International Beer Parlour/Archive1

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Archive 25-06-2006
Archive 28-07-2006
Archive 29-08-2006
Archive 25-09-2006
Archive 23-10-2006
Archive 09-01-2007 (About Language lists)
Archive 06-09-2007

Contents

[edit] Babel templates

We do ask everybody to enter information on their language proficiency. We have copied many templates (User & Babel) from the English Wikipedia. They are not all conforming to the same layout and information. We would appreciate it when you check the templates that apply to you. When there are issues with particular templates, please report them in the Insect room. GerardM 12:56, 12 March 2006 (CET)
Please pay attention to category:Task list which lists templates which do not correspond exactly to template:User en, User en-1, User en-2, User en-3, User en-4, User en-5. Thanks in advance! user:Gangleri | Gangleri 23:47, 14 March 2006 (CET)


Babel
Search user languages

The font size for some content (including the text in the (user templates) need to be optimized. This is why OmegaWiki will use style templates for each language. In these template font families, font size, directionality, etc. should be specified. The format for these templates is "Template:Style xx" where "xx" is the language code.
Please help us implement the most suitable configuration for your native language and let us benefit from the test you have done before at "your" local wiki.
Without Template:Style ml text would look as follows:
മലയാളം മാതൃഭാഷയായുള്ള വ്യക്തി.

{{Style ml|ml='''[[:Category:User ml|മലയാളം]]''' '''[[:Category:User ml-N|മാതൃഭാഷയായുള്ള]]''' വ്യക്തി.}}

generates:
{{{mal}}}
Languages with script variants should use the variant after the language code: Template:Style sr-ec, Template:Style sr-jc, Template:Style sr-el, Template:Style sr-jl.
Regards user:Gangleri | Gangleri 22:08, 14 March 2006 (CET)

[edit] Transliterations

When an Expression is in a characterset that is different from what is standard for a particular wiktionary, often transliterations have been added. The problem with transliterations is, that they are language specific. It means that in order to have transliterations, you have to have values that are language specific. It is worse, they should be dialect specific. This is one reason why there is at this moment in time to room reserved for transliterations in OmegaWiki. A word like Լեհաստան (Lehastan) will loose the Lehastan.. I wonder if an Armenian would pronounce the word like an American, or an Autstralian or a Brit. GerardM 20:23, 13 March 2006 (CET)

[edit] Conventions

Beside project talk:Main Page#upper / lower case conventions and the suggestion at the end of Insect room#sort order in category:User en about the place for categories one should agree probably on more conventions. Maybe Conventions or project:Conventions would be the right place. Regards Gangleri | T 03:10, 14 March 2006 (CET)

[edit] Languages and dialects

I have been requested to bring the following discussion to this community portal from my talk page. So, the point is the following: I am interested in a dialect of the "eml" language (arzân), which is described in the following page: link to www.ethnologue.com. The full name of the language is "Emiliano-Romagnolo", and, as most Italian regional languages, it derives directly from Latin (not through Italian, I mean). It has an ISO-639-3 code (eml), but no ISO-639-2 code (where it was generically classified as "other romance", which is however just a bag for what does not fit elsewhere). The problem with this language is that a koine does not exist: "eml" is just a generic name for a set of different dialects of latin with strong lexical and grammatical links. So, no template is possible for "eml", strictly speaking, only separate templates for each dialect (mine is classified as "Western Emiliano", I suppose, but even this is too broad). How are these dialects with no code supposed to be treated? As subcases of ISO-639-3 languages? Do we need more specific templates, accepting not only a language code and a description, but also a dialect specification? --Bettelli 17:04, 21 March 2006 (CET)

Thank you to pass over here with this discussion. As said before: we will have plenty of these issues. One of the basic requirements to get the fine subdivision should be the completion of the Swadesh list of approx. 200 words as basis since this is the way to really show the differences between one language and the other - one "dialect" to the other. You mentioned that there are already dictionaries that include more than 20.000 words - maybe it would be helpful to list them somewhere. (to Gerard: where should we put such ressources as long as we don't have a portal page for a dialect/language?) As for the codes: sometimes it is hard to decide how to distinguish them. For Griko Salentino, for now we decided to use el-ita, because it is a language that comes from Greek and is spoken in Italy, but even there we have at least two varieties that differ in terminology. So how can we deal with that? ISO-language code + local attribution (large) + local attribution (more restricted?) - example: el-ita-cal, el-ita-pug? And a similar system for Emiliano? eml-west or like proposed arsan or arzan? Hmmmm .... --Sabine 18:32, 21 March 2006 (CET)

[edit] Tok Pisin babel template text

I've worked out a (tentative) set of translations for the babel templates for tpi:

  • tpi-1: Dispela manmeri i save rait long Tok Pisin liklik tasol.
    • Literally: This person [knows how to write/can write] in Tok Pisin a small amount only.
  • tpi-2: Dispela manmeri i save rait long Tok Pisin planti liklik.
    • Literally: This person can write in Tok Pisin quite a bit ("planti liklik" = "plenty little")
  • tpi-3: Dispela manmeri i save rait long Tok Pisin planti.
    • Literally: This person can write in Tok Pisin lots.
  • tpi-4: Dispela manmeri i save rait long Tok Pisin klostu olsem wantok.
    • Literally: This person can write in Tok Pisin close to native.
  • tpi-5: Dispela manmeri i wokim bisnis long Tok Pisin.
    • Literally: This person [works in/makes business out of] Tok Pisin.
  • tpi: Dispela manmeri tok bilong em i Tok Pisin.
    • Literally: This person's language is Tok Pisin. ("native" is implied in "tok bilong em")
  • And for the user_tpi category: Dispela manmeri olgeta ol i save tok long Tok Pisin.
    • Literally: These people can talk in Tok Pisin.

Corrections are more than welcome. I've included the literal translations so that you can see some of the decisions I had to make when translating. I know no word for "user"; it's easy to say "person uses" ("manmeri i yusim"), but that would make it difficult to convey "contributes" in the same sentence. (Well, for me. With luck, better speakers can come along and improve on this.) --Wytukaze 21:40, 14 March 2006 (CET)

Hmm, turns out Wikipedia does have some tpi templates after all. You lied to me, Gerard! ;) --Wytukaze 23:56, 14 March 2006 (CET)
I did not find them .. Lying is with intent .. so I was mistaken .. GerardM 00:40, 15 March 2006 (CET)

[edit] Occitan language templates

Could someone please have a look at the Occitan language templates and tell us if they are OK? Please have a look at the category. The templates were edited by an anonimous user and not knowing any Occitan I cannot check things. Thank you! --SabineCretella 14:54, 20 March 2006 (CET)

According to some web searches, it's ok. But I don't speak Occitan, so I'm not sure. Kipcool 19:43, 20 March 2006 (CET)
I am too primitive an occitan speaker, I'll extend the invitation to people who professionally deal with the language. --Bèrto 'd Sèra 21:11, 4 May 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Template:User pt-5

A suggestion for the text on the User pt-5 template: "Este usuário pode contribuir com um nível profissional de português."

Já feito. (Already done) --Shibo77 08:32, 21 March 2006 (CET)

[edit] It is ok to have user names in other scripts

Hoi,
Well, this says it all :) --ゲラルド・メイセン 09:30, 21 March 2006 (CET)

That would make it very difficult to find a username with non-ASCII characters. --Shibo77 11:25, 21 March 2006 (CET)
And make it impossible to distinguish Ms ??? from Mr ???

