Talk:Abstract Wikipedia/Name

@Denny: I wonder if "translingual" would be better than "abstract" as a name for what we are doing. This is because "abstract" is used in linguistics to refer to words that talk about complicated concepts without a physical representation, in an "abstract" vs "concrete" distinction. Example:

• Concrete - tree, water, hill, sound
• Abstract - resolution, legitimacy, motive, assumption

This isn't the sense of "abstract" being used here, but I suspect it's the image that many readers will conjure up when they see the name Abstract Wikipedia. In my opinion "translingual" is a better description of this project and I like Wikirosetta / Wikisetta too. But as I wrote before, I'm still unconvinced that this project should be given sister project status with its own 2LD (same level as Wikidata, Wiktionary, Wikipedia etc) rather than feature status (same level as VisualEditor, WikiLove, Lexemes etc) so I'm not too fussed about the name.

I don't know how "lambda" is used in computer science research in relation to what we're doing, but my first thought is if "lambda" isn't already accepted computer science terminology, we should consider "Wikiprogram". Although this name might lead to confusion about where mw:global templates should sit amongst Wikimedia projects. Der yck C. 13:33, 28 May 2020 (UTC) Reply

Translingual is a great word! Thanks! I added that to the page. I think it has many advantages over multilingual, as one could rightfully say that the current setup is already multilingual, and thus ask, "What's the difference?". On the other side, 'translingual' is rather uncommon. Thank you for the suggestion!

Talking about uncommon terms, regarding lambda, the reference is to the Lambda calculus [:wp] , and the idea is that all functions can be defined in terms of the lambda calculus as its foundation (and in fact, the abstracttext demo does that). But it also recognise the relevance of lambda in linguistics. But yeah, whereas I start liking the name "Wikilambda", I really am not sure it is a good name. We'll see how the community process will go, I am quite looking forward to that. --denny (talk) 14:56, 28 May 2020 (UTC) Reply

@Denny: I was thinking Wikifranca as in lingua franca, which is a language used to bridge dialectal gaps. Seemplez (talk) 09:56, 3 June 2020 (UTC) Reply

@Seemplez: nice! And it really seems very pronouncable. Thank you! Added to the list of suggestions. --denny (talk) 14:54, 3 June 2020 (UTC) Reply

WikiFranca is already a collaboration of francophone Wikimedians. GoEThe (talk) 17:30, 2 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

Omnilingual or Panlingual come to mind. They are a bit of a mouthful though. GoEThe (talk) 17:38, 2 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

"Some people keep misreading it as Wikilambada"

Well, I didn't until I read that. Thanks. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:16, 2 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

What about Wikibabel? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:17, 2 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

@Pigsonthewing: frightening, cause... God overturns the tower with a great wind :-) Lotje (talk) 06:25, 21 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

... or is that taken already? – --Brevity (talk) 13:47, 3 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

"Abstract" is a polyseme and somebody just translated it (to Chinese) as "Wikipedia summary".--GZWDer (talk) 13:54, 3 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

Lambda is too 'Western'.'(Encyclo)pedia, data, news, voyage, source, such words all have a meaning, so Chinese wikipedians can easily choose a name for the project, meta is a quite abstract name, however, the Chinese scholars have a concensus already, but lambda is a hard thing to have a name in Chinese, so Chinese wikipidians still have to choose an alternative name themselves if the final name is lambda. not a user:慎言慎行老法师寫維基?寫個屁! 14:24, 3 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

I'd actually say that the name and the logo are not that important, and development work can start without them.

Nevertheless, if people are proposing names, there must be some principles in these proposals.

So, Abstract Wikipedia doesn't quite need a name at all, according to what the current page says, because it's just the development project, and eventually the name will be gone and the project will be merged with Wikidata. (My understanding is that in one way or another it will be merged with all the Wikimedia wikis, actually.)

So let's talk about Wikilambda.

Here are the principles I can think of, although there are probably more, and everyone is welcome to propose something different:

• It shouldn't have a "-pedia" element, because even though the project is targeted mainly at Wikipedia, its output will be usable in all wikis.
• It must be reasonably translatable. Either as a brand name that is just transliterated, or as a totally translatable name. The "wiki" element in our projects is usually not translated, but the other part sometimes is. The "-pedia" part in "Wikipedia" is usually not translated, although maybe it is translated to some languages. "-data", "-source", "-voyage", "-species", "-books", "-news" and "Commons" are usually translated, at least to some languages.
• If it will be more on the transliteration side, then it must be at least easy to transliterate.
• It must be copyrightable, which means that it must be unique and not too generic.
• It doesn't have to begin with "wiki", but most of our projects do begin with "wiki", so maybe this one should, too.
• While it doesn't have to, it should be at least partly obvious what does the project do from its name.

