Ray Saintonge wrote:
The current format is adequate. Your proposal makes no mention of the possible sacrifices in terms of ease of editing, a key feature in all the wikis. How will flexibility of format be maintained?
XML is not to edited by hand. You are absolutely right about that. However, the current format is not without its problems. At this moment an English word cannot be re-used easily in other languages. Things are free formatted at the moment. It would be a good thing if we start thinking about creating some database structures for use within wiktionary. It would rid us of these dratted templates like {{en}} and {{-en-}}. They work, it is the best thing around but they are ugly.
What I propose at this time is to get us thinking about importing and exporting in an XML format. And considering changes to enhance the functionality within all wiktionaries and the functionality to the outside world.
One of the aims of wikimedia is to create open content. By having our data in our proprietary format, we do not achieve what can be achieved.
Thanks, Gerard