Ray Saintonge wrote:
Angela wrote:
On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 19:10:05 +0100, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Wikidata is a new project... does the community supports this ?
Wikidata itself isn't really a project. It's more of a technical solution to some of the problems on existing projects.
The implementation of Wikidata will obviously need community support -- do Wiktionarians want to merge their projects into the "ultimate Wiktionary", for example -- but I don't think the feature itself should need consensus before its written, only before its implemented on Wikimedia in a way which would affect existing projects.
Gerard is full of technical solutions. Some of them may indeed be brilliant, but I don't have the technical expertise to judge. The real question lies in whether contributors whose primary interest is language will be driven away because the editing process is too complicated. One of the most important features of Wikipedia has been that anyone can learn how to edit with very little training. At one time their were passionate arguments over the use of html or wiki markup. Wiki markup was seen then as too complicated. We've gone a long way since then, but we still need to be aware that many of the contributors that we may seek are not computer geeks, but knowledgeable people in the subjects that are their passion.
One of the aims of the ultimate wiktionary is to hide all the complicated stuff that you currently find in nl:wiktionary. I am on record saying that it is a crutch. (typically you use a crutch when the walking is difficult). When you CAN use it, you have learned many ISO-639 and codes by heart like I have. In the ultimate wiktionary the crutch will not be needed anymore as all the needed information will be hidden in the User Interface.
I also see Gerard's proposal as directed toward the needs of translation. That's a commendable goal, but a dictionary is more than that. It is just as much a reference for people about their own language. And people writing about their own language need to feel free to do so easily without needing to be concerned about the potential effects on translations. \
The current implementation that led to Ultimate Wiktionary was directed toward using content in multiple wiktionaries. The ultimate wiktionary is directed towards integration of the wiktionaries so that content added/changed in a language will be available to all people interested in that language. The crux ot all that I have done in wiktionary, is that 80% of wiktionary content is language independent.
Also much of what Gerard says is theoretical, and very little of it gives real practical examples of how things will work Saying that a database structured on xml would be a big improvement does not mean much to those who are not intimately acquainted with xml.
The current content of nl:wiktionary can be easily moved to it:wiktionary to hi:wiktionary or to .. and it will be correct with the exception of stuff like description and etymology. That is not theoretical, that is really practical. I have moved stuff to the fa:wiktionary (Persian) and, it works..
XML is nice. We will want an import and export mechanism. BUT the proposal that is to be implemented is not about XML, it is about making the 80% of all effort count in all wiktionaries so that when I add the 3000+ words in Papiamento with translations and everything, there will be a Papiamento resource to ALL users of wiktionary.
As much as I've advocated for a unified Wikisource, I also advocate for separate Wiktionaries. Without getting too far into that debate now, I can at least point out that Wikisource deals with static texts that will not need to be repeatedly edited.
If Gerard wants to experiment with his ideas on some form of Wikidata project I won't stand in his way. If he wants to go from that into some kind of "Ultimate Wiktionary" he may come up with something that works. Maybe it will eventually be meaningful to migrate existing translation material there. But let's not go there until he has something practical established. The timetable for that may be considerably longer than the one which he so optimistically expresses.
The one thing I am asking is: read about the proposals, think about what this tries to accomplish. Ask questions about what does not make sense. The great thing about the wikimedia projects is the importance of the community. I have a dream and, was able to accomplish something. I sincerely hope that we will find it usefull and will be happy to move forward
The current timetable is about implementing the necessary building blocks. It is split up in several milestones that will allow us to do reality checks on the way. The timetable says nothing about the conversion of all the wiktionaries and, it does not make it mandatory to move over to the ultimate wiktionary. In time, people will move over as and when they think it is usefull to do so.
Ec