Jcwf 16:26, 21 March 2006 (CET)

A user has to be unique. That is basically what it is about.. When a user does not have a Latin background, he is not expected to have a Latin based username. This IS a multi language environment and you cannot expect to have one language or even one script to define the project. GerardM 16:31, 21 March 2006 (CET)
I'm sorry that I have to disagree. It is exactly because this has an international community that we need a "least common denominator". Hypothetically there are equal amounts of users from 200 different language versions of Wiktionary. More than half of them have Latin based scripts, and a great majority of them are able to type ASCII alphanumerics easily, without much trouble or installing new software. If a username was User:ゲラルド・メイセン, it would greatly favour those familiar with the Japanese script, which is 1/200 of the total user population, and heavily disfavour the other 199/200 because the other 199/200 will probably have to install a new software in order to even see the characters properly. If I wanted to find the user, ゲラルド・メイセン, unless by chance it is in the recentchanges list, it would be next to impossible to find that person. Moreover, there are times when all that is shown from a different script are boxes. On the Chinese Wiktionary, there was a vandal who made about 40 accounts calling XX names (all with 4 character usernames). As you might know the Chinese projects uses character conversion. There are four different sets of characters, and four different language settings. This means every character may have 16 different versions, and a four character username like the vandals could have 64 different versions depending on the language/character/input settings . In order to reach the vandal, I have to try each of the 64 settings. Fortunately, the vandal's usernames all happened to be shown at the top of the Allusers list. This is why I think usernames here should be easily typable on a standard alphanumeric keyboard. --Shibo77 17:38, 21 March 2006 (CET)
I agree. I have no problem with such usernames using such characters in their signatures, on their userpages, etc... but there has to be a way to find them... Celestianpower Hablame 19:57, 21 March 2006 (CET)
In many countries, including Italy, where I was born, it's illegal to use your script and your language to define yourself. My real name, as you see it here, will never be allowed to appear on my passport, as issued by such a "democratic" country. You are supposed to use a "common denominator" (italian in this case, but the id of the denominator does not change the problem, I guess occitans have the same kind of trouble in France). I find this simply insulting and I suppose anyone having his name in a non-latin script would feel the same, if forced to use an ASCI transliteration. There is no need to be able to pronounce my name, all you need to do is to click on it. And should this really become a problem, then using a progressive ID number coupled to the name would solve any problem whatsoever. With no need to see our names once again blurred into funny foreign scripts. Respect and practicity can walk toghether --Bèrto 'd Sèra 21:26, 4 May 2006 (CEST)

Gerard I assume this was only a theoretical question. It should be self evident that all languages and scrips are allowed in a multilingual project and comunity. We need to forget most of the issues we experienced before. special:Listusers does not list any non Latin based account. To see the fun about having mixt scripts in account names just take a look at [1] and [2].
Don't fear! The content from [3] reads right to left at [4]. Regards Gangleri · T 02:00, 22 March 2006 (CET)

[edit] Kirrkirr, a great tool to visualise dictionary content

I found this document for a great tool that does the visualisation of dictionaries. The tool can be downloaded from here. I will get into contact with Stanford and it would be great if we can cooperate :). GerardM 09:27, 22 March 2006 (CET)

[edit] I do not believe anyone can read this

Have you seen this:
Arbëreshë -  Afaraf -  Arvanitika -  Аҧсуа -  Afrikaans -  アイヌ イタㇰ -  Akan -  Gheg -  Tosk -  አማርኛ -  Amuzgo -  Englisc -  العربية -  ܐܪܡܝܐ -  aragonés -  Mapudungun -  অসমীয়া -  asturianu -  Авар МацӀ -  Aymar -  Azərbaycan dili -  Башқорт -  Bamanankan -  Boarisch -  Basa Bali -  Беларуская -  বাংলা -  भोजपुरी -  Bislama -  བོད་ཡིག -  bosanski -  ইমার ঠার/বিষ্ণুপ্রিয়া মণিপুরী -  brezhoneg -  Bodo -  буряад хэлэн -  Български -  Basa Ugi -  català -  Sugboanon -  česky -  Chamoru -  Нохчийн -  Chinuk wawa -  Choctaw -  ᏣᎳᎩ -  Чӑваш чӗлхи -  Tsetsêhestâhese -  Chikasha -  国语 -  國語 -  Kernewek -  corsu -  Nēhiyaw/ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐤ -  kaszëbsczi -  Cymraeg -  dansk -  Deutsch -  Thuɔŋjäŋ -  Zazaki -  ދިވެހ -  Dolnoserbski -  རྫོང་ཁ -  Ελληνικά -  Emilià -  English -  Middle Englisce -  Eʋe -  Esperanto -  eesti -  Euskara -  Eʋe -  فارسى -  Føroyskt -  Na Vosa Vakaviti -  suomi -  français -  Frysk -  Arpitan -  Frasch -  Seeltersk -  Fulfulde -  furlan -  Galoli -  Gàidhlig -  Gaeilge -  Ga -  赣语 -  Alemán Coloniero -  Kiribati -  Galego -  گیلک -  Gaelg -  𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌹𐍃𐌺 -  Αρχαία Ελληνική -  avañe'ẽ -  Schwyzerdütsch -  Wayuύ -  ગુજરાતી -  X̲aat Kíl -  هَوُسَ -  Hausa -  客家话 -  客家話 -  Kreyòl ayisyen -  Hawai'i -  עברית -  Otjiherero -  हिन्दी -   -  Hiri Motu -  Hornjoserbšćina -  湘语/湘话 -  magyar -  hrvatski -  Հայերեն -  Interlingua -  Bahasa Indonesia -  Interlingue -  Igbo -  Ido -  ꆇꉙ -  Iñupiak -  ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ -  Ilokano -  íslenska -  italiano -  Basa Jawa -  Lojban -  日本語 -  ثاقبايليث -  Kalaallisut -  Kanuri -  कॉशुर -  ქართული -  Қазақша -  ភាសាខ្មែរ -  Gĩkũyũ -  kinyaRwanda -  Кыргызча -  Хакас тілі -  kurmancî -  kiKongo -  कोंकणी -  Kuanyama -  Kurdî/كوردی -  한국어/조선어 -  Hiraya -  Karjalan kieli -  Kölsch -  Kwaya -  Dzhudezmo -  Latina -  ພາສາລາວ -  Latviešu -  Lak -  Líguru -  Limburgs -  Lingála -  Lietuvių -  Ladin -  Lumbaart -  Lëtzebuergesch -  Luganda -  basa Madhura -  Kajin M̧ajeļ -  മലയാളം -  मराठी -  Baso Minangkabau -  Македонски -  Kituba -  Bahasa Melayu -  Malti -  闽北语 -  闽北话 -  Māori -  Muskogee -  mirandés -  maxi -  ဗမာစာ -  مَزِروني -  闽南语 -  閩南語 -  Bân-lâm-gú -  Dorerin Naoero -  Diné bizaad -  napulitano -  Nahuatlahtolli -  Plattdüütsch -  Oshiwambo -  नेपाली -  नेपाल भाषा -  Nederlands -  nynorsk -  dönsk tunga -  norsk -  Novial -  Chi-Chewa -  lenga d'òc -  ଓଡ଼ିଆ -  Oromoo -  Иронау -  Pangasinán -  Kapampangan -  پنجابی -  ਪੰਜਾਬੀ -  Papiamentu -  Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch -  Pälzisch -  Norfuk -  पाली -  piemontèis -  Polski -  português -  دری -  Peskotomuhkati -  Runa Simi -  Vlax Romani -  kiRundi -  Romansh -  română -  armâneashti -  Русский -  うちなーぐち -  тыла -  Sängö -  संस्कृत -  sicilianu -  Scots -  සිංහල -  Slovenčina -  Slovenščina -  Gagana Samoa -  ChiShona -  سنڌي، سندھی -  सिन्धी -  af Soomaali -  seSotho -  español -  sardu -  српски -  srpski -  siSwati -  Basa Sunda -  kiSwahili -  svenska -  Schwäbisch -  Sächs'sch -  Reo Mā`ohi‎ -  தமிழ் -  Tatarça -  తెలుగు -  Tetun -  тоҷикӣ -  ไทย -  ትግርኛ -  Tagalog -  ou tokelauien -  tlhIngan Hol  -  lea fakatonga -  Tok Pisin -  Kokborok -  Türkmençe -  chiTumbuka -  Türkçe -  Tuvaluan -  Setswana -  Xitsonga -  Tweants -  Twi -  Тыва дыл -  удмурт кыл -  ئۇيغۇرچه -  Українська -  اردو -  vèneto -  Tshivenda -  tiếng Việt -  Vlaoms -  Volapük -  Walscher -  Wáray-Wáray -  Walon -  faka'uvea -  Wollof -  吴语 -  Хальмг -  isiXhosa -  ייִדיש/Yidish -  ede Yorùbá -  粵語/广东话 -  Zeêuws -  Sawcuengh -  中文 -  isiZulu

