LS,
In the nl:wiktionary (WikiWoordenboek) we are experimenting with the use of messages to indicate languages, wordtypes, genders and all sorts of other things that go with words. To indicate a language, we use the ISO 639 code.
Mr Suisui, who can be found on both the nl:- and the ja:wiktionary took an intrest and translated, together with some more people on ja:wiktionary, the templates into Japanese.
Because of this I was able to make an entry in ja:wiktionary for “Nederlands” (you English call it Dutch :). I was also able to create the Japanese word for Nederlands and I added all translations from the nl:wiktonary there.
The one thing I cannot do is give meaning to the word in Japanese. And at present I cannot create the Japanese word in the nl:wiktionary due to technical reasons.
At the same time Timwi informed us of the existence of his site with the words for languages in other languages http://timwi.dyndns.org:8989/cgi-bin/a.cgi?r=s&l=ISO%20639 This is a real treasure trove. The only thing missing is an indication for capitalization and genders. But it has Armenian and Farsi and and :) .. !!
Timwi wants to discontinue his site and wants to incorporate it in the wiktionaries. Now the question: were will we enter all those words first?
The nl:wiktionary uses messages throughout so that makes it easy for migration to other wiktionaries.
The en:wiktionary has more English words for languages but, you can use the messages there..
A happy GerardM
LS,
I understand from Brian and from Timwi (who placed the monobook.js and monobook.css on nl:wiktionary) that this is where these things must be fixed. I am happy, this does indicate which way to go.
Brian mentioned that he is going to revisit the “template inclusion”. I hope that he will fix the inclusion of headers from within templates; the problem is that no TOC is generated from headers entered from within templates. This would help me a lot in making the standardised presentation (as I envision it) acceptable.
In his mail Brian mentions: “English and German are exceptions to this rule because of special-case work done by the respective contributors.” I have several words ready for inclusion in the nl:wiktionary. I cannot create them for the current restrictions. The idea of wiktionary is that it not only provides the local language words but also the words in other languages. Therefore it is part and parcel of what wiktionary stands for.
The "Enhanced recent changes (not for all browsers)" works again as specified. Thanks!
Brian is right where he says that he does not want to publish everywhere what he is doing. Consequently I am not subscribed to wikitech-l. He mentions that I cannot expect a minimum level of service. This is true up to a point. When a massive exercise like the “1.3 upgrade” is undertaken, there should be a proper conversion with all the necessary steps taken. This does mean that the sysops as a group undertake this. All steps should be taken for all environments. Doing it this way ensures that you provide a quality upgrade and, it prevents all kinds of nastiness down the line. It is in the interest of the sysops to ensure a standardized environment!!
Practically: the {{msg:-nl-}} should be converted to {{-nl-}} there is a script to do it. I cannot run it. It should be part of finishing up the upgrade.
Brian does not think much of en:wiktionary. He thinks that it needs many new features. In the nl:wiktionary, I am adding words for languages with a ISO 639 identification. I have a standardized way to indicate the translations (using ISO 639 to indicate the language) this should enable the quick translation from words from one wiktionary to other wikionaries that support the messages that are used.
I also have a 8878 word glossary (public domain) with mainly English botanical terms with a Dutch explanation. Those are the things I work on.
Concluding; Wikimedia is a success because of all the people that work on it. We all play our part and we do what we can, what we want. However, the aim is to produce something that stands up to scrutiny. It is a long hard road and traveling it together makes it enjoyable.
Thanks,
Gerard
o {{-nl-}} there is a script to do it. I cannot run it. It should be part of finishing up the upgrade.
Brian doe
Hi,
I meant to post this here a long time ago, but I never got around to it.
Before Wiktionary existed, I had made a website called "Languages in
Languages" where people could enter the names of all languages in all
other languages. It is far from complete, but I'm pretty sure that you
can find stuff there that isn't already in Wiktionary. By now I'm pretty
fed up with this site, and Wiktionary is way better anyway, so I'm
asking you to go through the data and integrate it all into Wiktionary.
http://timwi.dyndns.org:8989/cgi-bin/a.cgi
Please notice, however, that this URL only works when my computer is
online (and I'm in England, so if you're in the US you'd have to try it
early in the day).
If you want the entire data on one page, you can have it here:
WARNING: 2.4 MB FILE !
http://timwi.dyndns.org:8989/cgi-bin/a.cgi?r=l
WARNING: 2.4 MB FILE !
Once you are sure that you have taken all the information into
Wiktionary, let me know, so I can finally take this thing down :)
Greetings,
Timwi
LS,
When I follow what has happened the last few days, I can not help but come to the conclusion that things are done with wikipedia in mind.
