I don't have time to answer that now due to too much work - most of what you said is your POV - is fear about the new - sorry, but it seems like that. Gerard is not the only one working on UW. There's no "we want only EU terminology" - it is a start and all are invited to contribute even the UNESCO and the US-Government if they have valuable glossaries. More in a second mail when I finished my job. Ciao, Sabine ___________________________________ Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB http://mail.yahoo.it

Oooh... snap... Ray got served!!! Mark On 17/06/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM POSSIT MATERIARI ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE

Oh... I thought you RSVP'd? By the way, in case anybody's ("anybody is") wondering, RSVP is an abbrevation of Respondez S'il Vous Plaït. Surely, those who don't ("do not") know what RSVP means, will know the meaning of Respondez S'il Vous Plaït. And, for the transcript: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pap ... "gove" appear'd ("appeared") to be a noun though. Remember, please don't noun verbs. In case you're ("you are") wondering, "noun verbs" is a colloquial English phrase meaning "use what is usually a noun as if it were a verb". In fact, the word "noun" in the phrase "It's bad to noun verbs!" is a nouned verb. Mark On 17/06/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: -- SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM POSSIT MATERIARI ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE

On Sat, 2005-06-18 at 02:36 -0400, James R. Johnson wrote: Actually it's "plaît", and there the "s" somehow ended up in top of the "i", just like in "hôtel" (which was hostel).

On Sat, 2005-06-18 at 16:25 -0400, James R. Johnson wrote: Oh yeah, the first thing I do on those keyboards is type setxkb[tab] us You can put the accents using "dead keys". ^o for ô, "a for ä. I use that setting most of the time, but I never actually figured out how to change it using setxkmap...

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Mark Williamson wrote: <snip> I would have said "don't verb your nouns" - where "verbing a noun" is using a noun as a verb. "Noun verbs" would make more sense to mean "use a verb as if it were a noun". But maybe I'm too used to a particular noun/verb order :) I'll go Wiktionary it! Or better yet, Google it! - -- Alphax OpenPGP key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/cc9up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis

Yeah -- Why on earth is Mr Meijssen (that ij is a single letter, mind you, in het nederlands) asking Ray what "gove ... pap" is? Shouldn't it be in the oh-so-ultimate Ultimate Wiktionary? [[ultimatewiktionary:gove]] [[ultimatewiktionary:pap]] [[ultimatewiktionary:Gove a lot of pap]]... Mark On 17/06/05, Ronald Chmara &lt;ron(a)opus1.com&gt; wrote: -- SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM POSSIT MATERIARI ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE

Can we test the Ultimate Wiktionary in a language before moving to it completely? Say, put it up in a test format on meta? James -----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces(a)Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Gerard Meijssen Sent: Friday, June 17, 2005 10:54 AM To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Cc: wiktionary-l(a)Wikipedia.org; wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Foundation-l] Re: [Wiktionary-l] Article on LISA Ray Saintonge wrote: The evidence can be found in the practice of the it: or nl: and other wiktionaries. Please explain "goves a lot of pap". Given that the language-independent content is over 80%, I wonder what a big part is.. There will be an User Interface part to the Ultimate Wiktionary, that will have to be localised. At issue is the scope that you have. If you think the English Wiktionary everything, you forget about all the other Wiktionaries. If work done on the English Wiktionary is only to benefit the English Wiktionary your scope is somewhat limited. We have already introduced a glossary with medical information in the Dutch Wiktionary, the GEMET database contains data for many languages including American English. The definitions are by reputable institutions including US universities. So please know what you talk about. The GEMET data is given to us to be published under the GNU-FDL. So what is your problem? If we can obtain other worthwhile resources and combine them in UW we will because it enriches the UW as a resource. I will be asking the Dutch government if we can host a glossary of words and their meaning in the various Dutch governmental organisations. When we want to inform what a word means and you equate informing what a word means for an organisation with letting this organisation dominate you, you disallow making this information public. From my point of view you are barking up the wrong tree, with a dictionary a glossary you inform and if the EC is more Open than the US, good for them.. The aim of Wiktionary is all words of all languages, would it not be great if we can have organisations look at their vocabulary .. even if it means that it makes plain how far off they are from what is commonly meant by this vocabulary they are ?? As a sceptic, it does not allow you to bide your time and wait for the results. You do what you must. In the mean time I will work to make the UW a success. I do not understand what you mean; but let me try to explain. We want an user interface for every lanuguage, selectable in the user preferences. When content has been imported into the UW, the content included in the Dutch Wiktionary will make Papiamento, English, Italian etc content available. With more resources imported into the UW, the infomation will be enriched. I do not rubbish the accomplishments of the other wiktionaries, I want to make them available to all people of all languages. When an English word is known because of theire being an entry created in association with a word in Italian, it will be available for everyone never mind what user interface is used. I do not see the point that you are making. A dictionary is deterministic; it informs of the meaning(s) of a word and other information that can be found about a word. We will have them all. An encyclopedia tries to explain what things are and how they relate. There is in my mind a huge difference in the amount of culture you will find in an encyclopedia and in a dictionary. I have published in a periodical. The posting on the three lists was to inform you about this. These postings are as much as anything to prevent the feeling some people have that things are done in secret. They are not. Many people knew I was going to publish on the LISA periodical and hey, today you can read the result :) .. The creation of this article was a lengthy affair. I have discussed issues with many wikimedians. If Ray is of the opinion that it is my POV, he is correct I published it and I am proud of it. I hope and expect that in time Ultimate Wiktionary will prove a success. If people are interested in how I envision certain things, they can ask me and we can discuss things. I am eager to know where we need to improve on the ideas that we have. But please use arguments in stead of sceptical comments based on .. what ?? Thanks, GerardM _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