It looks great on the mainpage but I am sure that noone can read the character for the as language. Is this something that can be helped.. Is this something that needs fixing in MediaWiki? It should be more like this: অসমীয়া

Would the Ethnologue fonts that became available in January help ??? GerardM 23:53, 22 March 2006 (CET)

[edit] Style xx templates 

{{msgnw:template:Style yi}}

contains:‎
<span style="font-size:{{{size|10pt}}};padding:4pt;line-height:1.25em; font-family: Times New Roman;" dir="rtl" >{{{yi}}}</span> 

{{Style yi|yi=דער באַנוצער רעדט '''[[:Category:User yi|ייִדיש]]''' אַלס '''[[:Category:User yi-N|מוטער־שפּראַך]]'''.}}
<br clear="all" />
{{Style yi|yi=דער באַנוצער רעדט '''[[:Category:User yi|ייִדיש]]''' אַלס '''[[:Category:User yi-N|מוטער־שפּראַך]]'''.|size=8pt}}
<br clear="all" />
{{Style yi|yi=דער באַנוצער רעדט '''[[:Category:User yi|ייִדיש]]''' אַלס '''[[:Category:User yi-N|מוטער־שפּראַך]]'''.|size=12pt}}
<br clear="all" />

generates:‎
דער באַנוצער רעדט ייִדיש אַלס מוטער־שפּראַך.
דער באַנוצער רעדט ייִדיש אַלס מוטער־שפּראַך.
דער באַנוצער רעדט ייִדיש אַלס מוטער־שפּראַך.

GerardM please update the list at Style xx templates with all the language codes and insert the content of the templates already available there. As far as I know template:Style yi is the only style template using a default size {{{size|10pt}}}.
The "default value" for the optional parameter {{{size}}} should be used inside OmegaWiki to display text in that language both in the predefined MediaWiki namespaces and later also in the GEMET: namespace.
If a language comunity would like to use another size for the "Babel User templates" they should just add "|size='''yy'''pt" in their "Style xx templates"; they should do as they like. Best regards Gangleri · T 00:55, 23 March 2006 (CET)

[edit] different Chinese variations

Hi, I want to raise a discussion about the necessity of having so many variations of Chinese here. As you know, although there're a lot of dialects , or even languages according to some, consisting what we call Chinese, pratically they all have the same written form, with same vocabulary, same grammar. So I wonder if it's nessesary to have so many chinese portals here, since we communicate mainly through writing. I suggest to reduce the number of these variations to 3 or 4, e.g. zh, zh-wen (or: zh-yue, zh-min-nan). Well, I would still appreciate Shibo77's hard work of bringing them from zh.wikipedia.--Demos-λέγεις 09:38, 23 March 2006 (CET)

I would not presume to limit Greek to only one portal. The Griko spoken in Italy is in essence two distinct variations of Greek. I would not presume to limit that either. When the Chinese are of the opinion that the orthography is distinct, who are we to say otherwise ? China is so big, it is a continent in its own right. When you consider that how many languages exist in Europe, I would certainly have room for an equal amount of diversity in China. GerardM 10:00, 23 March 2006 (CET)
Sorry, maybe it's my signature which makes you confused. In fact I'm a Chinese and I don't speak Greek at all:) I've thought it over again, and I'm convinced that if the different portals are just for personal identification, I would absolutely agree with it, and that's what we do in Chinese Wikipedia. But if it's a place where we carry on our wiktionaries project related with Chinese, I would like to see everybody cooperate under a unifying zh portal. Perhaps I don't have a clear vision of the function of portals. I'd like to have your opinion. Thx. --Demos-言 10:42, 23 March 2006 (CET)
Besides there are two sets of Chinese characters, there are differences among the vocabularies of different dialects. For example: 流動電話(HK),行動電話(TW),移动电话(CN). "今日仔" is found in Min-nan but not found in Hong Kong. --Xiaowei 17:36, 24 March 2006 (CET)
Hi, maybe it did not come over correctly what Gerard meant. The thing is that we have similar necessities for other languages as well. China is such a huge country that having varieties, that can be considered local languages, are normal. He took Griko Salentino as an example - for now this language is not considered as an own language since it does not even have an ISO code, but it is a separate language. It is neither Greek (many attribute it to it) nor any Italian dialect. It is a language that developed out of ancient Greek ... well I omit many things here. And even in these relativley small geographical regions we have differet languages - Griko is not Griko ... there are two varieties ... this example was meant to show that we want to identify these differences. Of course, there are words in common - like you have them with Italian and Neapolitan, like you have them with German and any German local language, but having terms in common does not mean they are the same language ... the differences are the important parts and these differences show if a language is to be considered as such. When you consider it the other way round: in financial texts in Italian you have most words in English ... so should we consider Italian be a subset of English? For sure not .... (just find that kind of my reasoning funny ... sorry, joking about myself ... I hope it comes through ... and this discussion helped me to find a way to talk about European languages ... thanks!). --Sabine 19:27, 24 March 2006 (CET)
Thank all of you for your opinion. I think it is a good subject worth of discussion, that in what extent a language can be deem as a language. At least in this project, what makes the difference between languages. As is in the "language".
If I've not misunderstood, when a language is defined, we have to translate all the [DefinedMeaning]] into its proper form. So, we'll have to treat as many languages as we commit. So if we have 20 variations of Chinese, the number of tranlations needed will be as many as 20 times the number of all the defined meanings.
What's more, I think you might have missed one point in my initial proposition, that all the variations of Chinese have almost the same vocabulary and the same grammar as mandarin. Since the wiktionary is to collect the words, we can only consider the words. Pratically I think the resemblance between the vocabularies (defined as the set of words) of diffrent variations is higher than 99% (I give the reasoning below, but it's not important). Which means that we'll have to redo 15.2 times the number of defined meanings in order to have the same words in different variations. It's not a pleasant job, isn't it?
So I'm wondering if it is worthwhile to accept so many languages just for fun. Or, more interestingly, would it possible to have heritage relationship between languages, so that when a child hasn't defined the meaning of a word, it can just take the value from his mother language. Thus we can have many (sub-)languages without multiply the data. I'm not a professional, so don't hesitate to correct me if you find it unreasonable.
*Reasoning: We just take order of magnitude. The proper vocabulary of each variation is of 10^2~10^3(maybe TW and HK are higher, but I don't think they're over 10^4; there's also zh-cmn which is almost identical to zh). As for the number of defined meanings, we can conservatively set it to 10^5~10^6 (an ordinary dictionary). Not to say that according to the high ability of combining words in Chinese, the number may be much higher. From that I deduce the result "99%". Again, I'm not a professional, so welcome to correct me if you find it unreasonable. --Demos-言 23:51, 24 March 2006 (CET)
I agree, it looks to me as if it's the same difference than between the French spoken in France, the French spoken in Belgium, and the one spoken in Canada. I hope we'll do only one portal for French!
How many of these writing forms are official languages? Kipcool 00:16, 25 March 2006 (CET)
However, I do hope there will be a way to specify if a french word is used specifically in Belgium, or Canada, or Swissn... Koxinga 00:36, 25 March 2006 (CET)
Perhaps we could have only portals that are written significantly differently, but those differing mainly in pronunciation we would simply have the Babel templates so we could contact the user when in need of sound files? --Shibo77diskuto 10:51, 25 March 2006 (CET)

