Erik-
I'll discuss technical integration details with you and Gerard offline. However, in a more general vein, I'm not sure the lexical construct WiktionaryZ wishes to impose on every sort of Wikidata entity makes sense. For example, multi-lingualism is certainly important in a lexicographic context, but it does not apply to a catalog. A catalog has language-specific data, for sure, but this is not multi-lingual data- the language(s) in which a book's title is historically expressed by the author or publisher is important, and you cannot just do your own translation into an arbitrary language and say that is also the book's title. Similarly, films are given multiple titles by their distributors for different markets yet often these are very different from what a direct translation would look like. Here is more detail on these issues:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Multilingual_Wikidata
This also does not touch the performance/scalability issues of storing all text data, all numerica data, etc. in one table.
Regarding different referencing styles, I'm open to anything though I think you'll find that in practice standard numbers like ISBN are less cumbersome to use than titles. For example, <<ref:The Davinci Code>>- does this mean the book, the movie, the audio book, or "The Davinci Code: Fact or Fiction?" ?
Also, citation is not just fetching bibliographic data for the purposes of displaying it in an info box like other information. It is fundamentally about associating an assertion with evidence or support, and so must capture the cited "text" as well as the paraphrase text. Here is a mock-up of these idea in the context of an enhanced article validation feature:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikicite_spider_review_mockup.jpg
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On 7/29/06, Jonathan Leybovich jleybov@yahoo.com wrote:
A catalog has language-specific data, for sure, but this is not multi-lingual data- the language(s) in which a book's title is historically expressed by the author or publisher is important, and you cannot just do your own translation into an arbitrary language and say that is also the book's title.
A translated version of the book should probably have its own DefinedMeaning, since you will want to relate all kinds of information specifically on that level. It could be linked to the original edition not so much through the synonyms/translations, but through a special relation type, e.g. "is translated edition of." Even with that information, you may _still_ want to translate the title to languages where no actual edition is available, so you can cite a book e.g. with both its official title, and an unofficial translated title in the language of the Wikipedia edition you're using.
This also does not touch the performance/scalability issues of storing all text data, all numerica data, etc. in one table.
It won't be quite as simple as that, but let's discuss that.
Regarding different referencing styles, I'm open to anything though I think you'll find that in practice standard numbers like ISBN are less cumbersome to use than titles. For example, <<ref:The Davinci Code>>- does this mean the book, the movie, the audio book, or "The Davinci Code: Fact or Fiction?" ?
Referencing books that also have movie adaptations doesn't seem quite as common. If I look at a real-world example, e.g. [[Emu]], I'll find references like
* The heat load from solar radiation on a large, diurnally active bird, the emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae) * Ventilatory accommodation of oxygen demand and respiratory water loss in a large bird, the emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae), and a re-examination of ventilatory allometry for birds * Endocrine and testicular changes in a short-day seasonally breeding bird, the emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae), in southwestern Australia.
I don't think any of these will be turned into movies soon. ;-) In addition, you could even capture the type of reference with the template name, e.g. <<book:The Da Vinci Code>> would only refer to an entity which has the class membership "book". You could also do pre-save transformations, that is, the user types <<book:Some title>>, and if the expression unambiguously refers to one publication, a unique identifier is automatically inserted into the reference in addition to the title.
Of course, the ideal user interface would probably give you a little pop-up when you click on a toolbar icon, let you search (or add!) the reference information, and insert the right tags into the wiki source text.
Also, citation is not just fetching bibliographic data for the purposes of displaying it in an info box like other information. It is fundamentally about associating an assertion with evidence or support, and so must capture the cited "text" as well as the paraphrase text. Here is a mock-up of these idea in the context of an enhanced article validation feature:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikicite_spider_review_mockup.jpg
:-) I see we have indeed been thinking about very similar problem areas. You'll find a mock-up of a simple scoped citation syntax in p.190 of the first edition of my book: http://medienrevolution.dpunkt.de/files/Medienrevolution-1.pdf
I like your systematic source review, though I'm not sure adding this additional UI layer is necessary. One thing to keep in mind: In a wiki review process, you'll probably almost never flag things as "misleading" or "made-up" -- instead, you should encourage direct editing of the content.
I think we'll have lots to talk about.
