I think Brian meant to write "glosses" there instead of "entries". But I otherwise agree with Jim's comment.
To clarify, I'm not arguing for the inclusion of "queer act". I'd have dropped the gloss myself. I was just a little confused by his initial comment. Thanks for elaborating.

> I think we're better off without dialect/region/generation-specific entries, even if some users may see them as acceptable.

The decision to include an entry is based on the *Japanese*; not on the variety of English in the gloss(es). We don't usually have any glosses using dialectal terms (Scots, Singlish, etc.). AmE and BrE are not dialects. We try to make sure glosses cover regional terminologies, e.g. our policy states: `where different forms of English use different terms, include all major variants (e.g. both "snow pea" and "mange tout" or "tap" and "faucet"'.

The point about terms such as "queer" in glosses is that it has a common meaning in 2024 that it didn't have in 1994. Nothing wrong with using it with its historic meaning but the meaning, in the context of other glosses, must be clear.  I felt "queer act" had problems in that area.

Because I think it's a more broadly-important question, I'll re-open just to answer Robin's question (not trying to start a debate or anything)

1. I was at least a little open to entertaining "queer act" if it was idiomatic.  I looked for it, I could find no evidence that this gloss had ever in history been used.  Probably has been used somewhere, but I couldn't find it. 
 "dumbfounding performance" is idiomatic, and seems like an excellent gloss.  In contrast, in modern AmE I'm at a loss for any circumstance where "queer act" would be an advisable translation today.  It seems to me most likely to lead to embarrassment or misunderstanding if anyone were to try and use it.  Perhaps I should have been more explicit on this point - I should not have presumed that other editors' intuitions would match my own.

2. As suggested, I do think that "queer" in this sense is [dated].  Especially for non-idiomatic use, I see no reason to offer a [dated] gloss on any entry today(so long as the Japanese term is not also [dated], at least).  Since policy disallows marking English terms themselves as [dated], I really think "queer" should be stripped off of almost all of the terms where we currently still have it.  But that is a separate issue.

To my eye, "queer act" in particular didn't look merely [dated] here, it looked absurd, and I suspect it would look absurd to a large audience of jmdictdb.  In cases like these, with a universally understood, perfectly serviceable gloss already available, I think we're better off without dialect/region/generation-specific entries, even if some users may see them as acceptable.  There's no way for each of use to know what another dialect will find objectionable/misleading/confusing, so I think we just have to point these things out as we encounter them and discuss.

I do get the sense that historic jmdictdb policy has leaned towards "so long as it's valid in some English dialect, it's ok as a gloss".  I'm usually okay with this, but in cases of likely confusion/embarrassment (like this one), I think we should perhaps be a bit more selective.

Given its modern usage, it's probably best avoided.

daijs: 客があっけにとられるような奇妙な演技・演奏。

Brian, I'm not sure I understand your objection to "queer act". It's a somewhat dated use of "queer" but it seems to fit the definition.

@@ -15,0 +16 @@
+<gloss>bizarre performance</gloss>
@@ -17 +17,0 @@
-<gloss>performance so bad it is spellbinding</gloss>