Wiktionary talk:Thesaurus/Improvements 2

Project Purpose

• To be as comprehensive and accurate a thesaurus and semantic network as possible, and to look good doing it. The intention being to be as useful a resource as possible to the end users, while maintaining an editability that is congenial to all users regardless of experience. - TheDaveRoss 06:02, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Project Status

Namespace

Should we establish an actual "WikiSaurus" namespace? If so, how do we get that done? - TheDaveRoss 06:07, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Format

Discussion can be found here.

CFI

Discussion can be found here.

Project Topics

Is WikiSaurus a useful idea, to be developed, or a mistaken turning ?

--HappyDog 13:24, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Here are my thoughts:

1. I think a free open-content thesaurus is a very good idea, and that a lot of people would find it very useful.
2. I think that the Wikimedia Foundation are the right people to take on this project, and that the project fits in with the overall aims of the foundation.
3. I think that such a project would be so tightly linked to Wiktionary that it would be pointless duplication to try and develop them separately.

   Mind you, if the software is developed in a way that allows much tighter inter-wiki connections (I mean e.g. single search point, single interface, inter-wiki transclusion) then it might make it more sensible for this to be a separate project, however I don't think this is likely, at least not in the short term.

However there are the following caveats:

1. Is the software up to the job? If not, would it be better to wait until it is?

   On the other hand, the mediawiki software is not up to the job of creating a dictionary, but that doesn't stop us from trying.

2. It would mean changing the project goals, and possibly the project name. If the thesaurus aspect is secondary then it kind of makes it meaningless. The project should become something like 'Wiktionary: a wiki-based open content dictionary and thesaurus'. However this may go against the wishes of the community.
3. A multi-language thesaurus would be pretty unwieldy, but if this remains part of Wiktionary it would need to include words from foreign languages as well as native english words.

--HappyDog 13:24, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Is WikiSaurus the right name ?

--HappyDog 13:24, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps WikiThesaurus ? But is there anything with WikiSaurus ? Perhaps it should be Wikisaurus ?

Should be Wikisaurus, not WikiSaurus to be consistent with other Wikimedia projects, but Wikisaurus sounds like a dinosaur, and Wikithesaurus is very clumsy. If it is going to be part of Wiktionary then it doesn't necessarily need an official name. Wiktionary would become an 'open content dictionary and thesaurus' (see above) and the thesaurus would be one aspect of it. This is consistent with other aspects of the dictionary, for example, we include pronunciation guides without having a separate 'Wikipronounce'. --HappyDog 13:24, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree with everything HappyDog said. --71.252.241.50 10:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)