The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Secret account 17:03, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

-onym[edit]

-onym (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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Article is a dictionary entry on -onym but Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary.

Given the deficiencies, I'm recommending Transwiki to wiktionary. - Wolfkeeper 04:49, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is a list of words are we going to have all the words beginning with 'a' as well- 'asynchronous' 'atypical' etc. etc. I find absolutely nothing that cannot go into wiktionary, or isn't already in wiktionary; it's clumsy dictionary article, in the wrong place. It's of no use where it is. Any effort here is better spent on the dictionary entry in Wiktionary.- Wolfkeeper 05:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If the "list" part of the article is inappropriate, then feel free to remove that part from the article. Deletion is not a valid cleanup method, and I think this article has the potential to be improved. That it is not perfect today is not a deletion concern. There are good references at the bottom which could be used to expand it to a quality article about this suffix. --Jayron32 05:33, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The references all point to dictionaries or similar word-list based products. The article didn't come from anywhere that wasn't dictionary-like and it doesn't seem to me that the article has anywhere to go that isn't dictionary-like either. This is inherently a dictionary topic.- Wolfkeeper 06:09, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • In what way is for example, pseudonym (somebodies pen-name) and anachronym (an acronym nobody currently knows) highly related???? These are not materially related other than lexically (i.e. they have the same ending). Big deal. Plenty of words have the same ending. I repeat, are we supposed to have articles on all suffixes, because that's not my idea of an encyclopedia. What makes this ending so special?- Wolfkeeper 06:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Again, the article is more than a dicdef in the lede, by the list, and by the references - there are articles and even books on the topic. I might ask, what makes it so offensive? (Most people find a single question mark to suffice, and multiple ones to be bad etiquette.) Yes, -onym words are related for precisely the reason you stated that they share a suffix (at least that reason, but not limited to it: they are also types of words and names), hence even one question mark was seemingly unnecessary. The slippery slope argument about hypothetical articles that could be created strikes me as irrelevant as the article under discussion is this one. Though if you want to extend it to existing articles like List of phobias and so on, you could do that; we could discuss that. But if you indeed want to talk hypotheticals, then yes, conceivably there could be an A- (prefix) since Wikipedia is not paper. I suspect that such an article would be of less use because of a much larger number of words and less relation between them. The affordance of lists, and categories, and glossaries, and indexes, and templates, and wikilinks and so on is that we assume that readers may be interested in things that are related, that navigation is highly prized, and that readers are potentially interested in learning about things they didn't originally come here to look at ("Random article" in particular recognizes this, I think). Could somebody interested in a particular -onym word actually be looking for another one that fits their needs better? Or know they want a -onym word but have forgotten how it began? Or might they want to learn one they've never heard of, about a topic they didn't think of? One could do intitle:*onym, but that is perhaps more complicated than the average user would be willing to take the time to learn, particularly the forgetful reader. (It would also be no use in search for "A-" (not) words because there wouldn't seem to be a way to create a search that would differentiate them from words where the A is just a letter and not a prefix.) It's rather arcane, like many things on wikipedia for that matter (like my not remembering here how to wikilink categories without adding the page the wikilink is in). That an electronic reference should offer less navigability than a printed reference which groups -onym words is an odd notion. Leaving it to Wiktionary to have would mean a reader would have to go from here to the list there and back again. I don't think it's common for visitors to do that, or necessary to require that they should, if what they are interested in is encyclopedia articles about words ending in -onym and not dictionary definitions. Шизомби (talk) 07:44, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, we do have Privative a, although it only contains five examples :-) --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 10:12, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's actually a really good example of how these kinds of articles should be. It covers several different languages, and doesn't try to list every single example. In my view that particular article is quite acceptable. Basically, if it's got an official name like 'privative a', then it's a perfectly reasonable candidate for an article; but most of the other suffixes and prefixes should be redirects to wiktionary.- Wolfkeeper 19:01, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Then what is the problem with -onym? if it's just the list, we shouldn't be discussing deletion of the article, but just of the list. Coverage of other languages can be added easily, I'll do it tomorrow some time. And the 'official name' of 'privative a' is due to the fact that Ancient Greek had three distinct prefixes a-, and they needed names to avoid confusion. What has that got to do with notability? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 11:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No! You're talking about people looking up words in the wikipedia. That's what a dictionary is for.
Because of this difference, general encyclopedias (as opposed to specialist encyclopedias for specialist purposes) do not have articles on single suffixes. That's what dictionaries do- the core policy, the most important policy of all, is that the wikipedia is an encyclopeda!
