We have several ideas on how a wiktionary database might look like (see Tables for Wiktionary). People had said that it does not give them a clue what it might look like and, how it might work. This article is describing how the *Ultimate* Wiktionary would be like. The database should enable this kind of functionality.

Features

All Wiktionaries would be in ONE database

The brief of all Wiktionaries is to have all words in all languages. The consequence is that everything that is the same for all languages is replicated many times. An entry for a word or phrase consists of three parts:

  1. Language independent stuff
  2. Interface stuff (things like: "Noun" "Danish" (to indicate the word is Danish) "Translation" etc)
  3. Language dependent stuff. (things like the definition of the meaning of a word)

Changes made for one language will be reflected in other languages

  • As changes are all done in the same wiktionary, adding a translation of a word in language A to language B will result in a link to either an existing word or a new word in language B. This will result in the word being added in the "Recent changes" for language A and B.

The indication of recent changes will be different as well; a change done in the local language to the word is in blue, a change done in another language to the word is done in red. A word that has not had the localisation done is a word that is not red and blue (re linking) but orange.

The language of the User Interface is selectable in the preferences

The interface will not only be the mediawiki interface but also the indication of stuff like "noun", "translation" etc. However, this may be overridden by the userpreferences.

The languages that a person is interested in are selectable in the preferences

The languages a person is interested in, are the languages that will be shown completely in that language. These are also the languages that a person is likely to edit.

When a person is interested in a language, he gets the page completely in that language. If he does not undestand it he should not edit it.

The languages that a person wants to see the translations for are selectable

When a person is interested to see the translations for a language, he will get to see everything for that word but the language specific stuff like definitions will be in his primary language. They will be absent when nobody has entered such stuff.

FAQ

  • When will the "ultimate Wiktionary" go on air (roughly)?
See the time schedule.
  • Will the "ultimate Wiktionary" be located on a separate internet address (ultimate.wiktionary.org)?
Yes. When an existing project decides to merge with the Ultimate wiktionary, it will be removed after the conversion.
  • Will the "ultimate Wiktionary" be as flexible as the current one (with edit box that works like the wikipedia one, templates,...)? With other words: Will the UltWikt be compatible to the current ones with all its articles?
It will be explicitly be different. Depending of the type of field you may have wikisyntax available. The ultimate will be more flexible as all work needs to be done only once this in marked contrast with the current multitude of wiktionaries.
  • Can all articles be transfered like they are (in the beginning) or do we have to convert them all to a decided design/layout before tranfering them?
Existing articles will need to be converted. The better the structure of the article the better the possibility to convert the data using bots.
The ultimate will not have first character capitalisation and it will not have redirects. GerardM 11:14, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)