this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2024
62 points (94.3% liked)

Technology

59374 readers
7033 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
62
What do you think about Abstract Wikipedia? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
25 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Wikifunctions is a new site that has been added to the list of sites operated by WMF. I definitely see uses for it in automating updates on Wikipedia and bots (and also for programmers to reference), but their goal is to translate Wikipedia articles to more languages by writing them in code that has a lot of linguistic information. I have mixed feelings about this, as I don't like existing programs that automatically generate articles (see the Cebuano and Dutch Wikipedias), and I worry that the system will be too complicated for average people.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I'll reply to myself to highlight a point, and issue a challenge for those who assume that WMF's apparent goal - to translate Wikipedia articles to more languages by writing them in code that has a lot of linguistic information - is actually viable:

Here's an excerpt from an actual Wikipedia article: "the solubility of these gases depending on the temperature and salinity of the water." Show me all the linguistic information that a writer would need to input, to convey the same information, in that system idealised by the goal, in a way that would not output "then who was phone?" tier nonsense for some languages. Then I'll show you why it would still output nonsense for some languages.

Too much work? Then feel free to do it just for "of the water". It's a single PP, how hard would it be? /s

Hic Rhodes, hic salta.

[Edit reason: clarity.]