[jbovlaste] Re: jbovlaste entry suggestion page

[tijlan <jbotijlan@gmail.com>]

2009/9/26 Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org>:
> On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 06:15:22PM +0200, tijlan wrote:
>> I have been focusing on the General Service List
>> (http://simple.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:General_Service_List) as
>> to what to put into jbovlaste, so that i can optimize my effort
>> towards most useful & frequent words (at least in English). I
>> encourage other committed editors to be guided by such word lists at
>> times if not always. Other than the General Service List, i recommend:
>>
>> Basic English 1500
>> http://simple.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Extended_Basic_English_alphabetical_wordlist
>>
>> Academic Word List
>> http://simple.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Academic_word_list
>>
>> Contemporary Fiction Word Frequency List
>> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Frequency_lists/Contemporary_fiction
>>
>> For this purpose, it would be very convenient & motivative if
>> jbovlaste provided us with a page that would, based on such word
>> lists, tell us which entries are missing from the database, in
>> addition to the "natlang - All" page that lists only existing entries.
>
> These lists are of course fine as rough guides to finding important words in existing literature, but using them as laundry lists for outright creating new words should be discouraged, because it runs counter to cultural neutrality.

Filling up the missing entries found in reference to those lists does
not necessitate the creation of new words. For instance, the General
Service List has two words of the same sense "maintain possession of",
namely "hold" and "keep"; i didn't create any new Lojban word for
either of them, i just added them as gloss keywords to "ralte".

The point is to prepare jbovlaste for what can be anticipated as the
statistically most frequent searches from the viewpoint of each
natlang. When a beginner comes on and asks "How do you say 'to
arrange' in Lojban?", we don't reject the inquiry but give an answer
to them. And that answering process is what jbovlaste can be automated
for. Then the editors would have to know which words are more likely
to be searched, and add them to the database. After all, a dictionary
is to serve the interests of the searcher. The slower we add entries
of frequent/important words in natlangs, the slower jbovlaste gains
its general utility, not being as serviceable as it should be.


mu'o mi'e tijlan