In this regard, "Wikilambda" is perhaps not perfect, but not bad either. It's not very good with the last point, because most people are not familiar with Lambda calculus, but perhaps this project is not really for most people in the first place. Or maybe it is, I'm not sure. With the rest of the principles it's pretty OK: easily transliterable (many written languages have standardized names for Greek letters), unique, begins with wiki. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 19:34, 3 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

So, as I wrote above, I think that Wikilambda is not bad. But I can think of a few other names:

Wikicode

Advantages: Let's be real, most of the content in this project will actually be code in Lua, JavaScript, advanced wikitext, and perhaps other languages.

Disadvantages: May scare away people who aren't developers.

Wikiglobal

Advantages: It is clear that this wiki provides global functionality. Probably easy to translate.

Disadvantages: There are at least three more global wikis: Commons, Wikidata, and Meta (user pages and user scripts). Also, "global" is an adjective, and may sound not too nice in translation.

Wikiglobe

Advantages: Similar to "Wikiglobal", but not an adjective (see above).

Disadvantages: Sounds like it's about geography.

Wikitemplates

Advantages: Clearly expresses at least one of the intended functionalities—"A cross-wiki repository to share templates and modules between the WMF projects", and close enough to the other functionalities. "Template" is already translated to a lot of languages.

Disadvantages: Modules are related to templates, but distinct. And constructors are even more different.

Wikirepo

Advantages: Clearly expresses what it is: a repository. Unique.

Disadvantages: Sounds a bit too techy. In some languages, may be too similar to the name of Commons.

Wikiuniverse

Advantages: Probably easy to translate Expresses the universality, even beyond the globe :)

Disadvantages: Can make people think it's about astronomy.

Wikishare

Advantages: Clearly expresses that it's a shared place for lots of things.

Disadvantages: Will be a nightmare to translate to Hebrew because that's how we translated "WikiCommons" long ago. But we'll deal :)

I am not particularly attached to any of these names. Feel free to use them or reject them. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 07:01, 4 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

Here's a couple of names i thought might be good:

• Wikisum - As in 'sum of all knowledge'
• Wikibabel - Referring to the Tower of Babel [:wp] , and also to the babel fish in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
• Wikiversal - A portmanteau of 'Wiki' and 'universal'
• Wikitolk - 'tolk' means 'interpreter' in Dutch, and is pronounced like 'talk', which refers back to the multilingual aspect of the whole project
• Wikiglot - As in 'polyglot'

From all the proposals i've read i like 'Wikirosetta' or 'Wikisetta' the most, because it refers to the Rosetta stone, which is a lovely metaphor for the project. 'Wikilambda' is too nerdy in my opinion and will undoubtedly lead to many misspellings. 'Abstract Wikipedia' and a couple of other proposals (like 'Multilingual Wikipedia' or 'Translingual Wikipedia') are a bit too descriptive, and don't have the 'wiki' prefix. Husky (talk) 21:55, 4 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

Visually I am strongly for WikiWords and WW (as short version). It also makes sense in terms of meaning I think... Advantages:

1. WORD is the single distinct conceptual unit of language.
2. this is what is likely easy to translate across languages.
3. Written with capitalized W is adding focus to CamilleCase writing of historic WikiWiki
4. short version would be WW which is just aWesome as a sign :-)

Disadvantages:

1. WikiWord (singular) is already used since the dawn of Wikis https://wiki.c2.com/?WikiWord
2. WWW is fairly similar and already well established since the dawn of WorldWideWeb

Not sure, but maybe with WikiWORDS and wW writting style issues could help with distinctions being resolved visually. Zblace (talk) 09:43, 5 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

• project sponsor (P859) Wikimedia Foundation
• project named after lambda calculus
  • lambda calculus named after Λ
  • lambda calculus part of category theory
    • (category theory is the study of abstract nonsense)
  • lambda calculus topic's main category Category:Lambda calculus
• project named after Category:Lambda calculus ( Q8581097)?

Seriously, though (?)... How can a project named after anonymous function have a name? It can only be project ${\displaystyle \mapsto }${\displaystyle \mapsto } goal (Q4503831). Curiously, if you segment 4503831 as follows: 450-3-83-1 (und warum denn nicht?), Wikidata will give you: mind life MediaWiki Universe.--GrounderUK (talk) 14:54, 12 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

WikiMaplet (wiki ( Q171) maplet ( Q6754055))?

