Ray Saintonge wrote:
Yann Forget wrote:
Hi, I think I found some errors in the Dutch Wiktionary (wrong language):
- http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Catalee (not Marathi)
- http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D1%83%D1%85%D1%88%D0%B8 (not Tamil)
- http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Catal_Ke (not Bihari)
- http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Denmark (not Malayalam)
- http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/air (not Malayalam)
- http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ingraji (not Marathi)
This seems like an awfully difficult problem to police. We are basically at the mercy of the person who puts up this kind of material. Although I'm very active on the English Wiktionary I seldom touch the translations except for matters affecting formatting. This is because I have absolutely no idea whether most of these are correct. Often these translations are imported from some other source without any attempt at fact checking whatsoever; some people seem to take pride in having the longest possible lists of translations. Having persistently dead wrong information can affect credibility even more than rampant POVs. At least with a POV issue there is a recognition that there is more than one way to look at a subject.
A possible solution might be to forbid the inclusion of translations unless
- There is an active Wiktionary in that language, or
- A source has been cited for a particular translation.
Are there any other fairly easy ways for us to fact-check this kind of information?
Ec
The problem here is not that we need to POLICE it, this is a situation where we meet our strengths and our weaknesses. The model that we use is one of collaboration; the more people work on the same data the better the quality. Our problem is that to a large extend we do not work together as much as we could; we all have our own little wiktionaries and we hardly notice what happens outside our view. This increases the likelyhood of errors. The proposal to come to one integrated wiktionary is a way of solving many of these problems.
I am happy with the increased cooperation between many wiktionaries, I see it as one of the prerequisites of the maturation of the Wiktionary.
The idea of forbidding translations is contrary to what wiktionary aims to be. With Wiktionary content it is simple; it is correct or it needs improvement. The idea that errors are persistent is wrong as the idea is to correct any and all errors. The conclusion should be to increase any means that will improve cooperation and not restrict the inclusion of new data that is believed to be correct.
Thanks, GerardM