Brion Vibber wrote: Gerard wrote this if I recall well: it will be tested using the GEMET data - and of course we have other multilanguage glossaries to upload (two of mine: colour names and oenology) which are pure glossaries like translators use them during work so as for mine: definitions are needed as well as classifications of words, adding gender etc. This will show how things work and where improvement is needed. Every software needs to be betatested :-) Ciao, Sabine ___________________________________ Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB http://mail.yahoo.it

I'm also a bit wary about merging all the wiktionaries into one mega-wiktionary. The idea about the user-interface appearing in one's preferred language is interesting though. There are different wiktionaries for the same reason there are different wikipedias. As Mark and others have been telling for the past several months that I've contributed to wikis, we have these multitudinous wikipedias/wiktionaries/wikibooks/wikiquote/wiki-... sites to encourage each language, and the thesauri become more useful and more accessible to people through the community involvement of the users on each wiki. The German wiktionary grows through the efforts of those who contribute to it, as do the English, Russian, etc. Let the individual wiktionaries apply the GEMET if they so choose, using the terminology they choose. Individuals can make a better choice than some centralized monolith can, and often faster, and better. And as far as I have seen, it's the individual with conviction that improves the wikis and spreads the concept to new languages, people, and articles. Some of the things you want in this Ultimate Wiktionary can be done in the individual wiktionaries, if the users want it. And " and thus resulting in increased trade opportunities for the EC." - Wikis are about more than simply Europe. There's more to the world than Europe, and the wiktionaries are not simply there to benefit Europe and its trade opportunities. Sounds like the kind of cultural imperialism the US gets accused of. Later, James -----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces(a)Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ray Saintonge Sent: Friday, June 17, 2005 7:30 AM To: wiktionary-l(a)Wikipedia.org Cc: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List; wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: [Wiktionary-l] Article on LISA Gerard Meijssen wrote: The following is what he says there What evidence is there of this? Sure, we can get closer to that when translations are viewed as mechanical acts and we can ignore all subtleties of language. In reality such an attitude only goves a lot of pap. That's a very small part of the content. That much is already being done without Gerard's UW This too is already being done in the English Wiktionary. That's what lexicography is all about. Although I have no doubt that this is useful information there should be no preference given to EC terminology. It needs to be made clear that different terminology used in countries which share a language with some member of the EC will be on an equal footing. This looks like some kind of hidden agenda. Many of us have resisted any appearance of being dominated by the thinking and ideas of the United States. Any attempt to impose EC dominance should be resisted just as strongly. You say this with far too much conviction. At other times you appear to make the prediction that participants in the various projects will see your UW as so great that they will melt into your arms. As a sceptic I can accept that statement. It allows me to wait until there is something real to comment about; it allows others with more technical experience to amend your software to suit the needs of Wikimedia. I cannot and will not accept your flat out statement that it "will be converted" any more than I can suspend rationality long enough to accept Christ as my personal saviour. This is in sharp contrast to what you said in other parts of the article or again What you praise here about the Wikipedias you would condemn in Wiktionary. The difference in values and cultures is just as strong in Wiktionary as it is in Wikipedia. It needs to be respected just as much. Ec PS: It is not my usual habit to crosspost my comments, an I seriously considered posting this on only one of the lists, but since Gerard has chosen to put his POV on three lists it seemed appropriate that at least the initial rebuttal should be similarly distributed. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

