[Lexicog] collaborative dictionary editing

[amsler at CS.UTEXAS.EDU]

Doesn't this sound a bit like what a 'wiki' itself does. I.e., a  
database in which revision control is implemented such that users can  
all make edits and the system permits emails to users when changes to  
their entries have been made and allows finding and comparing versions  
of entries and reverting entries to earlier versions.


Quoting Bill Poser <billposer2 at gmail.com>:

> There is software available that automates a process similar to what Susan
> describes. It is called "revision control software" and is used primarily by
> computer programs. A good place to start is this Wikipedia article:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revision_control There are a number of free
> systems as well as some proprietary ones.
>
> I use revision control not only for software but for writing. If, for
> example, I am going to make major changes and might screw something up, I
> check in the current version, then check out a copy to work on. If I screw
> things up, I can just throw away what I've done and check out the previous
> version. These systems also keep track of changes, so if you discover a
> problem down the road, you can obtain a history of what you've done and
> reconstruct previous versions. (These systems typically keep either the
> first version or the current version plus a list of the editing commands
> that need to be executed to construct the other versions.)  Some systems
> allow only one user to check out a file at once. Such a file is said to be
> locked, and no one else can touch it until the person who has it out has
> checked it back in and released the lock. There are also systems that will
> allow multiple users to check out the same file and merge multiple changed
> versions (and detect incompatible changes).
>
> Another possibility is to use a specialized editor that does not make any
> changes but merely adds "comment" fields containing information about
> proposed changes. On this model, people would add their proposed changes and
> send them to a coordinator who would go through them and make the actual
> changes in a master copy of the database. This is probably not an efficient
> approach to adding records, but could be a reasonable approach to correcting
> and amplifying existing entries.
>
> I mention this with some trepidation because I have a still somewhat drafty
> program that does this. I wrote it for a different purpose, namely allowing
> non-linguists to propose corrections without letting them actually change
> the database. In addition to maintaining the integrity of the database, this
> allows a linguist or other knowledgeable editor to consider suggested
> changes and decide what to do about them. "corrections" may reflect
> disagreements among speakers, which need to be looked into, speakers who
> don't know the writing system used and therefore interpret correct entries
> as mis-spelled or erroneous, speakers who don't understand the English (or
> other language) used, and speakers who don't understand the way in which
> information is presented in the dictionary.
>
> Bill
>
>



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