Erik
Jonathan Leybovich wrote:
However, in a more general vein, I'm not sure the lexical construct WiktionaryZ wishes to impose on every sort of Wikidata entity makes sense. For example, multi-lingualism is certainly important in a lexicographic context, but it does not apply to a catalog. A catalog has language-specific data, for sure, but this is not multi-lingual data- the language(s) in which a book's title is historically expressed by the author or publisher is important, and you cannot just do your own translation into an arbitrary language and say that is also the book's title. Similarly, films are given multiple titles by their distributors for different markets yet often these are very different from what a direct translation would look like. Here is more detail on these issues:
The common name of a taxonomic entity IS a translation of the formal Latin name. Why should it be treated as a separate data type? The endangered species Microhexura montivaga from North Carolina and Tennessee is known in English as the spruce-fir moss spider. It may have a name in the first nations languages of the area, but can it really have a name in any other language. You can invent a name in every other language, but these would be purely hypothetical, and not supported by actual usage. This would amount to unverifiable original research.
Similarly, arbitrary translations of book titles would be unacceptable. For a translated title to be meaningful it must have in fact been translated that way. The title of Camus' famous book "L'Étranger" has been translated both with the literal "The Stranger" and the literary "The Outsider"; these would both be valid entries for the repective translations of the book which would then require a "Translation of ..." entry.
Regarding different referencing styles, I'm open to anything though I think you'll find that in practice standard numbers like ISBN are less cumbersome to use than titles. For example, <<ref:The Davinci Code>>- does this mean the book, the movie, the audio book, or "The Davinci Code: Fact or Fiction?" ?
ISBNs have their limitations too. My copy of the 1977, 22nd edition of "Dorland's Pocket Medical Dictionary" has two different ISBNs depending on whether there are index tabs on the fore-edge. My earlier 1922, 11th edition, "The American Illustrated Medical Dictionary", (edited by Dorland) does not have an ISBN. I bought that specific edition to enable me to check out potential copyright problems. My more recent 2003, 30th edition, "Dorland's illustrated medical dictionary", has four different ISBNs depending on whether it's a standard, deluxe, trade or international edition. There are 27 other editions, and a distinction still needs to be made between pocket and full-size editions. Sometimes the difference is important; other times it isn't. The issue is not so simple that it can be solved by simply using an ISBN number.
Also, citation is not just fetching bibliographic data for the purposes of displaying it in an info box like other information. It is fundamentally about associating an assertion with evidence or support, and so must capture the cited "text" as well as the paraphrase text. Here is a mock-up of these idea in the context of an enhanced article validation feature:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikicite_spider_review_mockup.jpg
That simple example does best to illustrate some of the difficulties that are faced in scientific description. My first inclination would be to ask whether the description is consistent (but not necesarily identical) with the description that is officially accepted by the relevant international society. Would a spider be better described as a kind of arachnid arthropod rather than just an invertebrate. The first citation is very poor because it uses a simile. Saying that it is "like" most invertebrates does not imply that it "is" a vertebrate. Citation sometimes need to be rigorously applicable.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
ISBNs have their limitations too. My copy of the 1977, 22nd edition of "Dorland's Pocket Medical Dictionary" has two different ISBNs depending on whether there are index tabs on the fore-edge. My earlier 1922, 11th edition, "The American Illustrated Medical Dictionary", (edited by Dorland) does not have an ISBN.
These comments, while accurate, are on the absolute layman level.
Even though I think Wikicat is one of most promising project proposals in the last few years, I fear it will have a hard time to explain, over and over again, the basics of bibliography to all newcomers who think they are experts. How can this project sort out the beginners and give them easy but meaningful tasks where they can be productive, without their ignorance causing damage?
Could we perhaps have a separate mailing list (wikicat-l) for discussions about Wikicat, even before the project is formally established? That would be an opportunity to establish some level of common knowledge and "get to know" each other.
On Sun, 30 Jul 2006, Lars Aronsson wrote:
ISBNs have their limitations too. My copy of the 1977, 22nd edition of "Dorland's Pocket Medical Dictionary" has two different ISBNs depending on whether there are index tabs on the fore-edge. My earlier 1922, 11th edition, "The American Illustrated Medical Dictionary", (edited by Dorland) does not have an ISBN.
These comments, while accurate, are on the absolute layman level.
Even though I think Wikicat is one of most promising project proposals in the last few years, I fear it will have a hard time to explain, over and over again, the basics of bibliography to all newcomers who think they are experts. How can this project sort out the beginners and give them easy but meaningful tasks where they can be productive, without their ignorance causing damage?
Could we perhaps have a separate mailing list (wikicat-l) for discussions about Wikicat, even before the project is formally established? That would be an opportunity to establish some level of common knowledge and "get to know" each other.
YES. Please.
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org