Encyclopedia articles are on topics, not words. This is fundamental to what an encyclopedia is. That's also why practically no foreign words are allowed in titles; you don't need to, because it's not about the title word, it's about the topic!- Wolfkeeper 08:14, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm not talking about people looking up dictionary definitions in an encyclopedia, though people may begin at that point, and thus logically enough there are sometimes dicdefs in ledes (and perhaps elsewhere). This is obvious, but maybe it needs to be stated: topics in an encyclopedia are often found underneath words; you enter a word into the search field to look up a topic. As long as there are encyclopedia articles that are not dicdefs on several -onym words, it makes sense to have a manner of going between them with minimal fuss. Pseudonym>-onym>Acronym is quick. Pseudonym>wikt:Pseudonym>wikt:-onym>wikt:Acronym>Acronym doesn't make sense to require people to do. Шизомби (talk) 12:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Going from pseudonym to acronym makes no sense, starting from a word in the wikipedia makes doubly less sense. People look up words in dictionaries. Following that logic to its conclusion turns the wikipedia into a bad dictionary.- Wolfkeeper 17:07, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You're perfectly describing a dictionary, that's a dictionary entry; that's what dictionaries do; they're for looking up meanings.- Wolfkeeper 17:07, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what Wikipedia: page(s) the use of show/hide is addressed on, but the idea is that it can make a long page shorter. In this case, it doesn't make it a lot shorter, and it seems odd to do it with a list (and each section of that list) as opposed to a section of an article. The result of show/hide for each letter results in the strange appearance of a large blank space. Also, if one wants to see them all, it's a bit time-consuming to click them all. I don't know if there's a "show/hide all" function available? Something more like the version from your diff would be better. Шизомби (talk) 15:56, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Found it: Wikipedia:Accessibility#Scrolling_and_collapsible_sections, which seems to indicate the way hide/show is being used in -onym is inappropriate (although actually when I do print preview in Firefox, it does display). Шизомби (talk) 16:27, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Tell me, why do you think lists of words are deprecated in the Wikipedia?- Wolfkeeper 17:07, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you've read anything I've written here. Шизомби (talk) 17:10, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Discussing how a simple list of words, which are chosen because they happen to have a particular sequence of letters in, can be improved in the wikipedia is inappropriate. Wiktionary is about words, how they are made, how they are used, and other relationships between them. Are attempts to make the Wikipedia into a bad dictionary really helpful?- Wolfkeeper 17:47, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A suffix is somewhat different than just a "sequence of letters." Please read my comments, if you would, and the pages I linked to regarding lists, categories, glossaries, indexes, templates, wikilinks, see alsos, etc. and the other things above you still seem to have missed. It's "inappropriate" to have a discussion in an AfD, which is defined (that word!) as the place "where Wikipedians discuss whether or not an article should be deleted"? Strange. I am not sure what you mean by making Wikipedia into a "bad dictionary," is Wiktionary a bad dictionary in your view? I don't desire to make Wikipedia into Wiktionary, be that dictionary good or bad. Regarding Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Common_outcomes#Tips_on_dealing_with_other_material, it's not clear to me that it is a WP Guideline, as you state; it's not identified as one. How "common" the outcomes are, or how much consensus there is regarding that page or any of the individual items on it is not clear to me either. It looks like it was created by Radiant! [2] from perhaps personal impressions or preferences regarding how common such things are, unless there is some further history to it that is missing. It would be valuable if it were all sourced; ironic that WP space can go without {citation needed}. Some lists of words have been deleted, some survive AfD; some survive multiple AfDs. Шизомби (talk) 18:20, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's self-evident that the common outcome is that they do not survive AFDs. The number of suffixes has been reduced over time in the Wikipedia; there's literally a handful left. By way of contrast, in Wiktionary, the list of suffixes now covers the whole of English and many other languages as well. If you don't like the way wiktionary handles things, you need to handle that, not try to make the wikipedia like wiktionary; that doesn't work.