James R. Johnson wrote: No, this does not make sense - witktionary is very different in its contents. But it makes sense to link between from these projects to UW (or now Wiktionary) and from there to the projects. We already do this partly. Often it is important that you can see how a word is used in context and sometimes it is good if within a text you have a link to the definition of a word, in particular if you are talking about very specific things that could be difficult to understand for others. Language courses on Wikibooks for example are a logical way to link from the book to wiktionary/UW and add defintions and translations there. Of course, thinking about translations in literature we often need quotations and how they are translated - it would make sense to have quotations and/or proverbs translated in as many languages as possible. So this could be a use for wikidata. Ciao, Sabine ___________________________________ Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB http://mail.yahoo.it

<unl>[s:1]obj(work(agt>thing,obj>thing):07.@entry.@present, UNL(icl>thing):15.@def) agt(work(agt>thing,obj>thing):07.@entry.@present, I:00)[/s]</unl> Mark On 18/06/05, Guaka &lt;guaka(a)no-log.org&gt; wrote: -- SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM POSSIT MATERIARI ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE

Wouter Steenbeek wrote: The difference between two languages is only a secondary purpose for each Wiktionary. The Wiktionary for a particular language primarily describes the different ways in which the word in question is used within the language. You may very well usually look to Wiktionary for translations, but others can look for different things. Ec

Wouter Steenbeek wrote: 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. 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. Ec

Cross-posted to wiktionary and wikipedia; because I haven't seen a good example lately of how a merging might work; and because I've recently been through the cycle of slightly argumentative discussion that Ec seems to be falling into. Please reply to only one list, and feel free to add to or modify my example to illustrate your own ideas of what such a project might look like. SJ On 6/18/05, Sabine Cretella &lt;sabine_cretella(a)yahoo.it&gt; wrote: It might be more constructive to think of this position (what I believe to be Gerard's) as a logical consequence from the premise that single-language Wiktionaries can be efficiently combined by taking advantage of translation-dictionary content (specifically their linkages between words).. Great, an example! Just what we need. Consider the following English-language content: ________________________________________________________________ =minister= == [English] == minister ([n.]) 1. [A person trained to perform religious ceremonies at a Protestant church.] "The minister said a prayer on behalf of the entire congregation." || [Dutch]: predikant; ... || minister ([n.]) 2. [A person commissioned by the government for public service.] "He was newly appointed to be Minister of the Interior." ** || [Danish]: gesandt; [Dutch]: minister [m,f]; [French]: ministre [m,f]; [German]: Minister [m], Ministerin [f]; [Italian]: ministro; [Indonesian]: menteri; [Interlingua]: ministro; [Japanese]: 大臣 (だいじん, daijin); [Polish]: minister; [Spanish]: ministro [m] || minister ([n.]) 3. [A person who serves others.] minister ([vi.]) 1. [To tend to the needs of others] minister ([vt.]) 1. [To dispense, to administer] == [Dutch] == minister ([n.]) 1. [A person commissioned by the government for public service.] "Zware voet jaagt minister Anciaux uit de bocht." ** || [Danish]: gesandt; [English]: minister; [French]: ministre [m,f]; [German]: Minister [m], Ministerin [f]; [Italian]: ministro; [Indonesian]: menteri; [Interlingua]: ministro; [Japanese]: 大臣 (だいじん, daijin); [Polish]: minister; [Spanish]: ministro [m] || ________________________________________________________________ In the above examplt: a) choosing your 'interface' language may change all text in [brackets], b) content between || double bars || is stored in the database, so that the two lists of translations for "minister (English, n., 2)" "minister (Dutch, n., 1)" are actually referencing the same list of database translations [marked above by a double asterisk **] c) that bugbear of having multiple definitions for the same word in some languages, but not in others, is finessed somewhat by relegating translations to the defintion level, not the word level. [1] As far as I can tell, the current independence of "[content in] Wiktionaries in individual languages" would remain, in the most detailed proposed concatenation of many Wiktionaries into one. Things that would change: * All wiktionaries would share a single list of definition-linkages (definition 3 of word A is the same as definition 1 of word B); many of these linkages would be from one language to another, but others would be between synonyms in a single language. * All synonymous definitions would share a single list of translations, so that this list need not be pasted 100 times (and updated 100 times for each update). Sabine writes: For reference, I have tried to follow this matter carefully. I have discussed metadata issues with linguists who are designing other Wiktionary extensions. I have asked similar questions myself, of Gerard on many occasions, and in conversations with both of you. :-) And STILL the most complete published plans for, or descriptions of, an "Ultimate Wiktionary" -- or a merging of many wiktionary projects into a single one under any other name -- are not clear. Please do not blame Ec for not seeing things exactly as you do. Adding a third, and then a tenth, language IS complicated. It is doable, but complicated, and necessarily slightly imperfect [1]. However, following the Wikimedia principle of doing useful things quickly and not worrying about theoretical perfection, this will be a useful project long before its nuances are completely satisfactory to all. Of course it has value to try to make such a project work. This does not mean it is not difficult; it is! These international organizations know how difficult it is; I imagine they are curious to see how we will proceed. Let us see if our efforts make something useful, despite the difficulty involved. I am confident that they will... whatever our project is called. +SJ+ [1] There is a difficult question, which we are ignoring for now : just how precisely do all the translations of "minster (English, n., 2)" have synonymous definitions? When are two different words ever truly synonymous? But that is a discussion for another month.