As I have said elsewhere, by analogy with infobox, I might call the concrete delivery of MediaWiki wikitext for a given Wikidata item infotext. If infoboxes are the remit of WikiProject Infoboxes, then infotext would be the remit of WikiProject Infotexts (I feel the plural is necessary here). There is, of course, always a risk that someone hearing of such a project would guess what it is supposed to deliver (${\displaystyle \mapsto }${\displaystyle \mapsto } goal), but I could live with that.--GrounderUK (talk) 01:29, 8 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

@Denny: @Deryck Chan: @Seemplez: @GoEThe: @Pigsonthewing: @Brevity: I believe that Wikirosseta is the best name because it is the easiest to pronounce in all languages and serves as the rosseta stone for wikipedia (one text for all languages!) Therefore I have created a draft logo for it here I wanted to boil down the concept of wikirosseta down to its basic components. It features 3 different patterned lines, each representing very different languages, each on one single tablet. Hope you like it Eltomas2003 (talk) 15:13, 9 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

@Eltomas2003:In some languages, WikiΖeta might link the Rosetta Stone ( Q48584) [:wp] to the Greek letter for ΖID and ΖObject. You could easily rotate your red line... Pretty stylish logo!--GrounderUK (talk) 14:54, 12 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

@GrounderUK: Thank you for that comment, well my logo is a draft/concept that could be refined by the community. Wikizeta is just a nickname, Wikirosseta should be official because it is easy and quick to pronounce in all languages. Eltomas2003 (talk) 17:14, 12 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

@Eltomas2003: but clearly spelling of "Rosetta" is a problem for many! @GrounderUK: WikiΖeta actually sounds pretty good to me. Maybe we could have two parts, a WikiLambda for the underlying functions/modules/templates wiki, and WikiZeta for the place where people create actual multilingual encyclopedic entries? ArthurPSmith (talk) 14:16, 14 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

@ArthurPSmith: @GrounderUK: That's cool but let's compromise, let's spell Wikiroseta without the extra t for wikiroseta!Eltomas2003 (talk) 19:18, 14 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

I’ve made good experiences naming a few things using this pun generator. Haven’t been quite as successful for this specific task so far, but please give it a try.

WikiΖinfo is easier to read and easier to say than Wikiinfo (epenthesis ( Q878035) [:wΖ] ). Here, I am using a capital ζ, but any Z will do.

@GrounderUK: Not necessarily - the pronunciation of Latin Z / Greek Ζ is unstable between languages. Also, many languages have a phonemic glottal stop (making Wiki'info possible) but no Z-S distinction. Der yck C. 11:14, 15 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

@Deryck Chan: Thanks, those are good points. I was certainly focusing on readability. I am aware of variabilty in pronunciation of Z but it's not something that troubles me as much as the prevalent (?) aversion to successive identical vowels. So... "Wiki?info", generally, where the ? could be any string that is not null and does not end with i, l or other essentially vertical character.

• The "info" as in info+box (infobox ( Q15515987) [:wΖ]), short for information ( Q11028) [:wΖ]
• The Ζ from ΖID: Ζ+ID, the identifier ( Q853614) [:wΖ] of a ΖObject
• The Ζ gets its form from the Greek letter Ζ ( Q14394) [:wΖ]. Some pronunciations of this are like the end of Rosetta (Rosetta Stone ( Q48584) [:wΖ])
• In English, it also sounds like "Wiki's info".

• The Ζ as in Wiki+Ζ+info
• in+f+o from "input–function–output" (see function "Function ... takes some input and returns output"), input/output ( Q219320) [:wΖ].--GrounderUK (talk) 23:07, 12 July 2020 (UTC) Reply

This is asserted in the text, but I don't see how that would work. Wikidata emphasizes structured content in statements that can be translated (roughly, or precisely with some reifications) as semantic web "triples" - "subject" "predicate" (property) "object". The purpose of Abstract Wikipedia though is to generate encyclopedic narrative text (independent of language) and I don't see that being able to be shoehorned into the Wikidata model. Narrative text may have individual sentences that resemble Wikidata statements, but it also has an overarching structure: sequencing and grouping statements in a logical order, providing headings and paragraphs, including images and tables, etc. I guess we still have a lot of detail to work out here, but it seems to me this will require its own UI for display and editing that's different both from the existing Wikipedias and from Wikilambda, and is not how Wikidata works. ArthurPSmith (talk) 14:28, 14 July 2020 (UTC) Reply