- Wolfkeeper 21:15, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Self-evident"? No, it's either common or not, which can only be determined on the basis of evidence; the reality of whether it is common or not is not self-evident at all. Funnily enough, Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Precedents/Archive#Are_some_prefixes_and_suffixes_valid.3F_-_Yes claimed there was a precedent for keeping them in AfDs, which is I suppose why you had it deleted Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/-oid? But truthfully, AfD Precedents was as bad a page as AfD Common Outcomes: no actual evidence. I am not trying to make WP into Wiktionary (which I scarcely ever edit), your Ad nauseam accusing of me of it won't make it true. I don't want dicdef-only articles with no possibility of expansion on WP, and have sometimes participated in ensuring their deletion, though it is not a personal priority. Likewise, I have participated in AfDs regarding lists of words in which I argued for deletion; there are different types of lists of words, which should be handled differently and not with zero tolerance, which is a rather defective sort of thing to pursue. Regardless of the outcome of this AfD, it's something that a discussion should be opened on somewhere, apparently. Шизомби (talk) 00:10, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Whether wiktionary is broken or not (it is), is not the issue here, the issue is whether the wikipedia's policies support the presence of this article- they don't in any way.- Wolfkeeper 21:15, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Facinating that, since August 2008, the page Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary has pretty much been controlled and maintained almost exclusively by you. There are other occasional editors which work on that page, but it's really become your personal campaign for over a year. Its odd that you, as the major editor and implementor of that policy page, should be the sole one argueing for the defense of its use here, apparently with little or no support from anyone else. Yup, that sounds like WP:CONSENSUS to me. Oh, wait. That's the opposite of consensus. --Jayron32 21:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you have a relevant diff, feel free to produce it; but this appears to be simply a personal attack.- Wolfkeeper 05:12, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the words on the list which do not have articles (apronym, astronym, etc.) could be removed, if they've all been transwikied. However, I think as long as there are articles on the other words, it makes sense to have a list of all of them that do. Шизомби (talk) 01:33, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If they're removed, then how is this basically not an extended disambiguation page?- Wolfkeeper 02:00, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm having trouble understanding the logic of a number of your comments like the one above, or the unanswered question about about the privative A, or what you meant by a "bad dictionary," etc. You'd prefer every -onym word be included in the list, rather than just those with articles? You'd be OK with the page existing as a disambig page? I'm not sure what you're saying. Шизомби (talk) 06:15, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm saying if you include all of the articles that match the -onym ending then it becomes a kind of disambiguation page where you're disambiguating between the different types of names for things. Disambiguation pages are not considered truly encyclopedic.- Wolfkeeper 07:53, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Or, if you include all of the words then you're basically writing a dictionary article on the -onym ending. Dictionary entries aren't considered encyclopedic either.- Wolfkeeper 07:53, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Or, if you include only a few of them and make the article about the -onym etymological construct then theoretically it's encyclopedic, but IMO what you have right now other than the list doesn't actually make it so; it's not sufficiently better than the wiktionary article to be worth keeping.- Wolfkeeper 07:53, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The point of having any words ending in -onym on this page should be to illustrate the concept of word formation for onomastics, not to define or itemize the words themselves. It is therefore not necessary to list all, or even a large number of such words. Include only enough examples to help readers understand the encyclopedic topic under discussion. Compare, for example, the small number of examples at RAS syndrome#Examples. Cnilep (talk) 14:16, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, I find that an odd suggestion. Should a list of countries only have a few illustrative examples? Everything that has an article should be listed, or categorized, or in some way grouped. I also find Wolfkeeper's statement above that disambiguation pages "aren't considered encyclopedic" to be odd. Aren't considered encyclopedic by whom? Wikipedia:Disambiguation. Шизомби (talk) 14:52, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note that -onym is not a stand-alone list. If kept, it might be converted to a stand-alone list - though that would open it up to all of the criticisms of non-encyclopedic character and arbitrariness made above - or to a description of the concept discussed by Sheetz (1977, 1988). In the latter case, examples should be illustrative rather than exhaustive. Cnilep (talk) 16:40, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is unclear just what sort of published work Scheetz's book is. It is certainly not a popular work and it is not published by a university. It is the first source of the word demonym cited by Merriam-Webster editor Paul Dickson according to Wikipedia's article Demonym. Perhaps George Scheetz gets great joy from coining new words, but Wikipedia is not in the business of puffing up peoples egos. The possibility of Scheetz having other than scholarly interest in publishing "Names' Names" leaves some doubt to its suitability as a reliable source. It is hard to tell how many of the words in the -onym list are neologisms. It seems anepronym is not widespread enough to be in the dictionary. Of the four pages of internet search results that I got for it, the majority were Chinese language pages, perhaps concerning a debate about the suitability of anepronym as an English word. The rest of the pages seem to be wikis including Wikipedia that have gotten a contribution of -onym words from interested parties. Lists of words like this tend to encourage people who (altogether to commonly) have an inordinately if not pathologically excessive fondness for using obscure words. The most I can do is vote to delete the article, but it would better reflect the worth of the article if I could take it out into the alley and stomp on it before throwing it in the dumpster.