Take for instance those lines that are "gratis" when you use headings. They make excellent sense when in Wikipedia but they look _horrible_ in wiktionary. Have a look at http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Breton for instance. It does not look good.
Take a look at the restriction on the number of messages (5) per page. This is "reasonable" in wikipedia, but when you want to internationalise a page and use messages to indicate things that differ from language to language, like the gender of a word, you can have dozens words that are masculine and you get garbage as a result.
When there are problems, they seem to be relatively quickly fixed for the wikipedia's but, for the wiktionaries the consistency is lacking.
When you have an environment like wiktionary/wikipedia they _need_ to be the same in order to be able to fix things and understand the behaviour of the software. The wiktionaries do not behave in a same way. You can create an article with a Chinese (characters) name in English but not on the nl:wiktionary (and others).
We have just had a major disaster. What I expected in the aftermath was some consolidation. However, now the "Enhanced recent changes (not for all browsers)" in preferences is up the creek!!
What concerns me is that for us "simple" users there is no idea what problems are being tacled. What the priorities are and if things still get tested prior to production.
*Is the idea that we have stabilized??
*Do we still have database problems? (anecdotal evidence says we do)
*Is there a moratorium on minor stuff so that there is the peace and quiet to fix the major stuff?
Sorry for being difficult,
GerardM
Gabriel Wicke wrote:
> I've just committed some major changes:
I don't know if there's a connection here, but this afternoon
'Enchanced recent changes' stopped working for me (I can't open
the lists of changes that are groupped together). Checked in
Firefox and Konqueror.
While I am at it, some feedback from pl.wiktionary.org:
* editing MediaWiki:monobook.css doesn't seem to have any effect
(I tried 'a {text-decoration: none;}'). It works in user/css though
* interwiki links Wiktionary -> Wikipedia ([[w:this sort]]) are broken
again: they point to www.wikipedia.org instead of the national Wikipedia
* the Template: namespace (Szablon:) doesn't exist (?). Sometimes
{{text}} results in the same as [[text]], sometimes it results in
displaying 'text.29">'
* limiting {{messages}} to five occurences per page is a bad idea in
case of Wiktionaries, where entries need to follow specific patterns
in a much higher degree than on Wikipedias
--
tsca * Tomasz Sienicki
LS,
On the nl:wiktionary, we use the message {{m}} a lot. It is used to indicate the gender of a word. With words like Engels (English) we have many translations that require a gender indication.
This used to work fine, now however, from the fifth onwards it does not produce the text that is in the message ''m'', but it gives us a [[Sjabloon:M]] which is plain wrong.
Any suggestions why and what can be done ??
Thanks,
GerardM
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Some more research:
*I can now make an article in the Chinese language
*Articles with a ? in the title I cannot rename. (I am moderator)
*Many messages are lost to me. (not all) the lost messages start and end with a "-".
Is there a backup to remedy things??
Thanks,
GerardM
Yesterday evening, we have been converted to the new software. I was hopefull that the conversion would also solve the problem we have with non alphabetical characters. Now, this situation is worse as characters like äëïöü àéèêç are not even shown in the bodies of the text as they were not shown in the titles of articles.
Could someone have a looksee what is amiss ??
Thanks,
GerardM
Hi,
A few months ago I asked a developer on the chat channel whether case
sensitivity in the links would be possible to implement. He said it would be
way to complicated to do so. Especially considering that a lot would be
broken.
That's when I started fervently to add an ''example'' under the part of
speech headers. This seemed redundant at first, but it was quickly accepted
nonetheless. In fact, I think we are very happy with this solution and there
is no reason why the German Wiktionary couldn't solve the problem in the
same way. The English Wiktionary also describes German words and that's part
of the reason this solution was adopted. The software was initially written
for an encyclopedia and we got to use it as it was. I must say, I like the
solution as it elegantly makes the pages self-contained.
So now, the story is, that it would be possible to make things
case-sensitive. As I said, a few months ago, it was me asking the very same
question as, obviously, case matters for a dictionary. Not only for a German
version of it. If it does happen, I'm sure the English Wiktionary will be
adapted pretty quickly (It's relatively easy to write a script to achieve
it, exactly thanks to the solution we started using). Somebody needs to
write it though, and I would rather write a script to copy entries from one
Wiktionary to another, once I get the time to write it. (I'll start from the
pyWikiBot scripts)
If this is a vote though, I tend to be against it, at this moment in time.
What was a workaround for a problem we struggled with, has become an elegant
solution. Behind the example there is room for the word gender, if
appliccable, and then there is room for plurals and diminutives in the case
of Nouns and comparatives and superlatives in the case of Adjectives.
Conjugations of verbs and further flexion of words in languages like Polish,
Russian etc. go under their own heading in table format.
Polyglot
Member of Linux MandrakeClub
http://www.mandrakeclub.com