Jump to content
Chinese-Forums
  • Sign Up

Adostrans contributed definitions quality issues?


msittig

Recommended Posts

Is it just me, or has there been an increase in bad definition being added to the Adsotrans database recently? I keep getting ridiculous ones that are clearly context-dependent, ie not appropriate for a general context.

For example, I just got "decided" for 斩断, which literally means to cut off or behead. I could see it meaning "decided" in some figurative context, but that conversion from literal meaning -> figurative meaning should be made in the mind of the reader, not in the Adso database.

Just felt like ranting a bit. It's this is a non-issue for everyone else, please ignore me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I rarely ever use it, for the same reason. It seems to know less than I do, so it's not a very useful dictionary for me. It once translated 西 as 'Spanish', speaking of context-related.

It might get better over time though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Isn't there a periodic manual review and commit process that would eliminate these problems? I know that changes are put into place live for the working database, but I seem to recall that there's another level of screening before they're made permanent.

I guess that's just the nature of crowd-sourcing - you either have immediate results, trusting that people will use it responsibly but running the risk of bad data, or you hold everything and moderate it before releasing it, ensuring quality but making people wait to see the results of their efforts in the project.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't use Adsotrans as I find that if something isn't in my dictionaries a smart Google search is my best bet. Just had a look at a paragraph of a document which I'll be translating tomorrow though, and I thought it did pretty well. The only two issues were that it's currently translating 的 as di3, base (?), and 曾让 was picked up as a name.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nowadays I use Google Translate to do a rough translation, and Adso (along with other dictionaries, Google searches, Wenlin) only as a secondary backup.

Adso's user-contributions are its greatest strength and weakness.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Micah,

We're seeing a lot more editing taking place. This means more contributions both good and bad. All edits are still logged for review. I'm behind schedule on updating the master database though, and don't want to update it until I've caught up since I don't want people to find their contributions have "disappeared" overnight.

I'm open to suggestions on how to deal with this. I don't want to make it more difficult to contribute since immediate feedback matters and I don't want to discourage contributions. If quality is becoming an issue in the meantime, perhaps the solution is setting up a "stable" interface that uses a non-live copy of the database?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@muyongshi, @tooironic -- if you guys have better sources of data please let me know and I'll incorporate them. I'm not familiar with anything that can be legally shared that is more comprehensive or accurate than what we have.

It's a legitimate complaint if a slow editing process is degrading the quality of the online engine. I'm not sure what the proper solution is -- our goal is better semantic analysis and the creation of resources that people need. If being open helps us get there faster than being closed that's the route we're going to take.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've just put up a page that annotates text using the last stable database release. This redirects the request to a clean database rather than the one currently being edited. Editing functions still work, although the edits are applied to the current database.

http://adsotrans.com/stable.html

Added a link to this version on the main page as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and select your username and password later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Click here to reply. Select text to quote.

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...