Post History

We'll need to decide whether we want
- a glossary of terms people may come across on the site without other explanation (which I'll call a "glossary")

or
- a dictionary/encyclopedia of any and all terms (which I'll call a "dictionary").

The difference is profound — in philosophy, in scope (what terms should be included), and in the content of each entry.

### Philosophy

A glossary is meant so that someone can post on the site, include a word like _muktze_, and not worry that people don't know what it means, because he's linking to its entry in the glossary. It's thus auxiliary to the main site and serves its purposes. No one uninterested in the Q&A category should edit the glossary, because he doesn't have enough knowledge of the site to know what should be in the glossary or enough interest in the Q&A to care what's in the glossary.

A dictionary, on the other hand, is meant so people can look up a word about Judaism and know what it means. It's not auxiliary to the Q&A category but a separate, parallel category, independent from the Q&A (though of course the Q&A posts will link to the dictionary, and the two categories will, technically necessarily, share tags). There's no reason to expect someone active in one category to be active in the other. And there's no reason to expect a word used in the Q&A category to necessarily have a dictionary entry; or, if someone chooses to link to some other dictionary to explain his word, that won't be weird (perhaps our entry will be too long-winded or something).

### Scope

A glossary should cover only words that appear on the site or that someone might expect will appear there. A dictionary, on the other hand, has much broader scope, and can include all sorts of words.

### Content of each entry

A glossary is meant as an aid. An aid to those reading the Q&A category (and maybe the Meta category). It should give enough information to fill that need and no more, or not much more. If a post on the Q&A site refers to _muktze_ and links to the glossary for a definition, the curious reader will expect to find a one- or two-line explanation. An article-length explanation is wholly out of place; but not only that: even a full dictionary entry is out of place. No need for things that dictionaries have like pronunciations, grammatical/usage notes, arcane forms, or the like. Maybe etymology is justified in some cases where it helps the reader understand the word; probably an example phrase is good so the reader can know which of several definitions is relevant in his context. But mostly just a definition.

A dictionary, on the other hand… well, a dictionary can have all sorts of stuff. Pronunciation, etymology, synonyms and alternative spellings, translations into other languages. Heck, if we want to go encyclopedic we can include very long-winded explanations indeed.

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I think deciding which of these we want — or something else perhaps — must be done before we start so that we avoid [talking past](//en.wiktionary.org/wiki/talk_past) one another and because the distinction makes a big difference in terms of how to plan the dictionary.

I may be misunderstanding, but I **think** there's already some talking-past happening: the OP atop this page seems (as far as I can tell) to be referring to a dictionary, whereas Monica Cellio's answer seems to referring to a glossary (in that it entertains the notion that this could be in the help pages).