AW: Design for SignPuddle 3: parts-of-speech and morphology of sign language

Fri Dec 13 20:21:20 UTC 2013

My suggestion would be to allow anyone to update this field if they want to from provisional to “rejected” or “playtime/learning”,  but only certain editors would be allowed to change the field from provisional to accepted/non-standard.

How about the following possible values:
Accepted
Accepted, non-standard version of sign
Accepted, non-standard version of SignWriting
Provisional
Playtime/learning/rejected

In terms of normalization of data, the issue of non-standard might actually be better off in a separate field, but I don’t think this is a big issue itself.  But Adam has a very good point about adding a reason.  In fact, that adds weight to the idea that non-standard might be better off in a separate field, that might be free form to allow entering a specific reason, with a few preformatted choices – non-standard form of sign, non-standard SignWriting, playtime/learning.  Then the accepted/provisional/playtime field becomes simpler – probably only three choices are needed.  
And, if everyone is allowed to edit the Reason field, then this could be used to make the editor’s approval process easier – I could mark all of the signs that have a Reason field that says “playtime” as playtime/rejected immediately, without looking at each one.  People who don’t have authority to approve could still add a reason why they think the SignWriting should be rejected or accepted, and this also would make the editor’s job easier.   And people who want to learn/play a little would probably feel more free to play if they can quickly mark what they are doing as playtime.
Rachel

From: SignWriting List: Read and Write Sign Languages [mailto:SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACOLLEGE.EDU] On Behalf Of Stephen E Slevinski Jr
Sent: Friday, December 13, 2013 1:56 PM
To: SW-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACOLLEGE.EDU
Subject: Re: AW: Design for SignPuddle 3: parts-of-speech and morphology of sign language

On 12/13/13, 10:20 AM, Adam Frost wrote:
And what exactly is being approved or rejected? The spelling of the sign? Or the sign itself? How would non-standard play into it?

Hi Adam,

SignPuddle has always been focused on the spelling of a sign rather than the concept of a sign.  

Similar signs are related to other signs because they are spelled similarly not because of connections in a database.  At the end of this email, I've included a detailed example of how morphology works directly with SignWriting text.  

With SignPuddle, there is an existing security model and data structure.  I'm trying to stay as close as possible to this model so that we can continue with the current SignPuddle corpus.  We have over 100,000 sign entries and over 1 million written signs.

Each open puddle accepts new entries from any SignPuddle user.  Those users can edit their own entries but not other people's work.  Each puddle can have a list of editors.  These editors can edit or delete any entry.  

How these editors behave, how they are chosen, and their interactions are puddle specific.  There is no way for Valerie or I to moderate each individual choice.  However, we are involved in granting or revoking editor privileges on a per puddle basis. This give a language community a way to clean up their dictionary on their own.

For some editorial disputes, the right answer is to split a puddle into 2 different puddles for 2 different groups to work separately.

I am interested in evaluating the status of each sign entry so that we can improve the content over time and improve the quality of the search results.  To help editors, I've imagined a simple workflow.

For SignPuddle 3, all of the imported content will be marked as "provisional".  This will be the initial quality of the ASL Dictionary: 10,000 provisional entries.

This is not a negative, but a statement of fact.  The quality of the ASL Dictionary is unknown. Over time, if editors choose to work on the provisional entries, the numbers will change. 

Imagine a year later if the ASL Dictionary reported the following numbers:
200 provisional
6,000 approved
2,000 non-standards
1,000 rejected

The search results of the approved entries would be much nicer to use than the search results of the rejected entries.  If the approved entries didn't contain what I was looking for, I could search the non-standard or provisional entries. 

The status is overloaded for both sign quality (physical production) and script quality (written image).  Both of these would need to be judged to correctly mark an entry.

To evaluate an entry for "teacher", we would evaluate both the way it is written and the way it is signed.  A good writing for a good sign may be approved.  A good writing of an unusual sign would be non-standard.  Likewise, an unusual writing of a good sign could be non-standard as well. 

If I see a provisional entry that clearly contains an error, it should be marked as rejected.  If that author makes a habit of checking their writing, they will find one of their entries has been rejected.  If they investigate the reason for the rejection, they will hopefully learn something new and be able to fix their writing.  

I can understand the personal sensibilities of not wanting to judge the work of others or not wanting to have my work rejected; however, for the SignPuddle corpus to improve there must be some workflow that helps get us there.

I've imagined this simple workflow and I'm open to discussion or ideas.

The quality of the SignPuddle corpus is evident with the search results.  Without a way to filter content, there is a lot of bad writing included with a lot of great writing.  

Regards,
-Steve

PS - Regarding morphology with SignWriting text.

If we search for "teacher" in ASL, we will find the following signs.

These signs are examples of compound morphology because they all include the end morpheme of person.  With SignWriting text, it is possible to search for this person morpheme.  One example query string is as follows: QS15a40520x543S22a04520x574S15a48473x543S22a14473x574

For ASL, there are 47 signs that are found with this query.

In English, they have names like: 

audiologist
caretaker
champ
champion
Comforter
convert
Creator
Creator
criminal
destroyer
If we return to the original teacher list, we can see a different handshape is used in one of the "teacher" signs.  A different query can find this non-standard entry. QS14c40512x529S14c48459x528S22a04517x569S22a14462x571

These are the only 2 results that describe the person morpheme in this way.  

If we modify the query string for the same handshapes, but in other palm facings and other rotations, we get more results. QS14cuu512x529S14cuu459x528S22a04517x569S22a14462x571

Now, all of this information was entered by SignPuddle users and searchable within the SignWriting Text.  It is a bit of a jungle, but a very beautiful and interesting place.
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