Talk:Willy nilly

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This page currently redirects to Arbitrariness. That may be a common modern usage of the term, and perhaps should be reflected in the article, but the term really means "will ye, nil ye", ie "whether you like it or not". I propose unredirecting it. --Dweller (talk) 11:01, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See [1] --Dweller (talk) 11:11, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, to me the word suggests more lack of caring than arbitrariness. The two concepts are similar, but they aren't the same. --Tango (talk) 12:17, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it can mean either, depending on context. But agree the redirect is not useful for readers. It should be made into a soft-redirect to the appropriate wiktionary article in preference to deleting the redirect, as it is a plausible search term.YobMod 13:41, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the redirect should be reformatted rather than redirected, but turning it into a disambiguation page would make more sense than redirecting to Wiktionary. Internal redirects are preferred to external ones, and soft redirects are normally used only as a last resort. If a user was simply looking for a definition of the term, they would be using Wiktionary, not Wikipedia; it is far more likely that they are looking for an article if they are searching on Wikipedia. A disambiguation page would include a link to the Wiktionary article anyhow. According to one of the most commonly employed modern uses of the term, "willy nilly" is a synonym for "arbitrarily", so the current link is valid. I suggest the other entries be ambivalence and fatalism. Neelix (talk) 14:18, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I like your thinking. What about the original meaning, which is despite you, or regardless of what you want. We don't (sadly) have an article on nolens volens, which would be the closest approximation I can think of, in a possibly notable term or phrase. --Dweller (talk) 14:49, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The redirect is unquestionably bad. Neither of the three definitions at Wiktionary translate to "arbitrariness". Randomness or recklessness would be better, but neither are good. If there isn't enough to say in an encyclopedic manner then I would suggest deletion rather than redirection. DJ Clayworth (talk) 15:14, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In response to DJ Clayworth: The redirect is not unquestionably bad. Synonyms.net states that willy-nilly and arbitrarily are synonyms. This meaning is supported by the third definition on Wiktionary (haphazardly).

In response to Dweller: I'm glad you like the idea of turning this into a disambiguation page. Do you believe that nolens volens is an encyclopedic topic which could be expanded into a full article? If so, let's create it and include it as an entry on the disambiguation page. If not, we can still include it as a redirect to its entry on the list of Latin phrases. Neelix (talk) 18:33, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of what dictionaries might say, I don't like the equation of arbitrary with willy nilly. Arbitrary suggests a particular choice has been made, albeit not for well-founded reasons. Willy nilly is about making no choice. A person who sprays a hose around with no regard for whether the water hits grass, flowers, dogs or people is doing so willy nilly. But if a group of 6 irate neighbours arrives and he chooses one at random and sprays only that person, that's an arbitrary choice, nothing to do with willy nilly. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:02, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if nolens volens is notable - I've been involved in saving some arguably far more notable Latin phrases from deletion at AfD, because of WP:DICDEF concerns (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Latin phrases (2nd nomination) for example) and found it takes a lot of work to get it over the bar. I'll review next week. We could include it as a redlink. A wiktionary box thingy would be a good idea too. --Dweller (talk) 11:09, 21 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

An anon user has now made arbitrariness once more the only definition. That is definitively wrong. I think the only solution here is a soft redirect to wiktionary, which has three definitions for the term. --Dweller (talk) 14:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The editor was correct to remove those dab links, as they were both inaccurate. Willy nilly, in common usage, is about haphazard (arbitrarily uncontrolled) behavior; it has next to nothing to do with fatalism (which is the doctrine that the future can't be changed, not a carelessness about what happens in the future), and even less to do with ambivalence (which is an indecisiveness about which course to take, not a freewheeling disregard for the courses' outcomes). I strongly recommend that Willy nilly (psychology) and Willy nilly (philosophy) be hastily deleted as malformed dab pages, since they obviously will never constitute articles (nor will any editor search for them in lieu of searching for Willy nilly), and therefore would have no function even if it was a good idea to redirect to these two essentially unrelated articles. But that issue aside, while a redirect to wiktionary would not be unreasonable, I see nothing wrong with a simple redirect to Arbitrariness accompanied by a section in that article (there's plenty of room) clarifying the nuances and the alternate, less common meanings of willy nilly. Etymological fidelity matters much less than adherence to common usage, and this is the closest related term I've seen that has an actual Wikipedia article. -Silence (talk) 21:23, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps that's true where you live and in the circles you move in, but when I use the term willy nilly I only mean something entirely different from haphazard - I mean totally deliberate but uncaring about someone else's opinion, literally will ye, nil ye. I therefore disagree 100% with your suggestion of a redirect to arbitrariness, as my usage of willy nilly is anything but arbitrary.

I agree with the deletion of those other pages, but think they'll need an AfD. --Dweller (talk) 09:59, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

... Have you read the Arbitrariness article, by chance? "Arbitrariness is a term given to choices and actions subject to individual will, judgment or preference, based solely upon an individual's opinion or discretion." Your usage of willy-nilly is closer to "arbitrariness" than mine. o.O -Silence (talk) 19:15, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We should not be choosing any particular editor's preferred definition for "willy nilly" here; there are three Wikipedia articles that a user could be looking for by typing "willy nilly" into the search bar and they should all be listed here as a disambiguation page. Neelix (talk) 12:42, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]