Developing entries, feedback, etc.

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

Greetings,

Hendrik posted the following in the comments of a proposed entry
and since it can be viewed publicly there, and that is not a great place
for general discussion, I have repeated it here.

I think these are very important issues, and moreover since we are
close to changing to a new input/amend system which will have
a different comment/feedback mechanism, it's a good time to
try and plot the right path.

I'll interpolate some comments in Hendrik's text, which I will not
cut at all:

> On an unrelated note (but with reference to some recent goings on)...
> After re-reading the posting guidelines, i contemplate this one: "Never
> guess. If you are not sure of the kanji, or the reading, or the English
> meaning, don't bother sending it."

That is really a shot across the bows to stop people tossing in
half-cooked entries. I have had people send in things with
"you work it out" as the reading, or "just a guess" appended
to the meaning.

Having said that, I get to know who is reliable and who is not. It
really helps when people give a name - even a nickname, and there
are regulars from whom I will happily accept an educated guess
as I know it's likely to be as good or better than I could
do.

> ...There has always been a bit of
> negotiation room, but i am not happy with the situation as it is. I
> hate to put in entries here of the sort that fall under that guidelines,
> but there is effectively no other place to go when one is in the middle
> of work and doesn't have the leisure to attend forums or mailing lists
> devoted to explaining and vetting vocabulary. Since the different entry
> page you once set up for handling such uncertain items (it was/is a
> wiki-like page somewhere on edrdg.org) never attracted the necessary
> comments to make it work, i have long given up using it (and also since
> forgotten how to access it).

I'm sorry about that. It slipped off my radar while I was spending most
of my time in the ICU etc. with my injured daughter. I later went back to
the page and commented on/actioned/etc. the items. Maybe it's
an appropriate mechanism, but maybe something more threaded is
needed.

That page is: http://www.edrdg.org/wiki/index.php/Entries_Under_Development
if anyone need a reminder.

> ..... OTOH, given that you have vastly expanded
> the resources we can use when defining new entries by adding several
> databases of the type WI#,at least one of which contains lots of
> incomplete entries
> could you add a flag to this entry form to allow for incomplete or
> speculative - but otherwise needed - entries, perhaps in a way that
> those are not automatically go from the daily submission summary into
> EDIC but instead into one of those databases from where they can then
> be taken up and completed at some other time? This, i think, would make
> it much easier to deal with such items, since there would be only one
> interface to work with, and all the information needed would be visible in
> one place... just a thought...

I don't want to add it to my interim system, because I hope it will be
closing down very soon. And I don't want to load Stuart with feature
like that for the new system.

In a way the new system will handle it in that new entries will be
"pending" until they are signed-off by an editor. Whether they will
go into WWWJDIC immediately with an "unapproved" tag, as happens
now, remains to be resolved.

Perhaps a blog for discussing these things? I don't know. I'm open to
any suggestions (especially ones that can be implemented.) The present
feedback is VERY clunky, but at least it achieves something.

The whole environment will change once we get to the new system,
of course. (I am now using it for the daily edits. It's going OK, but
a few bugs are being detected and sorted out, as expected.)

Jim,

-- 
Jim Breen
Adjunct Snr Research Fellow, Clayton School of IT, Monash University
Treasurer: Hawthorn Rowing Club, Japanese Studies Centre
Graduate student: Language Technology Group, University of Melbourne