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Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Archive/Redesign wiki software for specific needs of a dictionary

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Redesign wiki software for specific needs of a dictionary

 N Merged with Adapt MediaWiki to the needs of Wiktionaries

  • Problem: Wiktionary does not dominate online the way Wikipedia does, despite its strengths in accurately documenting evolving language and despite numerous translations which cannot be found together at a single other source. (Compare our newest definitions to the random garbage at Urban Dictionary, or open up a translation section in one of our entries, and see for yourself!) This shortcoming is evident from online searches for definitions, synonyms, rhymes, or other such purposes, none of which tend to ever give hits for Wiktionary, whether looking for slang, jargon, archaic terms, or anything else. This lack of renown stems fundamentally from a design that has been pounded into the existing wiki software developed to enable discussions on long articles. These namespaces do not work well for dictionary purposes, so though editors have made do, ultimately it's the user experience that suffers. For example, it's difficult to use Wiktionary and Wiktionnaire together as a strictly French-English dictionary because of the need to jump around amidst all the clutter from other languages. Yet together the two sites are much more complete and reliable than other resources.
  • Who would benefit: New and existing users in both their native language, most importantly, and in foreign languages, most extensively.
  • Proposed solution: Re-envision what a wiki dictionary would look like from the ground up, then use that concept to propose extention or branch of the wiki software. Although its completion must combine the unilingual dictionary with translations and a phrasebook, this is not a proposal to re-imagine how dictionaries work, rather to capture the essence of a dictionary in a wiki format. For instance, the fundamental unit stems from a definition line, traditionally grouped by etymology, but there is currently no way to tie images, usage notes, or long lists of synonyms and translations to a definition in a way that's transparent within the wiki software. Consider use cases for definitions of different types of terms like newly attested slang, technical jargon, and acronyms in living languages, for quotations in and derivations from archaic languages, for synonyms, antonyms, hypernyms and such, for rhymes, for anograms and scramble searches, for translation work and language acquisition, and for whatever else falls under the scope of the project. Then consider combining all the Wiktionaries into one service, using the domain name only as a selection of the interface, and the tabs for specifically selected languages (like English and French) plus Other Languages, instead of Entry and Talk. This would in effect create much more than a dictionary, rather a single reference with unilingual dictionaries in every language. Again, the idea is not to redefine the basic tenents of a dictionary, but to establish strong traditional dictionaries first, in such a way that they can then reference each other. As this is intended to update rather than replace the existing Wiktionaries, the re-envisioning needs to occur within the Wiktionary communities themselves, but principally from a user standpoint first. If the Wiktionaries are to be combined into a single reference, then the prototype needs to derive from existing content as evidence of the feasibility of transition.
  • More comments: TL;DR This is Wiktionary. Let's replant it.

 

Discussion

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