(return back to the beginning)I don't agree that. The different between these dialects is very importmant knowledge of human being. OmegaWiki need to include this. If a word is same in all dialects, we can only include a entry for zh; if it's different in yuh we can just add a entry for it. My mothertough is Taishan dialects, and if it has differents from yuh I will add a entry for it. --地球發動機 16:51, 15 April 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Andalusian

There has been a request to remove the templates for Andalusian. Andalusian is according to the Spanish law not a language. However, OmegaWiki is both not about what laws say (that is politics) and it is not only about languages. Andalusian I have been told is distinctly different, it has more Arab influences than Spanish has and it is closer to Neapolitan than Spanish is. Many words are specific to Andalusian and including these to Spanish because they are spoken in Andalusian is the wrong idea.

Another argument used is that it does not have a single orthography. This argument would exclude several languages that are already on the list, languages that have their own Wikipedia, so that is also not an argument not to have Andalusian.

OmegaWiki is about DefinedMeanings with strings attached :) GerardM 10:29, 25 March 2006 (CET)

Moment :-) it is not closer to Neapolitan than Spanish, but knowing Neapolitan you understand quite a lot more when hearing people speak Andalusian. Only knowing Spanish you would not reach the same level of comprehension. The Andalusian project on Wikicities for example is quite understandable to me :-) It is hard to say which language is closer to which in this case ...
Ortography: yes, all Italian minority languages would be excluded, since there is no official standard, all German minority languages would be excluded, nds (has up to 400 varieties only in Germany) would be excluded etc. etc. etc. Andalusian has its place in the language world (you can find texts online - poems, songs etc.). They are creating an encyclopaedia outside wikipedia, since things were taken up too much on a political level and not on the language level when discussing about this language - and I admire those who are working on the wikicities project since they DO instead of discuss ... yes, there are only a few of them, but also one person can do a lot ... As soon as we have editability it would be important to have the Swadesh list in OmegaWiki and we need it compiled for languages like Andalusian (with defined meanings ... and you will see that those approx 200 terms will become many, many more ...). --Sabine 11:45, 25 March 2006 (CET)
LOL not all of them :) We do have a standard orthography, since the end of the 18th century. But this won't solve the problem. Personally I do not see any problem (let alone a possible offence to nationalistic feelings) in the existence andalusian as an indipendent language/ortography. As long as there is a community willing to use a language, they have the right to do so. And nobody has the right to stop them from doing it. If you do not like andalusian, simply ignore it, it's not going to byte you, is it? Live and let live... it's so simple --Bèrto 'd Sèra 22:20, 6 May 2006 (CEST)
I am very sorry for being the "black sheep" in the discussion but Gerard doesn't seem to know the linguistic situation in Andalusia. If you anytime go to Andalusia you will see what an innovation is creating this new ortographic style. My claims do not have any political purpose. My claims are not based on any law, they are based on what I know about Andalusia, and about Spanish. Andalusian words in Spanish are regional Spanish words, or am I not reading Spanish when I read Federico García Lorca? Maybe, now, as I said already in other occasion, we have to change the name of what Spanish speaking people talks in Latinoamerican countries, as their "Spanish" comes mainly from Andalusian colonizers. You may go to Andalusia and ask on the street if what they talk is another language. --Javier Carro 13:51, 25 March 2006 (CET)
By the way, as we see that in many cases deciding what is and what is not a language will provoke discussion. How are we going to decide about it? The voting system used traditionally in Meta for creating new projects has probed to be obsolete. --Javier Carro 14:07, 25 March 2006 (CET)
I'd like to add that according to the Ethnologue Andalusian is a dialect of Spanish, as are the dialects spoken in South America, many of them further apart from standard Spanish than Andalusian. To the English speaking people it would be as if Australian, American, Texan and English should be considered different languages with their own grammar and dictionaries.
This takes us to the question of what languages are going to be accepted and what written variants are going to be accepted. If I say Texan is a language and, with four friends, I make a new written standard and decide we make our own Wikipedia/Dictionary, is it going to be accepted? What about artificial languages? Is Ethnologue going to be the authority or not? We'll have to reach a consensus, because if we don't we are going to have many problems.
Cheers, --Ecelan 13:01, 26 March 2006 (CEST)
Ethnologue is the authority for ISO-639. The procedures for a Wikipedia project is not the same as aplying for a portal in OmegaWiki. There is no point to it. You cannot vote if there is a reason to have a portal for a language, a dialect. If there is a large body of vocabulary specific, there is enough reason to have a portal. How we are going to present the data that is something that we have to sort out..
What I am waiting for is not that much how this discussion develops, I am much more interested in how it will morph in a discussion on how we are going to deal with American, Austranlian and all those other forms of English.... GerardM 14:12, 26 March 2006 (CEST)
Don't get me wrong, when I'm talking about is it going to be accepted? I'm not talking about making a new wiki or portal or something. I'm talking about the criteria for accepting a word/spelling as an entry. Similar examples would be if a group of texans or cockneys decide to spell their dialect more according to their pronounciation. How many people have to use the speling for it to be acceptable in this Wiki?
Let's see if I explain myself better. Ojo (eye) pronounced /oXo/ in Castillian and /oho/ in other varieties (Andalusian among them). The only written standard is ojo for all pronunciations. So, is oho spelling (as advocates for Andalusian as a language claim) as entry going to be acceptable? Where is the limit for a word or spelling to be acceptable? Literature? Google? Ethnologue? How many people have to use a language or a spelling to be on this wiki?
And please, do not interpret this as if I was trying to avoid localisms in the dictionary, that is not the case.
The problem is similar for conlangs. Are the Verdurian(Wikipedia) or Sildavian vocabularies welcome? Wikis usually are not primary sources, but is an external Web page enough to make the entry not a primary source? How many Web pages are necessary?
--Ecelan 17:01, 26 March 2006 (CEST)
Well, we were thinking about not natural languages, or better constructed/designed languages time ago. The thing is: they exist, but they are not natural. This means they are part of the artificial languages like Ido and Esperanto, or better like Klingon. Well if there are people who want to care about these languages, there 's no reason why we should not allow for adding them (it could well happen that sooner or later someone searches such a term), but these languages should not be automatically visible for anyone, or better one should be able to exclude them from being listed.
But one thing is clear: there is a huge difference between a language spoken by people and by one "built" for a comic series or whatever kind of publication. So please let us avoid mixing natural languages and artificially developed languages in this thread. If you want to go ahead with this discussion, please create a thread on artificial languages. Thank you! --Sabine 16:55, 12 April 2006 (CEST)
Yes, the only possible answer is into having people customise their list of languages to be shown. It's going to be way too many of them in any case, even if we accepted ONLY governmental languages. And people on slow connections (have you ever tried using internet on a boat, connecting on a mobile phone?) will definitely appreciate a low weight page, containing JUST what they need it to contain. I speak some 5-8 languages, I maybe interested into some more 15-20, because they are close enough to those I know for me to make use of the entries, but apart from curiosity I won't make any use of an arab/chinese/persian or hungarian entry. This is going to be the practical case for most users, if we let alone ideology . --Bèrto 'd Sèra 22:20, 6 May 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Ethnologue