No true, at least, what you say about DICT. With wik2dict you can convert any Wiktionary (or Wikipedia) into DICT. However, it's very true that it's hard to make a specific DICT. It would be cool to be able to quickly create a bilingual translation DICT from the Wiktionary information. Now, _that_ would be somewhat harder to do at present. I've actually found someone who did a dictionary thingy for Java phones. He's gonna release it under the GPL. I'm in touch with him - the thing is still not running on my Sony Ericsson. I found him because I googled for wik2dict :) I hope to get the thing running, and the source code compiling, so that I can play with Wikipedia on my phone - without using too many proprietary stuff (except for the phone firmware itself, Symbian OS, Java...).

The important thing to understand is that Gerard, Sabine et al. are already doing the best they can do using the *present* wiki system. You can sort of hack yourself internationalizable field names by using templates like {{-noun-}} (you still have to redundantly copy them around), you can try to keep the data in a certain structure so it can be parsed by a script etc. But these are *hacks*. They will break, they will be inflexible, they will be redundant, and they will not be properly supported by the software itself (try doing a search for a translation in a particular language, for example). UW tries to remedy this by adding structure where none previously existed and unifying the content in a single DB to reduce redundancies (without eliminating needed flexibility). Best, Erik

I think you are talking about different things. DICT is a dictionary format of another GPL software http://freedict.de/ It is also on sourceforge.net. And it is the basis for this online dictionary: http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict That's what Gerard is talking about. Ciao, Sabine ___________________________________ Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB http://mail.yahoo.it

