Timwi wrote on Wikien-l:
OK, here are my major problems with Wiktionary:
* English-centric (as has already been said)
Uh, it is the English Wiktionary. I guess that makes the English Wikipedia
English-centric as well.
* not automated enough. Linking from [[biscuit]] (an
English word) to
[[Keks]] (a German word) should automatically add a link from [[Keks]]
back to [[biscuit]].
That is not Wiktionary's fault! Add a feature request for MediaWiki.
A lot of identical formatting/layout should be
automated (perhaps have a template automatically show up in the edit
window when you try to edit a not-yet-existing page?).
That would be a neat thing to have for highly structured projects like
Wiktionary and Wikiquote.
* too crowded in places. [[e]] should not contain all
its meanings in
hundreds of different languages on a single page.
That is what jump to TOC links are for.
* make one major change of policy/aim/goal. I think it
is completely
redundant and futile to try to define (explain the meaning of) all
words of all languages *in* all languages.
Kinda like having articles on all encyclopedia-worthy topics? Have you ever
heard of translating dictionaries? That is a big part of what Wiktionary is.
My suggestions for major improvement would be:
* wait for MediaWiki to support multi-language projects within a single
Wiki. This is already in the plans for Wikipedia. Once that is done,
you can have one page [[e]] in Spanish, another [[e]] in Italian, etc.
It will probably be a long time before projects like Wikipedia become one
wiki, one database, all languages. Too many naming conflicts to deal with.
Meta, Wikibooks, and Wikisource can be much more easily internationalized.
I think a word should only
be defined in its own language, and if you want its meaning explained
in another language, then you should really look up its translation in
that other language.
That makes about as much sense as only having an English version of an
encyclopedia article on the United Kingdom.
There are just so many things on Wiktionary that
are language-independent (e.g. the translations for each word, or
pronunciation written in IPA) that duplicating it hundreds of times
seems really dumb.
That is a valid issue, but since Wiktionary isn't internationalized yet it is
not a pressing one. IMO, a separate project is not at all needed. What /is/
needed, is for Wiktionary to finally get internationalized.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)