--Fartherred (talk) 20:14, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My goodness. Scheetz was not a Dewey or a Webster to be sure, but it would be nice to avoid casting aspersions on him. He did his BA thesis on The Chicago film industry: beginnings to 1918 was (is?) a library director, significant contributor to Word Ways (see e.g. -gry); Marilyn vos Savant mentioned in her column she called him on the phone regarding that puzzle after a reader said he was "the best word authority in America"), The Dictionary of Word Play repeatedly cites him, reviewer for the Library Journal Book Review, member of the American Name Society and North Central Name Society, a founding member of the The Hansoms of John Clayton, a Sherlock Holmes Society and contributor to the Baker Street Irregular's Baker Street Journal and member of the BSI's Sub-Librarians Scion of the Baker Street Irregulars ("established in 1967 and is the oldest themed or profession oriented Scion/Society related to Sherlock Holmes"), donor of some kind of special collection [3] to the The Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, executive secretary of the Thorne Smith Society and Philip Jose Farmer Society, Chief Information Officer for Ebertfest: Roger Ebert's Film Festival, recipient of thanks in film scholar Robert Carringer's The Making of Citizen Kane, thanks in Bernstein and Pluard's Hollywood on Lake Michigan: 100 Years of Chicago & the Movies and contributor to that of promotional pennants for Essanay, etc. Can we acknowledge that while he may not reach WP's notability standards for an article on him, he is at least a reliable source and not some egotistical schmoe trying to becoming a millionaire off -onym words? For my own part, I'd rather be pathological about obscure information than pathological about stomping and trashing it. Шизомби (talk) 23:31, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I cast no aspersions upon the college graduate George H. Scheetz. The numerous wonderful qualities and accomplishments of Scheetz that User:Schizombie of the non-Roman character set pointed out are simply irrelevant. If "Names' Names" is motivated in part by a desire to coin new English words, it is a noble purpose for Scheetz. It is just not the purpose of Wikipedia. While manure is very valuable in making one's garden productive, it does not belong on the dining room table. Everything should be in its proper place to have its proper value. The -onym article in Wikipedia where it does not belong is trash.--Fartherred (talk) 02:22, 12 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your statements "It is unclear just what sort of published work Scheetz's book is. It is certainly not a popular work and it is not published by a university." and "Perhaps George Scheetz gets great joy from coining new words, but Wikipedia is not in the business of puffing up peoples egos. The possibility of Scheetz having other than scholarly interest in publishing "Names' Names" leaves some doubt to its suitability as a reliable source." are blatant aspersions.
The rest of your disdain for language isn't worth commenting on.
The character set of schizombie's sig is irrelevant to this discussion (schizombie, see WP:SIG#Non-Latin for what fartherred is so subtly attempting to communicate). -- Quiddity (talk) 08:08, 12 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the heads up on the sig, I don't recall noticing that before. I've always responded regardless of how people write it in their replies, and it's also mentioned on my userpage. I'll consider altering it, although it doesn't appear I'm obligated to do so, and it hasn't seemed to cause anyone else a problem before. Somehow it doesn't seem as problematic to me as a username referring to an act of gaseous, bloody coprophilic misogyny? A biblioclast obsessed with manure, "alleys," and "dumpsters".... and editing an encyclopedia. Proper places indeed. I suppose I probably shouldn't be writing at 4AM and when wikipedians have me particularly aggrieved, partly in relation to wildly inappropriate usernames, as it happens.[4] Anyway, Scheetz' onymicon while evidently scarce seems to have some international recognition within the (I suppose) small field of onomastics; it's included as a reference in Personal names and naming: an annotated bibliography, Naming among the Xhosa of South Africa, Eigennamen in der Arbeitswelt, Namenkundliche Informationen, Nouvelle revue d'onomastique and "Bewohnername, etorki-izen, folkenavn, gentilé, nome etnico, ... Problématique interlinguistique de la terminologie de la dénomination géographique collective." Oh, and this is rather amusingly on point: "Are names missing from lexicons because an onymicon is most appropriately to be conceived of as part of an encyclopedia?"