The organisation that is entrusted with the further development of the ISO-639 codes is Ethnologue. They have the description of a language on their website. I have created a template; {{Ethnologue|nld|nl|nld}} to link to this article at Ethnlogue and the values of the ISO-639-1 and the ISO-639-3.

I would like to see that this information becomes part of all Portals in one way or another.. The Ethnologue text is in English. GerardM 08:34, 26 March 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Ethnologue-x

I have created a new template; {{Ethnologue-x|KUR|ku|kur|kmr}}. The first parameter is the SIL code, then ISO-639 1, 2 and 3 respectively. This is to indicate that the current code used is problematic. For Kurdish as we use in the WMF it definetly is.

Can someone help to make the template look better ? the iso-639-3 goes to a new line for reasons that I fail to understand.. GerardM 15:29, 26 March 2006 (CEST)

The new line has been fixed by putting a non-breakable space &nbsp;. The ISO 639-3 for Kurdish should be kur, see [5]. The more specific types of Kurdish are kur-ckb for Central Kurdish, kur-kmr for Northern Kurdish and kur-sdh for Southern Kurdish. ---Moyogo
Moyogo, in ISO-639-3 kur is a group of languages and what you call kur-kmr is not how Ethnologue defines them; it is just kmr. GerardM 19:12, 26 March 2006 (CEST)
OK, I guess I was talking about what is currently being defined by RFC 3066bis. ---Moyogo 20:35, 29 March 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Magical conversion

A multilingual project should use different extensions for magical character conversion and / or transcriptions. 

{{convert|eo|Cxu vi kontribuas ankaux esperantlingve?}}

should work like {{subst:}} and change the source code while saving. The result in the page source should change to

Ĉu vi kontribuas ankaŭ esperantlingve?

"Amike" Gangleri · T 14:30, 26 March 2006 (CEST)

Do you mean: accept a string that is formatted in such a way that it CAN be converted and save it in the formatted way. GerardM 14:37, 26 March 2006 (CEST)
Yes "magical character conversion" is implemented in all Esperanto by default; you type "Cx" and the character saved in the source would be the UTF-8 character "Ĉ".
As soon as more and more languages will use LanguageConverter.php it will become common standard that you can type in any script variant of a language.
→ search MediaZilla for "LanguageConverter"
Best regards Gangleri · T 06:29, 27 March 2006 (CEST)
Now there's a wonderful idea! Would be great for Vietnamese, too. David 18:43, 26 March 2006 (CEST)

[edit] ERD

I have loaded the ERD with the OmegaWiki aricle; it helps explain the relation between the tables that are in use (I had send them to Erik for review) so I was able to :) GerardM 13:26, 28 March 2006 (CEST)

[edit] nested conditional templates

  • Halló! Dev_HEAD:template:WISOTestList#test shows an implementation of multilingual text with adaptations specific to the different scripts.
  • Conditional templates are very powerfull. Some people do neither like nested templates nor conditional one nor extendig template syntax and claim that it costs "performance".

→ MediaZilla:02777 / bugzilla:02777 – "{{substall:foo}} beside {{subst:bar}}"

  • This request would allow a bot to update relevant templates "on demand".
  • With conditional templates one can build all "Babel user templates with a few "tables". For each sentence one will need one basic "repository" / "template" with the translations and the language code.
  • I would like to build this generation of user templates at w:yi:. When they work there we could replace the templates here. The styling parameters can be used at all Wiktionaries. Would be happy about any help. Best regards Gangleri · T 16:43, 28 March 2006 (CEST)
  • Hi! It sounds as a great idea, but the example page seems to be empty. Where can I see an example? --Bèrto 'd Sèra 22:29, 6 May 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Friulian portal

I don't see Friulian/furlan portal (iso code:fur). Could you add it? BTW this project looks promising ;) Mandi Klenje

[edit] en-us

To what extent are we going to separate this from en? Do we need a Portal:en-us and Template:User en-us? Vildricianus 14:45, 29 March 2006 (CEST)

How to treat American-English eh Australian-English eh Canadian-English eh Jamaican-English, South-African-English. I have discussed this with many people and to be honest, there are several options. No choice has been made. A portal sure; have all the portals you like but please link to them from the Portal:en :) GerardM 19:10, 4 April 2006 (CEST)
In GEMET:biology, there are 2 English languages shown. Is en-us separated from en-uk in GEMET? Kipcool 14:43, 12 April 2006 (CEST)
In Gemet it certainly is and, there are good reasons to make this distinction. The orthography of English is decidedly different depending what tradition you adhere to. GerardM 16:29, 12 April 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Macrolanguages

Many languages at portals are like kurdish macro languages see [6]. Shall OmegaWiki make allowance for this? --Balû 09:13, 4 April 2006 (CEST)

We need these division - so it is clearly a yes for macro languages - they are different one from each other. Sorry for being short ... --Sabine 21:07, 4 April 2006 (CEST)
Arabic is one of those Macrolanguages, and apparently English will have a very similar status, so portals will be useful. ---Moyogo 00:04, 10 April 2006 (CEST)
Right now the macrolanguage portals are getting links to the various individual language that they cover, but that is a one-way street. Should the individual languages also get links to the macrolanguages?--Sannab 09:38, 15 May 2006 (CEST)
This is very much wanted.. The same goes for adding links to Wikipedia.. At this time only the English Wikipedia has sufficient coverage of languages that we can deal with this. Also, this will become different when we do have the Multilingual MediaWiki. GerardM 13:46, 15 May 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Macrolanguage portal format

The thing is we have not really IMO come up with a good format for macrolanguage portals, and it might be that we will not be able to find a standardized format. For Nahuatl (not a macrolanguage, but a language collective), Gerard did a long list in English, but then none of us currently working on OmegaWiki speak Nahuatl, in combination with a Babel-like box collection for all the included individual languages. For Chinese, there is another list format, in Chinese only.

If I understand it correctly, portals for macrolanguages and language collectives have been/should be included in Category:Ambiguous user language.

Another question is whether there should be user categories for macrolanguages or not, I am not sure. One option would be to have an undifferentiated user category (that is no 1-5,N) for the macrolanguage, since such specification seems less helpful for macrolanguages, but it might still be desirable to be able to identify as and locate speakers of a macrolanguage. If this is desirable, then the various user templates for the individual languages should most likely add the macrolanguage category too.