This is very important for UW :-) I downloaded some of the "free dictionaries" on sourceforge.net, but they are in an own special format - they are coded and I cannot "see" the data in clear text format - that's why I myself really did not concentrate too much on this format. On the other hand there is a programmer I was talking to time ago concerning dictionaries for Palm and Pocket PC - these are widely used by interpreters in particular when they need to work with very specific themes. And one thing was on how to make data available - this is going into the direction java for handhelds (maybe also mobile phones) - but there are still too many compatibility issues. Nokia is doing stuff in this direction ... I must see if I can find the link with the notes - these could be interesting as well. I mean: we have too many different formats ... that's not good. I believe THE format for dictionary information is TBX since it is nothing else than XML with fixed tags and this allows for easy data exchange. Hmmm ... also the Italian freedict project (it has a really stange name, sorry I don't remember now) still is based on freedict. I think that it would be good if we could get people/programmers on a way where to meet in the middle - they have the software and we have the data - or better: we can combine the data more easily and it is easier to update when people work the wiki-way. This woule help you to save some time, users do not need different data formats but just one for several applications etc. Really this would be a dream ... and like always: dreaming it and talking about it very often it becomes true. I did not know you were in there. Maybe it is really time to talk about single facts - but maybe first offline. Make data easier available is part of what we are thinking about. The more we are and the more constructive are contributions the better we will be and the less effort will be necessary. Another step is then the data exchangeability with CAT-Tools like OmegaT, but that's a story of its own ... if we start to talk about this here now ... I am just imagining what would happen ;-) Ciao, Sabine ___________________________________ Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB http://mail.yahoo.it

How much do you need? I have my own server and up to now I do not use bandwidth and space completely - so it depends on how much it is. It could be easily integrated in the translator's portal for download (www.wesolveitnet.com) - there's already a download part or we cold use a subdomain. Oh yes, they should be interested - I am in there as well (even if for localisation issues) ;-) One step after the other :-) Ciao, Sabine ___________________________________ Yahoo! Mail: gratis 1GB per i messaggi e allegati da 10MB http://mail.yahoo.it

Mark Williamson wrote: That's not clear to me, at least. I think the whole discussion got off on the wrong foot because of the strident tone in the article. e.g.: "The current Wiktionaries will be converted to the Ultimate Wiktionary." This can easily be understood to mean "Ultimate Wiktionary will replace the current Wiktionaries." I didn't know in any detail of UW plans before reading this article. The way many such declarations were made, the message I got from the article (and some of the follow-up discussion) was: "The relevant decisions have already been made by those who matter. This is a _fait accompli_. Now if everyone else would kindly step out of the way and comply with what we have decided."

Mark Williamson wrote: Hoi, There are no stupid questions. The UW is not to supplement but to replace existing the Wiktionaries. The Wiktionaries will be either disbanded by the community or they will be left by its users who will migrate to the Ultimate Wiktionary. What is the point of keeping a Wiktionary when its content is more effectively used in the UW ?? Thanks, GerardM

Mark, It will not be "my" Ultimate Wiktionary, at best it is an idea that I do actively represent and promote. You are representing yourself and you do it adequately. You do not provide arguments to your POV and as such it is unremarkable. As to our community structure, it will evolve. Ultimate Wiktionary is part of that evolution. You can not seriously expect that in a project that doubles in size every four to six months our community will not be affected. UW will not be as I expect, I see opportunities and I try to realise them. Many of the expectations are dependant on what the UW community will be. It will not be like the Wikipedia communities, it will not be like the Wiktionary communities, it will be distinctly different but it will be Open and Free. Thanks, GerardM Mark Williamson wrote:

Ray Saintonge wrote: Is it not obvious that many decisions have been taken? Ultimate Wiktionary will be based on a database that has its functionality in a wiki, it will contain all words in all languages. It will have a user interface specifically for the Ultimate Wiktionary. These things have been decided. If at some stage people find that another scheme is better, there is no stopping them improving on what is on offer. If you think that the discussion starts when there is something is usable, you do not understand what software development is about. This is the time that people have to discuss what UW will be. If you do not use arguments now, if you do not think now, at that stage you will have lost your opportunity to be part of the decisions that will be taken before that time. Using words like intelligent design is funny, because it is an intelligent design that we are looking for. It will be evolution that will show us what will happen with the UW functionality and how the Wiktionary [[phenomenon]] will evolve. Thanks, GerardM