[5] (emphasis mine). I rather want to find a copy for my own library now, a bad habit Wikipedia encourages. Oh, and while foreign wikis' practices may not be relevant to what is done here, there is this template on the French one: [6]. Anyhow, I continue to contemplate the matter of navigability, the paramount question for whether a list like this should be kept, I think. The Encyclopædia Britannica, or, A Dictionary :-} of Arts and Sciences, compiled upon a New Plan had an index, and they also tried the Micropædia, the Macropædia and the Propædia. It's a shame, perhaps, that there's not an Index: namespace on Wikipedia that lists could go into so as not to continually offend those who imagine encyclopedias are composed solely of articles, while still being accessible to help everyone else. Maybe I'll end up proposing such a thing. Good night, all. Шизомби (talk) 09:38, 12 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quiddity seems intent on understanding my comments on the suitability of a reference as a personal attack on the author. In case anyone else so misunderstands my comments, let me make them perfectly clear. We contribute to this AfD to discuss articles, and comments on their references suitability are relevant. It is a fact that some words from the -onym list are so rare as to lead one to suspect that they were fabricated. Indeed, as I pointed out Paul Dickson cited this work as the original source of a word. While I personally dislike the practice of making up unnecessary new words, the point is that such a practice is not in conformity with the quality of reliable sources for a language article. If there is some factual reason for disagreement with my limited assessment of this source, Quiddity should refer to it or concede the point. One cannot responsibly argue for deletion of an article by writing only sweet and nice things about it. I take issue with Quiddity's referring to User:Schizombie of the non-Roman character set as merely "schizombie." There is no obvious connection that the casual reader would notice between "schizombie" and the user's signature. In spite of Quiddity's false statement that the character set of the signature is irrelevant, contributors to an AfD should clearly identify the user to whose comments they refer for the benefit of any casual reader. User:Schizombie of the non-Roman character set at least pointed out that people have referred to "Names' Names," which addresses the question of its suitability as a reference, but does not disagree with the seeming fabricated words as content. If the proponents of keeping the -onym article cannot address the reasons for deleting it, they should simply concede the point instead of trying to recast the discussion as personal attacks. This submitted by Fartherred from a terminal of unknown security, not logged in.--156.99.55.125 (talk) 18:24, 12 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Did I understand correctly that you want the article deleted because one of its sources might contain some invented words? What about checking the list against the OED and Webster's and just delete the words not mentioned there? If half a dozen, or even a dozen, of these words do turn out not to be sourceable, how does this affect the notability of the suffix (which certainly wasn't invented by Scheetz)? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 18:00, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fartherred made his views quite clear over here. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:51, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Anyway, as I said some time ago above that Wikipedia:Lists states that ""lists are commonly used in Wikipedia to organize information", so as long as the examples are relevant to the article and interrelate to one another rather than are totally separate entities, surely we should find a list of them useful encyclopaedically. We do need to do a bit of work on the list to render it relevant to the blue-link articles which already exist. The articles by themselves don't necessarily show this, but a list bringing possible connections between them, would. Dieter Simon (talk) 02:24, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I amplify my position. Among the references there is only one book in three revisions that has -onym words as a subject. It has neologisms in it. The three external links all have the neologisms hypernym and hyperonym. This article is about promoting obscure words and neologisms. The motive is likely related to crossword puzzle games as advertized on this [[7]]word play site given as an external link. These words are not useful in general communication because they are mostly unknown. Promoting these words is a disservice to the English language and using Wikipedia to promote them is a disservice to Wikipedia. The other sources cited in the article use -onym or are not about -onym any more than any other suffix. Therefore -onym is not notable and not any more worthy of an article than -able, -ed or -ing. It would be possible to blather on about words ending in -ing for thousands of words, but that would not make it a notable article suitable for Wikipedia. Since Wikipedia is not a dictionary it should not have these articles. Words such as anepronym, hypernym and hyperonym are not in fact English words because they have not been adopted by a significant portion of the English speaking population. Their only use is altering the inclusion rules in word puzzles. Otherwise in text they are just obstacles to communication. I hope this helps Anypodetos of the Greek character set to understand my position--Fartherred (talk) 07:47, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me, but did you actually read my comment about deleting just the dubious words (and possibly external links as well)? Does it make the privative a non-notable if I write a book with invented words beginning in a-? And where is the problem with a source that is not exclusively about the subject in question? By the way, we have articles on -ing (Gerund) and -ed (Past tense). They do not need lists because they are productive, and anyone who knows English can form an arbitrary number of words ending in -ing or -ed. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 09:02, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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