One thing to remember though, is that if we want people to start moving to the individual language codes in ISO-639-3, a macrolanguage portal should not be too useful *smile* --Sannab 10:33, 17 May 2006 (CEST)

[edit] special:Watchlist and special:Watchlist/edit

  • Halló! Behaviour in MediaWiki version 1.6: If you follow return from a "Wikibreak" and look at "My watchlist" you may notice that a lot of pages have disapeared. Deleted messages have disapeared from there.
→ CVS:/includes/SpecialWatchlist.php‎ and SVN:/includes/SpecialWatchlist.php?view=log‎
→ MediaZilla:05490 / bugzilla:05490 – "Your watchlist after a "wikibreak""
  • Regards Gangleri · T 14:21, 7 April 2006 (CEST)
done done SVN:/trunk/phase3/includes/SpecialWatchlist.php?r1=13517&r2=13538&pathrev=13538‎
Thanks! Gangleri · T Gangleri · T 09:09, 8 April 2006 (CEST)

[edit] What if there are only regional variations?

Hello, I'd like to point out a problem that applies to Italian regional languages but possibly to all language groups where a common standardized official dialect is missing. Inside the portal of indiviual languages we've written something like "we would like to take care of regional variations but we have to make basic work first". Ok I agree but... what when there isn't a standard version of what is considered to be an individual language?

Please consider sicilianu or napulitano. The first should correspond to the so-called "southern-extreme romance language", which includes variations spoken in three different regions of Italy: Sicily, Calabria and Salento. If we look to the corresponding portal on it.wiktionary (http://scn.wiktionary.org/wiki/Paggina_principali) and the actual babel templates here it seems that a single variation became representative of the entire language group. Not simply the "sicilian" variation but also a specific variation among the sicilian version of this language. Moreover the coat of arms of Sicily has been placed on the portal.

I don't want to criticize the good work made by the authors but... do you really think this is the right way? How a guy from Salento would agree to see his language, which has a good indipendent literature, to be arbitrarily annexed to the Palermo's dialect? Consider also the Napulitano, which should correspond to another romance language group that includes also Apulian dialects. Also here I'm very doubtful on the pertinence of the name "napulitano" (even if Ethnologue have this name, but Ethnologue seems to forget Apulian dialects and limits the napulitano to Campania, part of Lucania and Northern Calabria). Moreover I don't believe that an Apulian guy, and possibly also a Lucanian one, would agree to be a Napulitano-speaker and would agree on the fact that his language can be learned through the Napulitano course of wikibooks.

Also for the Greek dialects of Italy portal:el-ITA we face a similar situation: there are two variations that perhaps could be considered to form a language group apart from Modern Greek, derived from Koinè Greek. But what variation should be used for babel templates and portal, and tomorrow to give the first version of a term? I know the Salento's version and I used it to write the templates, but do you really think this is correct? I'm very skeptical on it.

Maybe in these cases we should create entries for individual regional variations (such as scn-PAL, scn-SAL..) especially when a good literature exist for a single variation and I think we should avoid creating misleading common portals and babel entries when a common official variation does not exist (or eventually accept common portals with the list of variations without babel boxes).

Thank you and sorry for this boring reasoning.

Frangisko 15:45, 9 April 2006 (CEST)

In OmegaWiki we can and we should distinguish between the different orthographies and the different dialects. When I asked you to create the Swadesh list for Greek, it was asked in such a way that you could do this for both versions of el-ITA (in effect putting a bomb under el-ITA). When people want to argue about languages, they can do it elsewhere. When people want to make a point about dialects and languages, they can do it here. The Swadesh list is one instrument to demonstrate the difference between dialects, languages and orthographies.. And yes, I want them all :) GerardM 17:02, 9 April 2006 (CEST)
Ok I've started to work on Swadesh lists for Extreme Southern Romance (variations of the single romance classified as ISO-693-3 scn) and on a Swadesh list for Greek languages (with two entries for the main variations). I'm not yet expert enough to create categories and sub-categories so I placed them on my user page and a new page. I can imagine that we will have to neaten all and collect all Swadesh lists somewhere... However, we'll see Calabrian Greek entries to compare the languages and decide if it would be proper to mantain an unique code for Grecanic or eventually create a new code with two regional variations such as grk-CAL or grk-SAL, or eventually consider them as variations of el, such as el-SAL, el-CAL, but in this case it should be more proper to consider them variations of koine greek (ke) or byzantine-Greek rather than Modern Greek (the problem is that the known written Byzantine Greek is not exactly the corresponding spoken language, the result is that Griko seems more similar to Modern Greek). Frangisko 19:53, 11 April 2006 (CEST)
Just one note on this: we are well aware of the fact that there are Apulian dialects that are very different to Neapolitan. The code nap is often understood as only being for the Neapolitan of Naples - so the Swadesh list is a way to show that nap as only attribution is not enough, that in fact there are these differences. Only by showing them, adding further sources we can really talk and say "we need a seperate language code for this or that language". For now we can only use the codes that are there and adapt them to our needs. We have the same problem for Emiliano and Romagnolo, and of course for many other languages that are still not considered as such, even if there are plenty of literature and documents. I hope this helps to understand why we are going this way. Thanks! --Sabine 22:31, 11 April 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Edit summaries

Just a quick question: How are edit summaries supposed to work? We can only put them in our native language and in an international project, that's not quite good enough is it? Perhaps in time, we could auto-translate these using the relational data depending on your user preference? Celestianpower Hablame 23:03, 9 April 2006 (CEST)

Perhaps there should be a kind of automated way to fill them in. Vildricianus 15:44, 15 April 2006 (CEST)
Yes - that would work, it would just say what you did ("added language field" or "added synonyms") and these could be auto-translated easily as the software would type them in automagically. Celestianpower Hablame 20:48, 20 April 2006 (CEST)

[edit] editing interface

Ok, a general question on how it will look like. (Yeah I know, I can wait, but...)

Take for example GEMET:Africa. The first one where I went. I saw the Polish section empty, so I naturally clicked [edit]. And what I see? Nothing. The edit box is empty. Well, one might expect that it will work more like [view source] on Wikipedia...

Anyway, what the editing interface will look like? The aforementioned page is just same text duplicated 4 times. Assuming I want to insert that "Polish" section, what will I edit? One section? Entire article at once? Will I have to copy the content 4 times? Or even more? (GEMET:Afrika, GEMET:Afryka, GEMET:Afrikka, GEMET:Afrique...)

Yours confused and impatient, Misza13 T C 23:48, 9 April 2006 (CEST)

impatient .. sure, same here .. As to your question. There is ONE DefinedMeaning, all that is needed is to translate is the definition into Polish .. :) GerardM 10:20, 10 April 2006 (CEST)

Thanks! Now more comments/questions to make sure I get it right:

  1. A GEMET: entry is just a plain entry for a word spelled out and doesn't carry any meaning by itself.
  2. When viewing a GEMET: entry, for each language in which it has a meaning, the DefinedMeaning is fetched and displayed (Celestianpower said it works by dynamic queries; unlike a casual Wiki), which explains duplicate entries (a word has a DefinedMeaning in many languages). Likewise, on GEMET:kort there is only Danski entry meaning map. However, kort also means court (like in tennis court) in polish. So when that DefineMeaning is expanded, it will show up on GEMET:kort as well?
  3. If I'm understanding 2. correctly, is it planned that duplicated DefinedMeanings be merged to reduce clutter (so that only distinct ones are actually shown)?
  4. Finally, if I'm understanding it right, I must say that this is a fantastic idea, great lingual-and-programming challenge (and experiment!) and the guy that came up with this idea is a freakin' genius!

