Comments on: The Wikipedia of dictionaries

The Wikipedia of dictionaries

anjamu — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 01:18:40 -0800

Wikiwords is a collaborative project to create a dictionary of all terms in all languages.

By: anjamu

anjamu — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 01:19:51 -0800

Wikiwords is not affiliated with Wikipedia, but rather is a project that has its origins at the translators' website Proz.com.

By: altolinguistic

altolinguistic — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 03:31:29 -0800

If it works, it really will be best of the web - so far, though, it is very 'beta' and there are huge quality issues.

By: reklaw

reklaw — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 03:59:41 -0800

Interesting, but hard to read. It falls prey to that small fonts, boxes-everywhere, PHP-Nukey style.

By: blacklite

blacklite — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 04:06:05 -0800

This is a very nice idea, but I don't know if we (as the population of the internet) would ever have the discipline to make it work. But, you know. I translated a couple of terms into English. If everyone does a few, maybe we'll get somewhere.

By: scottreynen

scottreynen — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 05:17:04 -0800

I thought that's what Wiktionary was. The only difference I see so far is a lot of "Please enter the English definition of this concept." and "This collection is not publically viewable." on Wikiwords, while Wiktionary has actual content.

By: tellurian

tellurian — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 06:10:49 -0800

altolinguistic - so far, though, it is very 'beta' and there are huge quality issues This site just gives me - JavaScript 'Problem: undefined' errors and then crashes my browser [Safari, OS X].

By: jiawen

jiawen — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 06:34:13 -0800

They put all the Chinese languages under "Chinese". Mandarin isn't even the same between Taiwan and mainland China, so lumping Cantonese, Mandarin, etc. together isn't a very good idea. But the overall concept is neat.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 06:37:05 -0800

Yeah, I don't see this overtaking Wiktionary any time soon. Why are they reinventing the wheel?

By: reklaw

reklaw — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 06:50:06 -0800

Hmm... didn't realise Wiktionary included translations. In that case this project does seem somewhat pointless.

By: taursir

taursir — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 08:02:16 -0800

Seems great, but it'd be better if it didnt look like one of those domain holder websites. Hard to focus on what you're looking for. Hopefully that's part of the beta. ;)

By: colinbrady

colinbrady — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 08:52:00 -0800

A big difference between the Wiktionary project and Wikiwords is that Wiktionary is article based, and Wikiwords uses a relational database to link information together. scottreynen said, "The only difference I see so far is a lot of "Please enter the English definition of this concept." and "This collection is not publically viewable." on Wikiwords, while Wiktionary has actual content." Wikiwords is growing everyday, thanks to the translators of ProZ.com. Colin

By: carsonb

carsonb — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 09:47:16 -0800

thanks for stopping by Colin. there are a lot of language freaks here at Metafilter. any other insights to the Wikiwords projects?

By: scottreynen

scottreynen — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 09:48:26 -0800

Wikiwords is growing everyday, thanks to the translators of ProZ.com. Colin, who pays for your work on ProZ, which goes into Wikiwords? And is anything given back to Princeton in exchange for using their Wordnet database? This all smells a bit shady, and that impression is only reinforced by you signing up just to post a comment defending the site. It also didn't help that you signed your comment, indicating that you aren't very familliar with MetaFilter. Also, this makes me wary of Wikiwords: In the meantime, all contributors should assume that by posting, they assign all rights to use the posted content to ProZ.com and Wikiwords. If you do not agree to release copyright to your contributions without more specific terms, please do not contribute anything during this beta period.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 09:52:14 -0800

can collections be combined? just on the front page I see a collection each for law, Law, and legal. in each field, how are the language lists organized?

By: Mwongozi

Mwongozi — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 10:34:00 -0800

That is not a Wiki. Neither is it nearly as good as Wiktionary.

By: colinbrady

colinbrady — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 12:47:56 -0800

Hi Carson, The Wikiwords schema is built around concepts, instead of terms. If you are unfamiliar with this notion, you can read more here. Hi scottreynen, I work for ProZ.com. I'm not sure why you think me creating an account here to help publicize my web site is "shady". The section you have quoted from the legal page is there because we have not yet decided on a license. Also, here is a link to Wordnet's usage license: http://wordnet.princeton.edu/license

By: scottreynen

scottreynen — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 13:55:05 -0800

I'm not sure why you think me creating an account here to help publicize my web site is "shady". Colin, I didn't say it was shady. I just said it smells shady. You're new and your agenda was unclear. And it's still not entirely clear to me. Where does ProZ get the money to pay you to contribute content to Wikiwords? If it's from venture capital on the promise of future advertising or paid access to freely-acquired content, then I'd call that "shady." If it's from somewhere else, then I'd like to hear more about it before I start contributing to Wikiwords.

By: colinbrady

colinbrady — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 14:54:13 -0800

ProZ.com is a community of professional translators. We had a database of over 1-million terms (from KudoZ Q&A since 1999) and decided to spin it off in an open dictionary. The hope is that this will draw attention to our member services. (Thanks for your help - we really appreciate that you have picked us up as a topic today!) As our FAQ says, we may run something like GoogleAds in the future, but we are not counting on that. For a license, we are considering a CC BY license or something similar, but it seems like there are concerns with each option. Advice would be appreciated, at least as pertains to open dictionaries. Anyway, it is and will be completely open, as KudoZ has always been.