I guess "old-school" is probably a good term. I have very little
involvement on the technical side of things. I do find it a chore to insert a picture or a table, but I figure it out when I have to. When templates appear in an article that I am editing, I need to make extra effort just to track where some of them come from or what they mean. If I, as a person who has been here for over three years, am having trouble with this, it must be worse for a non-technical person who just wants to indulge his love of words.
I too am alarmed at the proposal, as much as I have seen it. I am technical(well, used to be) 28 years in the computer industry, starting at the most technical levels of system programming, but over the years migrating to the role of helping general business users get the best out of systems, as business analyst, system designer, project manager.
One thing I learned was - never let a technician design a system. It will be great for the technician's personal uses, but a huge chance it will be useless to the general users.
Like Ec I find even the present level of codification annoyingly complicated. Requiring any significant level of codification from general users would just knock out 99%of the population form being contributors, asituation we cannot go towards.
From what little I have learned so far of this idea, including the complete
lack of communication with the user community, the idea of introducing a new more technical Ultimate Wiktionary sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
Richardb
rb_wiktionary@boult.mailshell.com
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rb_wiktionary@boult.mailshell.com wrote:
I guess "old-school" is probably a good term. I have very little
involvement on the technical side of things. I do find it a chore to insert a picture or a table, but I figure it out when I have to. When templates appear in an article that I am editing, I need to make extra effort just to track where some of them come from or what they mean. If I, as a person who has been here for over three years, am having trouble with this, it must be worse for a non-technical person who just wants to indulge his love of words.
I too am alarmed at the proposal, as much as I have seen it. I am technical(well, used to be) 28 years in the computer industry, starting at the most technical levels of system programming, but over the years migrating to the role of helping general business users get the best out of systems, as business analyst, system designer, project manager.
One thing I learned was - never let a technician design a system. It will be great for the technician's personal uses, but a huge chance it will be useless to the general users.
Like Ec I find even the present level of codification annoyingly complicated. Requiring any significant level of codification from general users would just knock out 99%of the population form being contributors, asituation we cannot go towards.
From what little I have learned so far of this idea, including the
complete lack of communication with the user community, the idea of introducing a new more technical Ultimate Wiktionary sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
Richardb
Hi Richard,
GerardM is not exactly a technical user, or he would be implementing it all by himself. The idea of the UW, as he likes to call it, is to take away the need to know anything technical. OK, the markup as it is in Wikipedia can stay, of course. But it won't be necessary anymore to know which headings should be used. The UI should propose that, in the language of the user. It is then stored in the DB with a tag to indicate the language it was written in.
Polyglot
rb_wiktionary@boult.mailshell.com wrote:
Like Ec I find even the present level of codification annoyingly complicated. Requiring any significant level of codification from general users would just knock out 99%of the population form being contributors, asituation we cannot go towards.
The concept here is to _decrease_ rather than _increase_ the level of complexity for users. One reason the present system is annoyingly complicated is that we are forcing the software to do more than it was designed to do, and failing to automate things for the user that could be automated.
From what little I have learned so far of this idea, including the complete lack of communication with the user community, the idea of introducing a new more technical Ultimate Wiktionary sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
Well, I think we can avert disaster now that everyone is talking. I did not personally realize that people weren't fully informed about this -- that's my own fault.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
rb_wiktionary@boult.mailshell.com wrote:
From what little I have learned so far of this idea, including the complete lack of communication with the user community, the idea of introducing a new more technical Ultimate Wiktionary sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
Well, I think we can avert disaster now that everyone is talking. I did not personally realize that people weren't fully informed about this -- that's my own fault.
There's no need to blame yourself on this one. Gerard did raise his idea some time ago, although someone like rb didn't come onto the scene until later, and was bound to find this more alarming than I. This doesn't mean that I agree with or even understand all of Gerard's proposal. It's a fact of life that new technical proposals are constantly being raised. Our developers know to exercise caution before giving them the green light, and you should not be put in a position to approve things before their time. Let's just say that Gerard's promotional claims have run far ahead of his technical developments.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
rb_wiktionary@boult.mailshell.com wrote:
From what little I have learned so far of this idea, including the complete lack of communication with the user community, the idea of introducing a new more technical Ultimate Wiktionary sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
Well, I think we can avert disaster now that everyone is talking. I did not personally realize that people weren't fully informed about this -- that's my own fault.
There's no need to blame yourself on this one. Gerard did raise his idea some time ago, although someone like rb didn't come onto the scene until later, and was bound to find this more alarming than I. This doesn't mean that I agree with or even understand all of Gerard's proposal. It's a fact of life that new technical proposals are constantly being raised. Our developers know to exercise caution before giving them the green light, and you should not be put in a position to approve things before their time. Let's just say that Gerard's promotional claims have run far ahead of his technical developments.
Ec
Ray, There is no need to be alarmed. It is not me who is going to do the programming. It is not even be only me who will design the files and their relations. There are several interested parties with awareness of this subject that want to play a part. There are professionals in the language industry who like the idea. They are translators, they are language technicians. Apart from that I do have some awareness of what computers and relational databases can do. I even have some qualifications. As to our programmers, it is our chief of research who is the architect of Wikidata, the underlying engine of what "Ultimate Wiktionary" will be built on.
Promotional claims, no they are verifiable claims. Understanding what the technical concepts are and understanding what it can be used is something that I do claim. I have done the footwork on the Dutch wiktionary, I have implemented the ideas that make the nl.wiktionary tick in the fa.wiktionary to see what the issues are in a right to left language.
As to giving the green light, we are passed that point. There is a green light. We are programming. Ultimate Wiktionary has moved from an idea to the implementation phase. This is the time to talk about what a database scheme should look like. This is not a time to sit back and relax.
Thanks, GerardM
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Jimmy Wales wrote:
rb_wiktionary@boult.mailshell.com wrote:
From what little I have learned so far of this idea, including the complete lack of communication with the user community, the idea of introducing a new more technical Ultimate Wiktionary sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
Well, I think we can avert disaster now that everyone is talking. I did not personally realize that people weren't fully informed about this -- that's my own fault.
There's no need to blame yourself on this one. Gerard did raise his idea some time ago, although someone like rb didn't come onto the scene until later, and was bound to find this more alarming than I. This doesn't mean that I agree with or even understand all of Gerard's proposal. It's a fact of life that new technical proposals are constantly being raised. Our developers know to exercise caution before giving them the green light, and you should not be put in a position to approve things before their time. Let's just say that Gerard's promotional claims have run far ahead of his technical developments.
Ray,
Did you already go and have a look at the proposals for yourself? Of course it takes time to implement new ideas. I still think Gerard and co deserve the benefit of the doubt on this one. There is a lot that can be improved to the Wiktionaries in their current form and Gerard is on a good path to improve them. The time frame he proposed was not realistic and maybe he shouldn't have proposed a time frame. He got things moving though and that's an accomplishment in itself. It will cause some disruption and it will be a lot of work to convert the material we have already. I'm sure the community will bear it, once they see the concept is sound. It is not yet possible to see a model of the software in action. It is possible to give input on parts that are glaringly missing at this point though. Take advantage of it.
Anyway, if after all it doesn't work out, the Wiktionaries in their current form are still there. Everybody who wants to will still be able to continue working on them and this will remain possible for quite some time to come. Gerard believes in this project so much, that he foresees everybody abandoning the current way of working and starting on the UW and I believe he is right. It will take a lot of time though. That's not a problem. Time is on our side.
Greetings,
Polyglot
wiktionary-l@lists.wikimedia.org