[Foundation-l] Forking the Wiki

[Ray Saintonge]

Magosányi Árpád wrote:

>A levelezőm azt hiszi, hogy Daniel Mayer a következőeket írta:
>  
>
>>--- Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>Being separate from -- in the sense of having its own policies,
>>>community discussion areas, and goals -- does not necessarily require
>>>having a separate wiki.
>>>      
>>>
>>But being different types of reference works does. Wikipedia is an
>>encyclopedia, Wikibooks is a collection of textbooks/manuals, Wiktionary is a
>>translating dictionary and thesaurus. Each has its own unique way of presenting
>>information to the reader (Wikibooks instructs, Wikipedia informs, Wikisource
>>regurgitates) and each has very different concepts about what goes onto a page
>>    
>>
>I cannot see what should be the difference between words in wikipedia and
>wiktionary beyond that wiktionary should have links to other words in
>other languages, which can easily put into wikipedia in a
>non-obstructive manner.
>
The difference is between what the words mean and the stories 
surrounding them.  For a dictionary writer it is enough guide a person 
to describe and document how that word might be used in writing.  If we 
approach a hot-button word like "terrorist" we would offer a definition, 
and show how it would have been used by various authors, but we would 
have no need to attach that label to anybody.  This allows us to look at 
the word more objectively.  We don't need to get into an NPOV battle 
over it.

>Think about yourself. If you are asked to instruct, you will instruct.
>If you are asked for information, you will give it. If you are using a
>word, you will be aware a lot of concepts attached to that word:
>other ideas, events, pieces of art, quotations, forms of it in another
>languages, etc.
>
Precisely so.  Words have denotations (specific dictionary meanings) and 
connotations (supplementary impressions that are as much derived from 
their context).  Words like "miserly" and "frugal" have very similar 
denotations but their connotations are worlds apart.  When we look at 
specific contexts, the word as a tool of the writer can easily be 
overwhelmed.

>Nevertheless you are an integral personality, and not a schizophrene,
>and not a maniac.
>
>What we now have is a schizophrene. If I ask it what a "kutya" is in
>Hungarian, it tells me it is a "dog" in english. But I cannot really
>figure out anything about what a "kutya" or "dog" is, is there
>differences in the use of the words, and I would never arrive to
>Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I cannot even figure out what "dog" is to
>an Englishman: I won't even get to the english wiktionary page
>for "dog", not even mentioning the wikipedia entry.
>("kutya" is the example of how a wiktionary page should look like,
>this is why I cite it as an example)
>
A lot of these things will take time to sort out.  Much depends on what 
use a person has for another language.  As an English speaker who has no 
particular desire to learn Hungarian I could still want to know what a 
Hungarian means when he says "kutya".  The English Wiktionary entry for 
"dog" does give two Hangarian words ("kutya" and "eb"), and I may wonder 
what the difference is.  If I wanted to write in Hungarian I would at 
least need to refer back to the Hungarian Wiktionary to learn the 
difference; this would also be the case of I were translating material 
from Hungarian.  Translating by just using a dictionary can give some 
strange results.  A "dog" in English can also mean an "andiron", and it 
could very well seem strange for a Hungarian to find a "kutya" sitting 
in a fireplace holding up logs.   In any event, a person who wants to 
know about the word "dog" may not be particularly interested in such 
things as its biological history or about how it is used to herd sheep 
in Scotland, or about children being killed by vicious breeds of dog.  
These ideas are more suited to an encyclopedia.

In its basic usage "dog" can be interpreted very easily, because it is a 
concrete idea.  The more abstract ideas like "terrorst" or "frugal" can 
be far more problematical.  In English, perhaps more than in any other 
major language, words are defined by their usage.  There is no English 
Academy to dictate the use of words.  The English language may be the 
richer for it since this gives it immense power to generate new words, 
but at the same time it makes life more difficult for the lexicographers.

On Arthur Conan Doyle, I was disappointed that the person who began that 
project on Wiktionary went away before he could take it further.  He 
made some very good points to support it, notably that a more recent 
writer would better reflect the current state of the language than 
Shakespeare.  Looking at a prolific writer like Doyle that way is a huge 
job, but it does reflect on the way the the Oxford Dictionary was 
produced in the late 1800s.  Doyle died in 1930, so even more recent 
writers should also be so treated, but there we would also need to look 
at possible copyright problems, and that is quite another story.

>>and linking (very few internal links in Wikibooks and Wikisource, for example).
>>    
>>
>
>Our favourite wiki have never taken an art or literature class.
>If it did, it would have a lot of asociations on each Wikisource items.
>Also, when I have taken high school, our math, physics and chemistry
>classes have been built upon each other. If they had been Wiki pages,
>there would have been a lot of references.
>
This is all very fine, but what it comes down to is much work.  As 
valuable as these references may be it still takes someone to do the 
work of creating all those links.  If each one is to be checked properly 
the work will be very slow.

Ec