Can't wait to see it in action! Yours, Misza13 T C 19:40, 10 April 2006 (CEST)

A Word does not have a DefinedMeaning. One specific Expression and an accompanying Definition in the same language make up a DefinedMeaning. ALL translations are not DefinedMeanings. When an Expression has multiple meanings each meaning will be associated with a DefinedMeaning. This DefinedMeaning does not need to be in Danish.

You are right that we will have to merge MANY DefinedMeanings in order to reduce clutter. When we merge multiple resources into OmegaWiki we will find a lot of redundancy all this has to be reduced to as few DefinedMeanings as is usefull. GerardM 17:10, 12 April 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Progress

Erik informed me that we are coming closer to the moment where OmegaWiki will have editability. I have seen a screenshot with two DefinedMeanings in there. The Definition is editable and it will be possible to add translations/synonyms (not edit them).

I will be ever so happy when the first people can start editing.. Because that is what it is all about. :) GerardM 19:25, 13 April 2006 (CEST)

As to timing, think this weekend.. GerardM 19:26, 13 April 2006 (CEST)

That's great. I'm very excited to see it. :-) --Tosca 20:41, 13 April 2006 (CEST)
This weekend seems to have passed :(. Celestianpower Hablame 20:50, 20 April 2006 (CEST)
Two weekends seem to have passed. Can we edit already? David 15:27, 24 April 2006 (CEST)
I am not happy about this. The good news is that I saw last Friday a version of software (running on a local host) that had WZ editability.. GerardM 20:10, 24 April 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Question on duplication

Here's a little example to illustrate a question I have about the OmegaWiki structure.

In English, the verb "to cut" refers to cutting with either a knife or a pair of scissors. However, in Dutch, "knippen" is (exclusively) for cutting with a pair of scissors (of any kind), whereas "snijden" is for all other meanings of "to cut" that I can think of.

Consider the following simplified scenario:

In the database, there exists only one DefinedMeaning, for the general action of "cutting". There are words associated with this DefinedMeaning, for different languages (which all have only one word for this DefinedMeaning), but Dutch has not yet been added. Then, at the point where we want to add the Dutch word, we find out about "knippen". At this point, we must add a new DefinedMeaning, because previously, no DefinedMeaning existed for "cutting with a pair of scissors".

What isn't entirely clear to me: what happens to the already existing associations of words with the original concept? Will they be duplicated and added to the new "cut with scissors" DefinedMeaning? Or will the new DefinedMeaning be created empty, and then associated only with the Dutch "knippen"?

Perhaps creating a new, empty DefinedMeaning will be a good idea in this particular example, because several languages have a word like "knippen". However, when OmegaWiki grows, I can imagine that we come across an exotic language that has a word without a fitting one-word translation in any other language. In that case, perhaps duplicating the entire DefinedMeaning and changing the entry for just the one language would be a better idea.

Is there a standard procedure planned to handle this eventuality, or will it be considered on a case-by-case basis? Or was I the first one to think of this (not very likely)? :)

I hope this is the right place to ask! If not, feel free to revert and post an answer to my user page. TIA! Laszlo 23:02, 13 April 2006 (CEST)

I think a new DefinedMeaning in all cases should be created. Added as a narrower term of cutting will link it to that. If you would make "knippen" without a new DefinedMeaning it would become a synonym, without the possablity to explain the difference. HenkvD 00:42, 14 April 2006 (CEST)
The DefinedMeaning associated with "knippen", would have "cut" as a translation. The definition defines that it is about cutting with sicors. The English "cut" does not cut it and is therefore marked as a non-endiginous meaning. Using relations it is indeed possible to indicate that "knippen" has a more precise meaning than "cut".
When a new DefinedMeaning is created, translations have to be consciously added. It cannot be assumed that what is good for one DM is also good for a similar DM. GerardM 13:15, 14 April 2006 (CEST)
Okidoki, sounds fair enough. Thanks for the answers! Laszlo 21:09, 15 April 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Porting of Swadesh lists from old Wiktionary

I noticed that there are some Swadesh lists in active development on this wiki. A lot more exist on the original Wiktionary (they all seem to belong to Category:Swadesh_lists). Shouldn't they be ported to this wiki? Or will this be done in an automated way at some point in the future? If so, should we continue editing/creating Swadesh lists on the old Wiktionary? Laszlo 16:24, 20 April 2006 (CEST)

Well, the Swadesh lists we are creating are being created thanks to a very particular reason: we have languages that have no official rules, where we have "language groups" and not single languages within a certain code. I don't know the policies on the English wiktionary - would they allow for many versions of Sicilian and many versions of Neapolitan (as well as for Lower Saxon and many other languages that have no officila standard)? If yes: go ahead creating them - if no: it would make sense to start them on OmegaWiki. The Swadesh list in all languages will be a project of its own - we will see that the 207 original terms will become much more, because of multiple defined meanings. It cannot be wrong to have Swadesh tables for every language :-)
Does that help? Thanks! --Sabine 20:34, 20 April 2006 (CEST)
I'm not exactly proficient in any of the languages you mentioned (or any other languages that don't have fully filled Swadesh lists yet), it was more of a general question. My main question was what would be done with the existing Swadesh lists, but I guess they will be ported once the project is started here, which I can hardly wait for! :) Any news on that BTW? GerardM? Laszlo 07:36, 21 April 2006 (CEST)
Well yes, I suppose we will import them here. Gerard is not here today ... well, I have the same feelings on "can hardly wait to be able to start doing things" :-) Ciao! --Sabine 08:03, 21 April 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Notes on editability for OmegaWiki namespace

  • When editing plese do not use the main edit tab, but the edit links on the right hand side of the screen. The main edit tab does not seem to work proprerly. --Sabine 19:48, 30 April 2006 (CEST)
    • This seems to be working fine now. —Vildricianus 16:44, 2 May 2006 (CEST)
  • I for myself will note on the discussion page of the article itself what I changed - so that this can be followed up if necessary. --Sabine 19:48, 30 April 2006 (CEST)
  • It is not possible to create wiki-links from within the definition. --Sabine 20:06, 30 April 2006 (CEST)
  • We cannot add a second different defined meaning to an existing one for now. --Sabine 20:48, 30 April 2006 (CEST)
  • Translations cannot be changed/corrected - please add problems with that on the discussion page adding also the template {{attention}}--Sabine 20:50, 30 April 2006 (CEST)
  • Defined meanings can be corrected/changed - please make sure that there are no misinterpretations and note a change of a defined meaning on the discussion page. This really essential. Thank you! --Sabine 20:52, 30 April 2006 (CEST)
  • Addition of synonyms is possible.--Sabine 21:00, 30 April 2006 (CEST)
  • The number of permissions to edit we can grant is not clear right now. It could well that the number is limited. Please don't be disappointed if we cannot grant you immediate access to edit the data.--Sabine 22:51, 30 April 2006 (CEST)
    There is no built-in limit to how many people we can accommodate. However, the current level of functionality is not built for concurrent access (so instead of getting an edit conflict, you will simply overwrite what someone else does), and most importantly, we have no way to roll back edits yet when they are bad, or to see exactly what has changed. Especially for the latter reason, I recommend only giving the functionality to people who a) are known and trusted, b) who understand how OmegaWiki is meant to work, e.g. what a DefinedMeaning is.--Erik 00:39, 1 May 2006 (CEST)
  • Be very careful when adding synonyms to make sure that any synoyms that you add with the checkbox ticked are exact synonyms or 'exact translations. At this stage a link "is more colloquial than" isn't possible. If in doubt, uncheck the box. Celestianpower Hablame 14:21, 2 May 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Minangkabau babel templates

