QaMoose

[Waseem Bakr <bakr at MIT dot EDU>]

A few notes about QaMoose (mainly for Nadim, but others might want to read 
and share their thoughts):

- I tried entering a few terms like 'dialog box' and 'arguments' which had 
come up earlier on the doc mailing list. I found that they had already been 
entered, but not approved. If this approval process takes that long, I 
think you should find a substitute to it. I know that you are using it to 
make sure that only good definitions go in the dictionary, but it's slowing 
down the process of incorporating new terms. If I'm going to be responsible 
for the dictionary, I think you should at least give me administrative 
permissions to write to the dictionary without approval :-) An alternative 
system would be to incorporate the terms first, send you a notification 
with the new terms, and then you can remove the ones you don't like. I 
don't think that would cause problems, since I'm sure nobody outside 
Arabeyes would try to enter any terms, and I'm also sure that all members 
of Arabeyes are responsible people who can be trusted not to fill the 
dictionary with unwanted garbage.

- I only entered one term (stylesheet) into the dictionary. I entered it 
from Windows since Konqueror doesn't support Arabic yet. Therefore, it is 
highly unlikely that it was encoded in UTF-8. Could you please check 
whether it was encoded correctly or not. If it wasn't encoded correctly, 
please suggest a method for entering Arabic translations into the dictionary.

- I've noticed that arabized letters like 3 and 7 are used in the 
dictionary. I'm going to use them, but I suggest including a page on the 
website explaining what these letters are if anybody doesn't know them (in 
fact, I don't think I don't know all of them... I am aware of the 
following: 2, 3, 7, 6, 3', and have heard of a 5 for kh, but sometimes see 
it as 7', and that's all I know. If there are more letters, please send 
them to me) I'm willing to write the page for the letter definitions once I 
get a complete list. Since these letters are going to be used most likely 
by people who cannot view Arabic text in their browsers, I want to use 
graphics for the Arabic letters.

- What is the description box for? In some places I've seen it used as a 
translation aid (e.g. window was translated as nafidhah and shubbak, and 
then in the description box it said these are synonyms) and in other places 
it is used simply as an English definition of the term. What was it's 
intended use?

- Searching is by far the trickiest aspect of dictionaries. A term can 
often be defined in the dictionary, but not found when searched for. This 
is especially true when it come to entering plurals or different forms of a 
verb and so on. One good thing about the dictionary is that you do not have 
to have an exact match. 'Wind' is enough to find 'window'. In some ways, 
this might point in the direction of entering plural forms rather than 
singulars forms. This way, if 'arguments' is entered into the database, 
searches for both 'argument' and 'arguments' will yield a match, while this 
would not work the other way around. But, on the other hand, entering 
singulars is a more systematic way, and that is why it is used in normal 
dictionaries. It would be helpful if we agree on some standards which 
should be posted on the website to make sure users of the dictionary know 
how to use most effectively.

- Is the version of QaMoose used on the website the most up-to-date version 
you've written?

- You mention bulk transfer of terms. How is that done?

- If QaMoose grows to include thousands of terms, it might be an idea to 
include it in the Arabic version of KDE as a "Dictionary for Computer 
Terms". This might be useful if we do not translate the documentation 
files, for example, and users of arabized KDE might want to know what 
English terms in the dictionary correspond to in our arabized interface. 
You needn't consider that seriously... just a thought since externalizing 
the QaMoose project might make up for the efforts we spend in updating it.

Waseem