On 2/28/14, Roman Zaynetdinov <romanznet(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hello, I am willing to participate in GSOC this year
for the first time,
but I am a little bit worried about choosing the idea, I have one and I am
not sure if it suits this program. I will be very glad if you will take a
small look at my idea and tell your thoughts. Will be happy to every
feedback. Thank you.
Project Idea
What is the purpose?
Help people in reading complex texts by providing inline translation for
unknown words. For me as a non-native English speaker student sometimes is
hard to read complicated texts or articles, that's why I need to search for
translation or description every time. Why not to simplify this and change
the flow from translate and understand to translate, learn and understand?
How inline translation will appear?
While user is reading an article, he could find some unknown words or words
with confusing meaning for him. At this point he clicks on the selected
word and the inline translation appears.
What should be included in inline translation?
Thus it is not just a translator, it should include not only one
translation, but a couple or more. Also more data can be included such as
synonyms, which can be discussed during project completion.
From which source gather the data?
Wiktionary is the best candidate, it is an open source and it has a wide
database. It also suits for growing your project by adding different
languages.
Evaluation needs
There are two ways in my mind right now. First is to make a web-site built
on Node.js with open API for users. Parsoid could be used for parsing data
from Wiktionary API which is suitable for Node. A small JavaScript widget
is also required for front-end representation.
Second is to make a standalone library which can be used alone on other
resources as an add-on or in browser extensions. Unfortunately, last option
is more confusing for me at this point.
Growth opportunities
I am leaving in Finland right now and I don't know Finnish as I should to
understand locals, therefore this project can be expanded by adding more
languages support for helping people like me reading, learning and
understanding texts in foreign languages.
_______________________________________________
Wikitech-l mailing list
Wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Interesting.
I actually did something kind of like this a long time ago, where the
user could double click on a word, and the definition would pop up
from wiktionary. (The thing I made was very hacky and icky, and
stopped working quite some time ago. Some people might like to have a
similar tool, but a version that doesn't suck). You can see a
screenshot at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiktionary/Look_Up_tool
Parsoid could be used for parsing data
from Wiktionary API which is suitable for Node
Just as a warning, parsing data from wiktionary into usable form is a
lot harder then it looks, so don't underestimate this step. (Or at
least it was several years ago when I last tried)
--bawolff