Any chance of getting Minangkabau babel templates on WZ? They can be found here.... Thanks. Martijn 14:05, 2 May 2006 (CEST)

Ik heb gedaan wat ik kon .. Ken je het betaan van het Wiktionary IRC kanaal ?? GerardM 15:41, 2 May 2006 (CEST)
NB de code bij ons is min (conform de ISO-639-3).
Dank je! Klein aanvullend vraagje: moeten er geen categorieën bij gemaakt worden? Ik kan nu niet op IRC. Als ik thuis ben, zal ik het eens opzoeken. Groeten, Martijn 15:49, 2 May 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Feature requests

It is stated quite clearly on top of the Insect room that it is not the place for feature requests, yet I have added 2 items to it that are such, on the recommendation of GerardM. I was thinking of creating a separate page for such, but fear that such a page might lead to the addition of a plethora of vague wishful thinking. Would it be good to have such a page or not? And if yes, what would be a good name for it?--Sannab 15:14, 2 May 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Editability

Below, I've written a heavy chunk of palaver that I actually don't fully understand anymore myself. I can think of answers myself, yes, but they are mostly theoretic. What I described, however, is what I think will occur very frequently in reality when we will allow complete editability for each and every passer-by. It's meant as a kind of warning, even though it's more like a question that people who understand more about it have to solve.

  • Something I noticed is that quite a number of DefinedMeanings and Expressions are out of sync.
    • For example, the DefinedMeaning of conifer talks about an order of plants, and therefore the attached English Expression should be "conifers" instead of "conifer", is that right? No big deal. But what happens if translators focus on the English Expression they recognize, and translate that one, instead of taking into account what the DefinedMeaning says? The Expressions they add are wrong. For example, the Swedish Expression barrträd got attached to both the DefinedMeanings of "conifer" and "coniferous tree". Seeing it put in this sentence it seems correct (because "conifer" is a synonym of "coniferous tree"), would it not that the DefinedMeaning for "conifer" is actually the DefinedMeaning for "conifers"! Confusion!
    • Even worse: what if someone thinks the definition is wrong and changes it to a description of "conifer"? Then not only the other translations of the DefinedMeaning become corrupted, but the formerly correct Expressions attached to it are wrong! More confusion!
    • The worst is actually when someone adds ("translates") a definition that is correct for the Expression "conifer" but wrong for "conifers" (i.e. writes a "new" definition for the erroneously added English Expression "conifer", not taking into account the existing definitions), while the English translation of the DefinedMeaning is exactly the opposite, namely correct for "conifers" and wrong for "conifer". In that situation, what does the DefinedMeaning actually stand for? "Conifer" or "conifers"? What if half of the definitions speak about 1 tree while the other half mentions an order?
    • Now my question here actually is: is there anything else beyond the given definition and expressions that identifies or defines a DefinedMeaning? A kind of meta-definition? Something that cannot be changed about a DefinedMeaning without some kind of permission?
  • Another weird thing: there seem to be two distinct DefinedMeanings for coniferous wood and coniferous forest. How's that?
  • Now, unless it was someone who changed either the English Expression "conifer" or the English definition "an order of plants..." at conifer, it appears to me that the GEMET data is not completely reliable, and it confuses me more than the new software actually does.

Any takers? :-) —Vildricianus 21:13, 2 May 2006 (CEST)

Given a DefinedMeaning, the definition and the expression, this first pair are to be translated literally. The most important thing is that the Expression in translation fits the definition. That is key. With semantic drift you have expressions that do not fit the definition, when this happens the flag is turned off that indicates that the meaning is the same. This implies that the translation needs to be used with care and basically works only in one way. It also means that there should be a DefinedMeaning that fits the Expression and its Defenition.
Plurals and singulars can happen if this is the correct translation in a given DefinedMeaning. GerardM 21:47, 2 May 2006 (CEST)

[edit] Licensing matters

Cross-posted from the OmegaWiki blog. Discussion and suggestions invited. Also, could somebody please help import the {{cc-by}} template? —Dvortygirl 08:36, 3 May 2006 (CEST)

The trouble with GFDL
GFDL includes a clause that says that attribution must be given in order to copy content. It's true in CC-by, too. GFDL, though, requires that the individual contributors be named. For documentation, which was the original purpose of the GFDL license, that makes sense. For projects with more content and more contributors, the requirement to name individual contributors becomes a burden.
One interpretation of GFDL suggests that the use of a particular Wiktionary entry requires attribution of all its contributors. This approach would paralyze the free re-use of the data in applications such as spell-checkers. Another approach would be to handle the attribution en masse, such as by including a single list of contributors to imported data (perhaps with edit counts) without tracking who contributed what.
The GFDL license also does not consider the attribution of organizations. We do not know, for instance, the names of all the individuals who contributed the GEMET data. OmegaWiki has partners already, and will have many more as it grows.
In order to proceed smoothly, we propose the use of the CC-by license. At this stage, we welcome discussion. If you agree with this direction, please state your agreement to license your own contributions under CC-by on your user pages on OmegaWiki and your home Wiktionary.
  • Comment:
  • I find the introduction of an incompatible license highly suspicious. Is the sole purpose of doing so, simply to prevent Wiktionaries from ever using OmegaWiki data? --Connel MacKenzie 11:22, 3 May 2006 (CEST)

[edit] This is a measure that discrimates AGAINST OmegaWiki

The reason why GFDL was chosen was because of Wikipedia and, it is because what you did. Now there are more Free licenses than the GFDL. With CC-by for OmegaWiki, people can use the WZ data on Wiktionary. It is more problematic to use content from Wiktionary on OmegaWiki... GerardM 12:27, 3 May 2006 (CEST)

  • Answer to Connel's comment: why would a more open license that allows wiktionary to use OmegaWiki data be suspicious??? It is more open and easier to handle ... it is Wiktionary that is more closed down due to licensing issues compared to OmegaWiki. Hmmm ... --Sabine 13:20, 3 May 2006 (CEST)
Wouldn't it be possible to dual-license it for the sake of the old wiktionaries? Or would that give too much problems at a future date? \Mike 09:38, 5 May 2006 (CEST)

I'm no expert in legal issue and I admit I never read from the beginning to the end neither the GFDL neither the CC licence. But I really cannot undestand what's the problem with GFDL. Anyhow knowledge is not copyrightable so, if someone uses OmegaWiki to help him/herself with a translation there is no need at all to cite wiktionary or the authors so this project will be freely usable by anyone who needs it (just like wikipedia). On the other side if someone wants to take data from here to publish his own free dictionary why I sould be worried about how hard it will be for him/her to respect the GFDL? I will not contribute to this project to allow anyone to download the whole dump, print and resell it, I will contribute to allow people to use freely that small amount of knowledge I have (just like on wikipedia). --Berto 10:05, 9 May 2006 (CEST)

One of the reasons is that if