Reacting toAndrew Dunbar.
A word may have several meanings in a language. Each meaning has its own definition. Your "topo" would propably best translate to rodent which includes both mice and rats. When there is no exact word or phrase for mouse in Italian, it should not be only translated with the Italian topo. I am sure a description in Italian for a mouse is possible.
At this moment in time we do not have a new quick system. What we are discussing is the need for publishing our content in a re-usable intermediary way like XML this should allow us to publish our current content. How this XML will be used is what you talk about and you are right it should be used with care. However, an en:wikionary English word, its pronounciation, its translations its usage can all be validly used in nl:wiktionary, the definition of the meanings the etymology need translation. We can make an interwiki to en: and we can find these for the time we have not done that yet.
It is not only {{lang}} but also {{-trans-}} ((-syn-}} {{-ant-}} etc. that will get their local meaning in the local setup. This is not ideal. These codes and their associated content should end up in a proper database so that all of this can be done by the software.
Now when a good non en:wictionary editor starts with a word and comes up with inaccuracies in the en:wiktionary, would you not like to know about that? Would it not be valuable to you that you can benefit from the work ?
Articles on wiktionary in META can be found by their inclusion in the category:wiktionary.
As to copying and pasting, this is the technique that is currently open to us. We do not have something better. Because of copy and paste I was able to add loads of translations to English, Japanese, Vietnamese words.
Opening up the wiktionary content will be hard. That is why I want us to discuss it first before we commit to it. Once we decide that we need this, the database will change, the way we enter content will change, much content needs to be revisited. All this while the basic content stays the same. We still want all the data that we have, but we will be able to share it.
I have asked the wikimedia board to consider open content strategic; this is one way of eventually getting developer attention.
There are open content English on-line dictionaries bigger than wiktionary that use XML, would it not be great if we could cooperate ?? Use their researched content and them using our content ??
One aim for content could be to have a definition in wiktionary for all Open Office words...
Thanks, GerardM