E.g. what disturbes a bit is that foreign language words are "seen" in the wiktionary. This is confusing. German should only give German terminology in its lists, English the English one, Dutch the Dutch one etc. When I am on the English wiktionary and find "Deutsch" as a single page this is not logic to me - the term "Deutsch" should be linked to the German wiktionary instead and should not appear in the listing under the letter "D".
If a high-school student was using Wiktionary for German class, it would be kind of useless to send her over to read a definition of "Deutsch" written *in* German, eh? Not all words translate mechanically either, consider "Ordnung" for instance; you need an explanation in English of its subtleties, not in a language with whose subtleties you are unfamiliar.
So the definition should be together with the English translation of the term "Ordnung" and not a single term where you can't look up the alternatives at once or see below. Again something that can be achieved easily with databases and then of course uploaded accordingly to the wiktionary.
e.g. German-English
Ordnung f (-; no pl)
allg. order; Ordentlichkeit: order(liness), tidiness; Vorschriften: rules pl, regulations pl; Anordnung: arrangement; System: system, set-up; Rang: class: in Ordnung all right; tech. etc in (good) order;
in Ordnung bringen put right (a. fig.); Zimmer etc: tidy up; reparieren: repair, fam. fix (a. fig.); (in) Ordnung halten keep (in) order; et. ist nicht in Ordnung (mit) there is s.th. wrong (with).
so every singles meaning or definition or whatever needs to stay with its translation
Now let's assume that Ordnung has just 5 possible translations into other languages (this is easier to calculate) and there fore if we have the translation into 30 languages we would have approximately 150 different terms in different languages right? So when you look at the alphabetical word list you will have a completely mixed up list. the only possibilty would then be: create separate lists for separate languages - this would not mix up things. E.g. in the German wiktionary there wouldn't be "regulations" in the German index, but in a separate one. Mixing all languages together in one huge pool is not user friendly at all - what about terms in languages with other alphabets? Do you feel people would not become a bit annoyed if, when having a look at the present terms, they find words in arabic, hebrew, russian, chinese, japanese, korean etc.?
That's what I dislike on the actual way of organising terms - you find every kind of writing in there - OK, on the English page there are the words beginning with other scripts. But how about the student studying German and going to the German wiktionary he finds "Anguille" - at a first glance if he/she knows french he/she could think that the french term is used in German as well - and this will happen - people are lazy - don't think about how we use the tools since we know them, but think about people who don't take much time - what then happens is that the student is being corrected the term and the end is: wiktionary is not a good ressource even if the fault is not wiktionary's fault, but the student's fault. He'll then talk with his friends etc. etc ... what comes out of this.
So there are two possibilities: or foreign terms are identified as such by colour/symbol/language code in the listing or there are subsections for the single listings in different languages.
Hmmm ... I hope this is understandable - I was just thinking about my pupils at school (when I was still teaching) - using the dictionary even if you explain over and over again 80% of them just take the first translation they found as they don't like reading all the context. I'd like to avoid misunderstandings - that's all. For myself I have no problems with mixed up lists - working with languages every day it is normal, but we should think about those who potentially would have difficulties.
Ciao, Sabine
(p.s. and now I'll read the rest of the mails)