) —CodeCat 20:59, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

It's not so much a queue as a pool, from which words are selected. In theory, there's an effort not to set (e.g.) the same POS too many days in a row, so that means words are taken out of order, and topical words are often taken out of order, and other words are rejected. - -sche (discuss) 21:45, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Ok I was a bit confused because Wiktionary:Word of the day says there is already a queue for July and August. Or am I reading it wrong? —CodeCat 23:02, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Ah! If Wiktionary were very, very efficient, all of the words for July and August would have been set already, and those "recycled pages" would automatically show which words were in queue (i.e. had been set) to appear. Wiktionary:Word of the day is out-of-date / idealistic in that regard: Wiktionary hasn't been that efficient in years (if ever). The pages will automatically update when new words are set, but for now the entire "August" list is last year's words, and the furthest into July anything was been set is the 6th, which Internoob just set as "Higgs boson". :) (It's not that Internoob is slow, it's that the work is tedious; "a few days" was as far into the future as Ruakh and I set things when we ran WOTD.) - -sche (discuss) 23:19, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

...although, in an effort at efficiency, I have been setting December words. See Wiktionary:Word of the day/Archive/2012/December if you want to see what December days have and haven't been set, and if you want to propose topical things. Of course, if "phonons" are all over the news come the 3rd, I'll let topicality take priority: I'll switch out "intersperse" (the word I currently set for the 4th) and plug in "phonons", and set "intersperse" on a slow news day. - -sche (discuss) 23:24, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Oh I see now, I didn't realise they were old words. Maybe a table of every single day in a year could be made, with only redlinks at first, and we could encourage editors to fill in the red links. That way it would be easy to see which days are still empty, and it would also be obvious to editors how new words are to be added. There would need to be some oversight though, maybe through admin protection. But is this idea workable, and an improvement? —CodeCat 23:28, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

It might be difficult to create a master calendar that distinguishes set from unset days automatically, because the same templats are used every year, only with updated content: links to the pages that are to be updated (like [[Wiktionary:Word of the day/July 7]]) will always be blue. However, it is a great idea to have a master calendar, even if editors have to note manually whether they've set a word for a particular day. It would encourage many editors to work on WOTD at once, which would be good. Maybe we can make a calendar that shows all the days of all the months as boxes with the date in the corner (i.e. just like a wall calendar), and inside the boxes, editors can note what word they've set and what day, e.g. "intersperse (2012)"? That way, the same "calendar" can also be reused each year: when it becomes 2013, editors know they have to update all the pages that still say 2012. That isn't much different from what I'm doing to [[Wiktionary:Word of the day/Archive/2012/December]]. - -sche (discuss) 23:49, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Why not change the naming so that the names of the pages include the year, like Wiktionary:Word of the day/2012 July 7 or Wiktionary:Word of the day/2012-07-07? Making a reusable calendar should be easy, if we make a template out of it and use the year as a parameter. (we could easily create months that way too) —CodeCat 00:16, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

That would let us distinguish redlinks from bluelinks, but... with the templates named as they currently are, the system is automated: the main page displays the day's template, with the failsafe that if the person setting WOTD gets swamped and misses a day (as happens once a year or so), a word is still displayed (namely last year's). Reworking the system to call up different templates each year would be (a lot of?) unnecessary work, would break that failsafe, could introduce other errors (we all know how often edits to templates turn out to break things in unforeseen and sometimes only slowly-noticed ways), would require admins to protect 365 new templates each year to keep vandals from changing the WsOTD, and would have very little benefit, because it's so easy to accomplish the same thing without any of the problems by just having people indicate on the calendar what year they've set a word. So, I think changing the template names would be a bad move. However, I still think the calendar is a very good idea. - -sche (discuss) 00:48, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I just want to point out that due to the failsafe system, a Word of the Day has been displayed every day for the past month (in fact, every day for the past several years), even though no-one had time to set words for several days in September. :] - -sche (discuss) 22:35, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

FWOTD uses a system with an emergency setting. I'm not sure how that works though. —CodeCat 22:41, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

AFAICT, FWOTD relies on someone noticing that no word is set and urgently setting one of a list of "emergency words". If that's the case, that's no failsafe: after all, anyone could be setting words from the list of unused nominations as English Words of the Day right now, but no-one is doing so. It's only the automatic failsafe that keeps WOTD displaying words... hence my opposition to the suggestion that the template system be changed.

FWOTD also has high standards for the words it sets, which makes the temporal cost of running it higher. I don't know how long it took the first runners of WOTD to tire of running it, but it seems to have taken subsequent runners about a year each, and there were always gaps between when one runner stopped setting words and when another stepped up. - -sche (discuss) 23:32, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

That's true. On the other hand, I think the process to set and update the FWOTD is a little bit easier and transparent because each entry only gets used once. That in turn might attract others to the project who are willing to set words and keep it going. It brought me into it. :) —CodeCat 23:58, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The failsafe system was well-designed, and has saved Wiktionary from excessive egg-on-face on multiple occasions. Even when I was running WOTD regularly, I found it very difficult to always keep up with putting in the new selections. I also think that not setting the WOTD selections too far in advance is a good thing, because it does allow topical selections to be added quickly. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:05, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Well they can always be changed again after they've been set, can't they? —CodeCat 02:10, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Move 'was WOTD' template into English section?

