Re: Adding gloss translations [Was: Re: [edict-jmdict] JMdict editing form]

["Jim Breen" <jimbreen@*********>]

2008/10/8 Alexandre Courbot <gnurou@gmail.com>:
>> One idea I have discussed with a guy wanting to expand the Spanish entries
>> is
>> that an option on the EDICT-amend form could be a checkbox and associated
>> dropdown menu that diverted the "amendment" so that it became an addition
>> to
>> one of the other language files. I really should push that idea along a
>> bit
>> -
>> is probably not too hard to do.
>>
>> Would something like that help?

This is partly implemented in the testbed WWWJDIC. Go to
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic2.cgi?1MDJ%B9%A9%BE%EC
and click on "Suggest an amendment". The form now has an extra option
in which you
can ask for it to become an entry in another language. I have yet to
add the code
that siphone these "other language" entries off, and adds them to the
respective language
files.

> Here is my "ideal vision" (warning: computer scientist inside) of how
> the editing system should work. This is just a vision - not even a
> discussion for now, as it would introduce a drastic change in the way
> things work, so let Jim decide whether he want to discuss it further
> or just kill the egg. :)
>
> As was stated in the previous subject, what users may want/need as an
> editing form will vary depending on how much they know about JMdict,
> and what they want to do. For instance, I understood that Jim would
> wish new senses to be written in English, while contributions in other
> languages would only be translations of the existing glosses. That
> would require two very different forms.
>
> Jim cannot reasonnably manage too many different forms by himself.
> Also, external contributions are made difficult because they must be
> plugged into the existing database system, and may use different
> frameworks (Ruby, Perl, whatever else). This can quickly become a
> mess. Also, and this is only my personal opinion here, the current
> form is pretty dissuasive as it does not allow to load existing
> entries for doing small changes.
>
> So what would make the most sense to me, is that the wwwjdic proposes
> not an editing form, but an editing API that others could use to plug
> their own forms. This would solve the database plugging and framework
> hosting problem. This would allow anyone to write and use whatever
> form they want and host it themselves. This would still allow Jim to
> review contributions. Of course, the wwwjdic could still have its own
> form, but would use the same API.
>
> In addition, Jim could also have control to who can use the API
> through a authentication system. And, that would allow to distribute
> the work: translation groups could be setup, with the maintainer would
> do his own review before batch-committing changes to the main server
> without further review.
>
> I don't know if there is a possibility or even a will to go that way,
> but it would definitely encourage contributions and make translations
> a real possibility. Right now, it seems to be very difficult for a
> translation group to contribute as the translations must be reviewed,
> put into the right place (which entry, which sense?), and I'm not even
> sure there is a real format designed to ease that task.
>
> What do you think?

Sounds an interesting way of doing it. I'd be interested in Stuart's
comments. What I am doing in WWWJDIC for edits is strictly interim, and
quite crude. I think an API or choice of APIs is best addressed with the
New System.

>> Something that is worth checking out is the project at:
>> http://www.dictionnaire-japonais.com/ If they would release a copy to be
>> added to the existing French material, it would be terrific. Can you ask
>> them?
>
> Mmm, definitely, I will contact them and see if they would not like to
> contribute their material back to JMdict.

Let me know how you get on.

I note the Tatoeba project has quite a lot of Japanese/French sentence pairs.
I guess it's time I generalized the handling of examplesso that people using
the French dictionary file can get at matching sentence pairs.

Cheers

Jim
-- 
Jim Breen
Honorary Senior Research Fellow
Clayton School of Information Technology,
Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/