Re: Use of QaMoose

[Sayed Al-Mosawi <yamyam at rocketmail dot com>]

--- Waseem Bakr <bakr at MIT dot EDU> wrote:
> Salam everyone,
> I have just approved all the pending terms you have
> submitted to QaMoose. 
> After browsing through some of your submissions, I'd
> like to make a few 
> short notes (please have a quick look even if they
> look horribly long and 
> uninviting):
> 
> 1. You've done a great job! Keep up the good work,
> and keep adding new terms.
> 2. Please always be sure to fill the "Arabic term in
> Latin letters" field. 
> Thanks to Nadim, QaMoose now supports non-UTF-8
> input, but still, it would 
> be a good idea to put it, if only for me to use.
> About half of the previous 
> entries have been rejected simply because they were
> not in the correct 
> format, and thus, the person approving them could
> not read them. If you 
> include the term in Latin letters, you help me in
> such cases.
> 3. If you come across a term you don't now how to
> translate, just put it in 
> the dictionary with NO translation! It's not going
> to be incorporated 
> directly into the dictionary. When I'm looking at
> pending terms, I'll see 
> your terms and try to come up with a translation for
> them.
> 4. I want everybody to become a Mosawi. Well, not
> exactly, but to a very 
> good extent. First, whenever you come across a terms
> you're unsure of, USE 
> the dictionary. It's not there just for us to fill
> up! If (and this is very 
> likely since QaMoose is still very small) you don't
> find the term, add it 
> to the dictionary. As I mentioned in 3, you can
> leave it untranslated. The 
> important thing is that it is added. This way, we
> can maintain uniformity 
> in our translations. If someone else comes across
> the same term and doesn't 
> know how to translate it, thanks to you, they'll be
> able to find it in the 
> dictionary.
> 5. Now to the "not exactly" part of being a Mosawi
> (he's still a great 
> guy!) Don't send the words you want to ask about to
> the list. Just fill 

Salam,

First Thanx for the compliment. :)
Now my question: Do we have to fill the untranslated
words in the form of the new terms? if so, then the
dictionary needs to fill all fields in the form like
the Arabic term, which we don't know exactly about.
What do we have to do then?

Thanx.

> them in the dictionary, and I'll try very hard to
> find translations for 
> them. The reason why I don't want you to send them
> to the list is that I 
> will be doing something similar, and with both of us
> doing that, your 
> mailboxes will explode with the huge amounts of mail
> you receive. Every 
> time I get about 50 terms added to the dictionary
> (the number can be 
> increased or decreased depending on your feedback),
> I'll send you a 
> compiled list of the new words (just the English
> words, not the 
> translations.) Have a quick look at the list of
> terms. Just a glance. This 
> way, if you come across a strange word later while
> working on a file, you 
> might remember that you saw it on one of my lists,
> and so you can search 
> the QaMoose for it's translation.
> 6. This is a dictionary for computer terms.
> "Cyrillic" (from one of the 
> last e-mails asking for translations) has no place
> in it, so you can do 
> something like what Mosawi did, and ask the doc
> mailing list. Please don't 
> try putting it in the dictionary, because I'm going
> to reject it, and I 
> won't bother trying to translate it. All
> computer-related terms are 
> welcome, and I'll add all of them, but I don't think
> "move" (as in move a 
> window) needs to be included. It's so obvious! On
> the other hand, another 
> seemingly obvious term like "resize" should be
> added, since it is a has a 
> controversial translation. Some people use it
> according to it's context (if 
> they see that it's meaning is to enlarge a window,
> they use "takbeer"), 
> others use a lengthy translation, like "taghyeer
> hajm" and yet others use 
> simply "ta7jeem" (which is what in the dictionary
> now.) To set a standard 
> in the translation, do include such terms. What's
> obvious and what's not... 
> I'll leave that for your judgement.
> 7. I will check the page of pending terms nightly,
> so you can be assured 
> your efforts are not going to be lost.
> 8. I am not an expert in translating terms!
> Occasionally, I might get stuck 
> on some of them. When I send you my lists, I'll put
> terms I didn't know how 
> to translate in the beginning of the list and you
> might give ME feedback to 
> how you would like me to translate them. The keyword
> here is ME (I'm 
> self-centric, yeah.) Please don't spam the list.
> 9. I regret to say this: even if a term is in the
> dictionary, there is a 
> very good chance you won't find it. What?!! Yes.
> Let's say you came across 
> the word "preferences". You searched for it in the
> dictionary and got no 
> matches. Maybe, "preference" is there, but your
> extra "s" prevented you 
> from finding the word. This may seem like common
> sense to you. You search 
> for singular words in the dictionary, not plural
> ones. But still, the word 
> might be in the dictionary as "prefer". This calls
> for setting standards. I 
> will deal with this issue of standardization as soon
> as possible. Most 
> likely, I will use a system for similar to the one
> used in Arabic 
> dictionaries, where a word is put in it's simplest
> form, like "prefer". In 
> the description field, I will try to include all
> possible forms of the word 
> and their translations. This will save me the
> trouble of entering half a 
> dozen definitions in the dictionary for the same
> word in different forms.
> 10. When I see a term entered with no translation, I
> will e-mail the person 
> who sent it with a short notification that the word
> has been added, since I 
> will assume that they want to know the translation.
> 11. You needn't start shivering or sweating when
> you're about to add a new 
> term. Nothing is official. I can assure you that
> history will never frown 
> upon you as the person who included that silly
> translation of the word 
> so-and-so in the greatest work of computer
> lexicography. All translations 
> go through a selection process, and inappropriate
> translations are edited 
> or, less frequently, rejected. So, never hesitate to
> add a word. I hope 
> encourages you to add words whenever you can.
> 
> Finally, thanks to everyone who has contributed to
> the dictionary so far, 
> and special thanks to Sayed Al-Mosawi, our most
> active contributor to 
> QaMoose recently.
> 
> -Waseem
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Doc mailing list
> Doc at arabeyes dot org
> http://arabeyes.org/mailman/listinfo/doc


=====
---------------
   Sayed Jaffer Al-Mosawi
   Project: Arabeyes Project (TM).
   Goal: Bringing Unix to arabic world.
   Homepage: http://www.arabeyes.org

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