Now that we have FWOTD it's become more obvious that the {{was wotd}} template really belongs in the English section, not above it. After all, it's only the English word that was the WOTD, not all the words on the page. Could this be changed for future WOTDs, and maybe also retroactively fixed? Thank you. —CodeCat 12:02, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

See Wiktionary:Beer parlour archive/2011/August#Position_of_Template:was_wotd. - -sche (discuss) 22:29, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't really answer anything though. Having WOTD outside any language section looks strange with TabbedLanguages, and when there is more than one language section it can look wrong altogether (because it will appear above all of the sections). It should really be changed just like we already fix {{wikipedia}} and pictures in this way. —CodeCat 22:44, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps that isn't the only previous discussion, then, because I recall that this was discussed before and someone undertook moving a lot of the templates. If there are a lot of templates that haven't been moved, that's an oversight to be fixed. I agree with you that {{was wotd}} should be in the English section. - -sche (discuss) 23:10, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Ruakh seems to know how to track down these kinds of 'template-in-the-wrong-section' things. I'll ask him if he could make a list... Although now that we're at it, we might as well try to make a list of all content that appears outside a language section. Would you think this is worth discussing somewhere? BP or GP? —CodeCat 23:23, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

By my count, there are 1,302 entries using {{was wotd}} before the first header. (More precisely: if we define a page's "lede" as the initial substring matching ((?!\n=).)*, then there are 1,302 mainspace pages whose ledes contain substrings matching \{\{\s*was\s+wotd\b.) I certainly could post a list of their titles, but unlike many cleanup tasks, the task of moving them into the ==English== section seems quite automatable, so if/when there's consensus to do so, I think I'd rather just do it as a bot run, rather than have people waste time doing it by hand. (Sometimes a cleanup list can get people's eyes on entries that are likely to have other problems, so is arguably worth it even if the specific target of the list is something bottable, but I can't imagine that entries-that-have-been-WOTD is the best example of that!) —Ruakh_TALK 01:51, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

So dark

Why all the worlds are so dark, so bad? :/ 189.120.156.94 21:33, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

King's Ransom

WOTD today is "King's Ransom". This is not a word, but a phrase. Please fix! 208.73.81.66 14:20, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

There is no reason only to publish single words there. We could rename it "entry/phrase/term of the day", but they all sound a bit silly unfortunately. Equinox ◑ 17:36, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Add to Wikipedia Userpage

How can I add the "Word of the Day" to my Wikipedia userpage? I tried several different template formats and searched, but nothing worked. SabreWolfy (talk) 08:15, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Try adding wikt:Wiktionary:Word of the day. —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:59, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

How to subscribe to the WOTD

useful info, archived from WT:FEED

I as a translator get benefit from this page. I hope that there is a newsletter to be sent to the emails with daily words. — This unsigned comment was added by 149.255.232.42 (talk) at 04:42, 24 November 2015 (UTC).

Subscribe to the Daily article mailing list, and you get the Word of the Day, plus Wikipedia's featured article and a quote. Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:29, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

capitalise

Hey! I reckon this should be capitalised to Wiktionary:Word of the Day. It seems dumb that Wiktionary:Foreign Word of the Day has caps, and this doesn't. I'd move it myself, but it seems to be protected :( --Recónditos (talk) 08:50, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

@Recónditos It was actually originally created as title case (Day), but we generally use sentence case (day) for project pages (pages starting with "Wiktionary:"). I have started a discussion about moving Wiktionary:Foreign Word of the Day to Wiktionary:Foreign word of the day. - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 19:51, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Ideas regarding International Dark Sky Week

Any ideas for International Dark Sky Week of next year? -- Apisite (talk) 07:57, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

@Apisite: probably best to discuss this at the Beer Parlour, which is watched by more editors. — Sgconlaw (talk) 12:40, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

add audio to 2023-12-02 WOTD

I tried to add |audio=En-ca-computer_literacy.ogg to Wiktionary:Word of the day/2023/December 2, but am unable. Would someone else mind doing so?

Alternatively, I'm happy to record a "US English" version, but I think that one's pretty good. = paul2520 💬 23:50, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

@Paul2520:  Done. Thank you! — Sgconlaw (talk) 12:39, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

add audio to 2024-01-06 WOTD

The file |audio=En-us-epiphany.ogg could be added to Wiktionary:Word of the day/2023/January 6. = paul2520 💬 17:04, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

better recording of floaty?

I thought the existing recording for Wiktionary:Word of the day/2024/April 27 is a bit hard to hear, so I recorded a new one.

Thoughts @Sgconlaw? = paul2520 💬 14:48, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

@Paul2520: great, thanks! — Sgconlaw (talk) 16:00, 11 April 2024 (UTC)