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.
Being able to extract the data from the English Wiktionary is something that has always been on my mind. It is one of the considerations. Ease of editing is another. That's why the entries in Wiktionary may not look very pretty, but they are built up in a very logical way. It is possible, although probably not trivial, to process them with a script.
If XML is not to be edited by hand, then how are we going to edit it? Is it compatible with the Wiki concept?
If you want database structures, I can give you those. I have been designing a relational database capable of storing everything that is relevant for a dictionary. The problem is in the user interface. That's where I'm stuck. Another problem is how to keep a history of what was changed. Another thing is that I don't have any idea how performant my database would be. Building a presentable report for an entry involves solving relations between many, many tables.
Anyway, if you're interested in having a look at it, I will gladly send you the OpenOffice.org drawing with the table structures.
Jo, all this is very interesting - not only to me, but to some colleagues as well.
I am copying this message to some of them.
Many of us are translators and our difficulty normally is the structure and not the content. So if there's a way to combine things it is mostly needed and the more people know about this the easier we probably can find a way on how to concentrate efforts and exclude double work.
I am sure: most of the things we need are already there, they just need to be adapted to be able to work "cross over" for different projects.
So please, if you can: let us have a look at your structure.
Ciao and thank you!
Sabine