Fw: Re: "Wiktionary" anyone?

[Thomas Paikeday]

Sorry I dropped a "t" in Grant's name.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Paikeday" <thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, October 29, 2004 9:58 AM
Subject: Re: "Wiktionary" anyone?


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Thomas Paikeday <thomaspaikeday at SPRINT.CA>
> Subject:      Re: "Wiktionary" anyone?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Grant Barret has apparently made a systematic study of Wiktionary since
> 2003. I have so far spent only about an hour browsing it, including the
> Malayalam language section. But it does seem an interesting project if the
> chief operators Wales and Sanger will get expert advice like Grant's to
> put
> their house in order. Let's keep watching this new lexicographic
> phenomenon!
>
> TOM.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Grant Barrett" <gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Friday, October 29, 2004 6:51 AM
> Subject: Re: "Wiktionary" anyone?
>
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail
>> header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Grant Barrett <gbarrett at WORLDNEWYORK.ORG>
>> Subject:      Re: "Wiktionary" anyone?
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> I have been following the progress of Wiktionary--though not
>> contributing--since early 2003 (and already have "wiki" on my WOTY
>> nomination list). It does show promise, particularly over other
>> user-created dictionaries like Urbandictionary.com, but it has
>> problems. The people involved in the project seem aware of these
>> problems, but they are hamstrung by a severe case of committee-driven
>> utopianism.
>>
>> 1. Irregular capitalization. Some headwords are capitalized, some are
>> not. A dictionary should be a place to go to see whether a word takes a
>> capital. This is an ongoing debate that it seems the technocrats are
>> winning.
>>
>> 2. Dictionary entries vs. encyclopedic entries. Some entries are not
>> suitable for a dictionary. One recently added as of this writing is
>> "Tallahassee Volleyball Association."
>>
>> 3. Pet entries, nonce words, ego-driven neologisms, and joke entries
>> are present. I see "Rm nd mnky" for "rum and monkey" was recently
>> added. This will continue to be a problem. Unless the number of these
>> lame entries are zero, this will always call Wiktionary into question
>> as a valuable source. One of the great things about Wikipedia--a
>> similar project--is that it is so well edited and monitored that
>> vandalism, propaganda, and spam are deleted in less than 24 hours. (See
>> this story about Wikipedia's self-healing powers:
>> <http://alex.halavais.net/news/index.php?p=794>. Make sure to read his
>> follow-up posts, linked in red at the top, and the user comments and
>> trackbacks.)
>>
>> 4. Many entries are just headwords with nothing else. Many others are
>> just glosses. See the recent "Batu" which entry just contains the word
>> "stone."
>>
>> 5. They are creating from scratch when they should be, at least for
>> English, building on a pre-existing work, just as the entire 1913
>> Webster's. I think the low quality of most of the existing entries
>> bears this point out very well. Some of the Webster's terms are in
>> there, but they are entered with the prefix "Webster 1913," which means
>> they are not alphabetized correctly. They are also very few, and they
>> often have only the headword with no definition. The help pages, too,
>> show an awareness of this work as a possible source, but no systematic
>> effort has been made to import it wholesale.
>>
>> 6. Entries are not properly categorized by language. Foreign words
>> which are in no way loanwords in English appear in the English
>> listings.
>>
>> 7. The wiki software does not lend itself to a dictionary. The
>> capitalized headwords is a classic case: apparently, the Wiki software
>> has this as a default. Also, it does not allow for separation of parts
>> of an entry so that one can search for, say, all German nouns beginning
>> with N that include a pronunciation.
>>
>> Grant Barrett
>>
>>
>> On Oct 29, 2004, at 00:11, Thomas Paikeday wrote:
>>
>>> I am forwarding the correspondence below for the List's interest and
>>> comments if any. I checked with Edward Gates and Enid Pearsons; they
>>> hadn't
>>> seen this new type of dictionary. Please see
>>> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Main_Page.
>>> TOM PAIKEDAY
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" <jwales at wikia.com>
>>> To: "Thomas Paikeday" <thomaspaikeday at sprint.ca>
>>> Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 2:36 PM
>>> Subject: Re: Wiktionary
>>>
>>>
>>>> Hi!
>>>>
>>>> There is no "chief" but rather a community of interested volunteers.
>>>> They would *welcome* your participation and assistance and advice,
>>>> because expertise and experience like yours would go a long way
>>>> towards helping us achieve our goals.
>>>>
>>>> --Jimbo
>>>>
>>>> Thomas Paikeday wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Dear Jimmy Wales / Larry Sanger,
>>>>>
>>>>> As a practising lexicographer since 1964, I am impressed by your
>>>>> Wiktionary. I am curious to know who is the chief linguist or
>>>>> lexicographer behind this part of your project which is so expertly
>>>>> designed and executed. I trust it is not a trade secret since the
>>>>> work is
>>>>> of a scholarly or academic nature, not commercial.
>>>>>
>>>>> Many thanks.
>>>>>
>>>>> THOMAS M. PAIKEDAY
>>>>> www.paikeday.net
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> "La nèfle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on
>>>> fr.wikipedia.org
>>>>
>>>