Gerard, please read this before I send it out ... it might be much too
strong ....
*********************
The differences between Gerard and me are based in a
fundamental
philosophical differences about the nature of Wiktionaries in
particular and dictionaries in general. His position is a logical
consequence from the premise that Wiktionary is just a translation
dictionary; I disagree with his premise by considering Wiktionary to
be much more than that.
Wiktionary has a definition for each word + thesaurus part +++
There's plenty of information on what is in there.
Each Wiktionary may be tasked with explaining all
words from all
languages, but it does so for the benefit of speakers of its own
language. Gerard's Ultimate Wiktionary would work well if
translatiions were simply questions of one on one relationships. As
one example, the word "minister" exists in both Dutch, and you are
probably safe to use the same word when going from Dutch to English.
It doesn't work in the other direction. You can't translate the
English "minister" to its Dutch equivalent when "predikant" is
intended. Add in a third language and it can get very complicated.
As an experiment get someone to translate a short paragraph from a
modern English novel into Dutch, a second person translates the same
thing from Dutch to Italian, and a third translates it back to
English. Compare the result with the original. The Wiktionaries in
individual languages are in a better position to explain this kind of
problem in the target language for the translation. Sometimes the
savings found in a technical shorcut present a false economy.
There is a place for a project that brings things together, but there
is also a need to recognize the limitations of such a project. It
can't be everything to everybody in the way that Gerard seems to
envision his project.
It seems as if you are not informed what Ultimate Wiktionary is about -
so please before going ahead telling things that are not fact, but your
private meaning, please go, understand what you are talking about and
then come back to discuss.
All this was explained more than once (in the discussionlists and on
meta) and obviously you did not read it, but you only read and write
what you like.
Again: UW will show the same contents as the normal wiktionaries - it
already considers what you are talking about here - one example for what
you are telling here is a word out of the Christianity glossary - mitra
in Italian has two meanings while it has only one in Dutch and in
German. You are only talking about words to be translated and not about
meanings to be translated - these are two different things. Do you
really think that people are such stupid not to consider this? Or is it
just a private thingie that you have to show you are the only one to be
right?
Adding a third language is not complicated, as the relation and the
meanings are always and only between two words. There are already other
dictionaries around that consider this, UW is not the first one to be
based on such an idea. International organisations, like Lisa (and they
are THE language specialists for localisation) and Kennisnet (they are
education specialist and work in many languages) are interested in it
and believe it its value otherwise why would they have paid for the
programming - right ... in such difficult times many are economically
living they have money to waist, or not? So you assume to know more than
language specialists, right? Did you ever actually do a localisation of
a document, a manual or a website?
I repeat: if you want to be constructive and contribute: every critics
is welcome. If you want to be destructive: no critics is accepted.
I know I am becoming personal here, but answering the same things over
and over again with people who obviously don't read but only ready "a
bit" and then have to show whatever is useless, is time lost that could
be used to improve wiktionary and other wikimedia projects.
I am really upset with you, really. Now come on and wake up and see what
you are really talking about. I know you have huge potentials, you could
do so much, so please use them to improve things.
Ciao, Sabine
___________________________________
Yahoo! Messenger: chiamate gratuite in tutto il mondo
http://it.beta.messenger.yahoo.com