Language desk
< October 29	<< Sep \| October \| Nov >>	Current desk >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

October 30

"user has near native speaker knowledge of English"

Am I one of a very small group of people who is annoyed by the lack of a hyphen in Wikipedia:Babel's en-4 output, between "near" and "native"? See an instance of it in User:Aaronhng's en-4 userbox, for example. I would have expected to see a hyphen there, the way there is one in the distinct Template:User en-4, which has "with a near-native level of English." Interestingly, this seems to be a command shared across Wikipedias (the Spanish and Latin Wikipedias show the same thing at least!), so I doubt I could change it myself even if I knew how.--Ser be etre shi (talk) 19:45, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm annoyed by the lack of two hyphens. I want "near-native-speaker knowledge". Or better yet, reword to make the hyphens unnecessary. --174.95.161.129 (talk) 21:23, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps they have the speaker knowledge of a near native. --Lambiam 21:46, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Most en-4 users use the wiki source text {{babel|...|en-4|...}}. Then you see a hyphen. The issue is not due to something hosted here. The user you linked to uses {{#babel:...|en-4|...}} This invokes the Mediawiki extension Babel. I don't know who can change this; the talk page contains the ominous text "this extension is not supported by any developer or group". The initial version of the documentation for this extension was created by User:Siebrand; perhaps he knows more. --Lambiam 21:46, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm more annoyed by the number of people who have en-3, en-4, or en-5 tags that come nowhere near those levels of proficiency when you engage in discussions with them.--Khajidha (talk) 19:02, 31 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Dunning–Kruger? --Lambiam 10:57, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]