Gerard, please read this before I send it out ... it might be much too strong ....
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The differences between Gerard and me are based in a fundamental philosophical differences about the nature of Wiktionaries in particular and dictionaries in general. His position is a logical consequence from the premise that Wiktionary is just a translation dictionary; I disagree with his premise by considering Wiktionary to be much more than that.
Wiktionary has a definition for each word + thesaurus part +++
There's plenty of information on what is in there.
Each Wiktionary may be tasked with explaining all words from all languages, but it does so for the benefit of speakers of its own language. Gerard's Ultimate Wiktionary would work well if translatiions were simply questions of one on one relationships. As one example, the word "minister" exists in both Dutch, and you are probably safe to use the same word when going from Dutch to English. It doesn't work in the other direction. You can't translate the English "minister" to its Dutch equivalent when "predikant" is intended. Add in a third language and it can get very complicated. As an experiment get someone to translate a short paragraph from a modern English novel into Dutch, a second person translates the same thing from Dutch to Italian, and a third translates it back to English. Compare the result with the original. The Wiktionaries in individual languages are in a better position to explain this kind of problem in the target language for the translation. Sometimes the savings found in a technical shorcut present a false economy.
There is a place for a project that brings things together, but there is also a need to recognize the limitations of such a project. It can't be everything to everybody in the way that Gerard seems to envision his project.
It seems as if you are not informed what Ultimate Wiktionary is about - so please before going ahead telling things that are not fact, but your private meaning, please go, understand what you are talking about and then come back to discuss.
All this was explained more than once (in the discussionlists and on meta) and obviously you did not read it, but you only read and write what you like.
Again: UW will show the same contents as the normal wiktionaries - it already considers what you are talking about here - one example for what you are telling here is a word out of the Christianity glossary - mitra in Italian has two meanings while it has only one in Dutch and in German. You are only talking about words to be translated and not about meanings to be translated - these are two different things. Do you really think that people are such stupid not to consider this? Or is it just a private thingie that you have to show you are the only one to be right?
Adding a third language is not complicated, as the relation and the meanings are always and only between two words. There are already other dictionaries around that consider this, UW is not the first one to be based on such an idea. International organisations, like Lisa (and they are THE language specialists for localisation) and Kennisnet (they are education specialist and work in many languages) are interested in it and believe it its value otherwise why would they have paid for the programming - right ... in such difficult times many are economically living they have money to waist, or not? So you assume to know more than language specialists, right? Did you ever actually do a localisation of a document, a manual or a website?
I repeat: if you want to be constructive and contribute: every critics is welcome. If you want to be destructive: no critics is accepted.
I know I am becoming personal here, but answering the same things over and over again with people who obviously don't read but only ready "a bit" and then have to show whatever is useless, is time lost that could be used to improve wiktionary and other wikimedia projects.
I am really upset with you, really. Now come on and wake up and see what you are really talking about. I know you have huge potentials, you could do so much, so please use them to improve things.
Ciao, Sabine
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