[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wiktionary-l] English orthographies

[Gerard Meijssen]

Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> To explain to the people on the Wiktionary mailinglist where this 
>> comes from, there is a huge debate on the Wikipedia-l mailinglist 
>> about having a seperate English and American English wikipedia. 
>
>
> I wouldn't characterize it as huge.  One person made the proposal, and 
> no-one who replied considered it realistic.
>
>> In the plans for Ultimate Wiktionary there are three ways in which 
>> words can be destinguished as being of a particular orthography. I 
>> will describe these here and hope to use the energy of this 
>> discussion for this question that needs a resolution at some stage.
>>
>>
>> Please let me know what you think and particularly why.
>
>
> It's premature to get into this kind of debate before the software is 
> in place, but I suspect that the preferred option will vary from one 
> term to the next.
>
> Ec 

Hoi,
Ultimate Wiktionary will use relational data that will be served by 
Wikidata. With related data it is not really possible for behaviour to 
be arbitrary different from one term to the next. As I mentioned there 
are three basic choises. As far as I can see, there are only variations 
possible within the three choises that I mentioned. The point with a 
data design is that it is the basis for what the functionality will be like.

Waiting untill the database has been implemented is not that great a 
strategy. It is akin to building a house and only decide where the 
windows, doors and rooms will be after the completion of the house. It 
is much better to look at the design now, while we still can change 
things relatively easy. We are now still at the stage where we still 
change the "house" on paper.

Thanks,
    GerardM