On 21/06/05, Ray Saintonge &lt;saintonge(a)telus.net&gt; wrote: I don't agree with this view, stated in several places in this thread. I haven't read any of the articles in full, but from the portions quoted on and messages posted to this list, I don't see anything that resembles a claim that this is a "fait accompli", or that resembles selling shares in anything. What I see is the following: Some people have had an idea for a new project, which if it worked as envisioned would be extremely powerful and useful. But rather than, like most of us do, leaving it as just another idea, they've pursued their ideas: worked out proposals; procured resources; considered how to go about implementing it; etc In doing so, they have sought to persuade others to also contribute to their cause - not by "selling shares", but by asking people to contribute ideas, skills, etc, towards making it happen. Obviously this requires them to share their vision of what the end result might be - to answer "Why are you doing this?" - of course, they might be wrong, and I don't see anyone denying that, only saying that it's worth a try. I don't see that there's anything wrong in having conviction in your own dreams - it's a quality I'm distinctly deficient in, to my own annoyance. When Gerard says "The current Wiktionaries will be converted to the Ultimate Wiktionary" this is part of his *plan*, of his *dream*. If it doesn't happen, he will, presumably, be disappointed, but is that really a reason to give up before he's even begun? Would it really make any difference if he said "might, if it works, be converted..."? Clearly, some believe it *will* work (and therefore will make existing wiktionaries redundant) and others that it won't work (in which case it won't exist to replace anything), and they can use their effort to work towards it or not appropriately. Now, leaving aside that I've always been sceptical that a Wiktionary *could* work with nothing more powerful than a bunch of wikis (since I don't know to what extent the current setup is and isn't working effectively), let's look at the *risks* involved in Gerard et al's "marketting zeal": Scenario 1: an "alpha" version is set up, and proves unpopular/ineffective compared to the existing "bunch of wikis" approach. Result: some programmers waste some time writing a piece of software that never gets used for anything; if they didn't enjoy the challenge, this may be a blow, but only to them. Everyone else goes back to doing whatever it is they're doing on the existing wikis. Scenario 2: an Ultimate Wiktionary is set up, comes into active use, but the community is split over whether or not it is effective, with some preferring the old wikis. Result: this seems to me the worst danger, and I presume is what is meant by "...the currently existing community structure will be in a shambles". It could end up creating a fork, or forcing "the community" to make some kind of decision on which route to follow, with a "put up or shut up" message to the losing side of the debate. At worst, it could lead to *both* projects (many-wiktionaries and UW) being abandoned. But how likely is that latter scenario, really? If there are fundamental problems with the system, or the concept itself, it will simply fail to win over users from the existing setup, and it will go away. If there are improvements that need to be made before it can be used as the primary tool by the communities, the community will demand those improvements. Damage will be done only if it is good enough to convince some people, but bad enough that others remain unconvinced that it will *ever* be as good as the existing setup. I don't think the risk of that happening is anything like great enough to give up at this stage. And Scenario 3, of course, is that UW becomes a much more powerful and useful resource than the sum of the existing Wiktionary projects. -- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]

On Tue, 2005-06-21 at 00:31 +0200, Sabine Cretella wrote: I think to have most DICTs of the bigger languages will be 1,5 GB. I currently have 1.2 GB in my /usr/share/dictd, but that's with an older version of the English Wikipedia. Maybe we can simply start with some Wiktionaries. Just reply in private for the details I need to know. ciao, Kasper

James R. Johnson wrote: You won't see too many differences - the data is there, but you choose from which language you start - so let's say I start from Italian with my search I will see things similar to it.wiktionary.org - of course the "visual aspect" is not really defined now - so the presentation of the data might be different, but the contents will be the same you see now on a wiki page. The thing is: many wiktionaries do not have a structure that is easy to convert to UW - this would mean to do things twice and that does not make sense to me. UW was created out of the fact that we do things more than just once. For example: I know five languages, so I could contribute to at least five wiktionaries adding German translations ... but this does not make sense - I would add five times the same words and need five times those two minutes to go there and add. On UW I insert this word just once and so the other four times can be used for other words, write a definition (in my mothertognue), classify words etc. This means that we are going to be more productive. The use of EC terminology has nothing to to with imperialism the US gets accused of. We just received data from the EC and they are interested in UW - that's all. Of course, knowing a terminology of a certain economical area allows also for better business in that area ... so this should be some kind of stimuli for the US government to contribute ;-) The contents of UW depends from the contributors just like any other project around. So whoever contributes valuable data is welcome. Ciao, Sabine ___________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger: chiamate gratuite in tutto il mondo http://it.beta.messenger.yahoo.com