Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is not a dictionary

message: I have added some content in this section. Should this new info be added to the main page? 
 AKK700 08:33, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia does not document the use of neologisms 

message: Someone tried to say that the vocabulary sections of the page on the Pyrgi Tablets (a Phoenician-Etruscan bilingual from c. 500 BCE , https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrgi_Tablets ) shouldn't be there because WINAD and these should be looked up in Semitic/Phoenician and Etruscan dictionaries (or perhaps on Wiktionary). I didn't like that idea, and, after reading this article, I don't think this is what WINAD was intended to cover. Also, since, "Wikipedia is not a beaurocracy", I don't think Wikipedia articles should be made worse just to conform to Wikipedia guidelines. The vocabulary sections on this page cover only the words used in the inscription and are basically like the interlinear glossing common on linguistics pages (and in non-Wikipedia linguistics texts), except more detailed and a bit more awkward, and they are useful for the same reason interlinear glossing is. (I think the extra detail is warranted for philology, i.e., because there is always room for interpretation in the translation and wider interpretation of ancient artifacts, since you can't just ask the writers what they meant.)
A similar phenomenon I DO find questionable are some of the "vocabulary" or "lexicon" sections sometimes found on pages on languages, usually obscure languages. Often, if not usually, these sections are obviously useful and also not just dictionaries, e.g., the vocabulary comparisons between related languages (e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosavi_languages#Vocabulary_comparison ), or descriptions of various cross-linguistically relevant aspects of how it divides meanig into words (e.g., https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirah%C3%A3_language#Lexicon ), but I've also seen some cases where a page on a language just has some random words of the language with definitions for little discernable reason (e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yele_language#Vocabulary ). I actually don't think it's that bad, since it gives you some feeling of what the language is like and some ability to recognize it (though not as well as an example text does, though I suppose sometimes the vocabulary probably IS just glossing for an example, as with the Pyrgi tablets), and oftentimes these languages are so obscure that the few words given on Wikipedia might be the only ones most people will ever find (or, in the case of some poorly attested languages, could be all or most of the words that are known, e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Aryan_superstrate_in_Mitanni#Attested_words_and_comparisons, if you count Mitanni Indic is a language, or https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numidian_language , though that's glossing of inscriptions; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattic_language#Vocabulary has a flavor of that, but it's weird because it only gives a few but then links to a full wordlist at https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Hattic_word_list , which makes me wonder why they chose to put the ones they did on the Wikipedia page). DubleH (talk) 18:52, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language and Text pages with dictionary entries in them. 

message: Hello. I think I have one good example, "live" example already misused, for WP:NEO last paragraph, which has inline template "need example": one of the contributors linked under THE Islamic death penalty to Capital punishment in Islam in articles LGBT in Islam, and Apostasy in Islam, but it could easily be more of the same in other. They think that same applies to the Jewish death penalty which can be linked to Capital punishment in Judaism. They offered multiple references that have no mention of such terminology, (under) THE Islamic death penalty. All in all, these kinds of situations, with this sort os misinterpretation of NEO, WP:V and OR, could present considerable problem for editors, and this is a good example that terminology created by editors in passing should be avoided. ౪ Santa ౪99° 16:32, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  This could serve as WP:NEO needed example 

message: I can’t see any real guidance on the use of list articles for words as words. I assume an article like List of slang names for cannabis should be regarded as dictionary-like, per this policy? — HTGS (talk) 21:55, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: The guideline for a list is WP:NLIST and "not a dictionary" does not apply since the article is not a dictionary definition. Johnuniq (talk) 05:16, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lists of words