bits of sentences are accepted in Tatoeba.

In this case I think this is more of a dictionary entry.
c.f.
有志連合 【ゆうしれんごう】 (n) Coalition of the Willing (nations who supported America's preemptive strike in Iraq in 2003)

I don't think there is any point in forcing the issue, but I would suggest translating from the English example sentence using this phrase that I have just added.

http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/474952

I don't see the point. If I am Chinese and I want to know how "Coalition of the willing" is written in French, I'm not going to dig it out of the rubble. I want an immediate access. What's the point ?
Again, I'm refering to Trang's recommendation as to a "loose" definition of a sentence.
"The coalition of the willing" is not a dictionary entry, but rather an exemple of usage of "coalition" or "willing". That means I might not be able to find it in every dictionary.
That is where Tatoeba is really useful and complements dictionaries in a nifty way.
Surrounding these sentences' bits with useless "glue" has no added value in my view.

> I don't see the point.

The point is that Tatoeba is not a dictionary. Tatoeba does things that Dictionaries don't, and dictionaries do things that Tatoeba doesn't. It is certainly true that there is an overlap between what can be found in dictionaries and what can be found in Tatoeba, but that is certainly not to say that everything found in dictionaries should be copied into Tatoeba and vice versa.

If you are Chinese and what to know what "Coalition of the willing" is when written in French then I would suggest using a multi-language online dictionary (or both a English/Chinese and Chinese/French dictionary).

But, as I said, I don't think there is any point in forcing the issue.

"but that is certainly not to say that everything found in dictionaries should be copied into Tatoeba and vice versa." => When and where did I write this ?
Caricaturing other people's point of view is in no way a decent argument.
I wrote that "Tatoeba complements dictionaries in a nifty way".
"The coalition of the williing" is not a word. Then it is not an entry in every dictionary, as such, especially in other languages such as French. It should subsequently be considered as a sentence bit and finds its place in Tatoeba, because it is USEFUL there. Besides, it hurts nobody but a couple of Tatoeba purists who thinks there is utility in surrounding sentence bits with brackets and additional convoluted sentence bits. I can see no point in this. I think this exercise is utterly futile.

> Tatoeba purists

:D classic

>to keep not a dictionary entry [tag]

don't worry no one's gonna delete it, otherwise it would've been long gone :P

Yes, delete or change into a sentence.

I understand sacredceltic's point of view, and personally I don't think there is any harm in allowing people to add "bits" of sentences instead of "full" sentences. Incomplete sentences are the kind of entries that can be useful for people who want to get straight to the point. No superfluous information.

But there is a utility in having full sentences instead of having incomplete sentences. It simply gives more context. Someone who searches "coalition" may find out that there is such a thing as the "coalition of the willing", but it doesn't give a clue about the context in which "coalition of the willing" is used. With Paul's sentence, you get a better idea.

You know, in theory, Tatoeba could allow people to add absolutely anything, and keep their sentences as is: single words, incomplete sentences, sentences with spelling mistakes, sentences that sound unnatural, sentences that don't make any sense, etc.

But in practice, we're not there yet. The system is not ready to handle all this chaos. Tatoeba is quite powerful, but not that powerful. We'd need to put a lot of efforts in categorizing, setting up more advanced filters options, figuring out how to present the information to users so that they don't feel confused, etc.

Nonetheless, Tatoeba can afford to let people choose how much context they want to put in their contributions. I don't want to reject additions of "incomplete" sentences, it's still vocabulary after all. But it's not what I would consider a good practice.

But the context is partial and has no added value from a linguistic point of view. Context can be better conveyed through tags.
In blay-Paul example, for instance, where is the actual context that this coalition was rogue and against UN resolution ?

@saeb:>don't worry no one's gonna delete it, otherwise it would've been long gone :P

indeed I noticed a few of my sentences have simply disappeared without any warning, so this confirms it. Are you in any way involved in these disappearances?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHjFxJVeCQs

Who deleted any sentence is recorded in the log for that sentence, although it may take a little work to find it. Only moderators can delete sentences, and it is unlikely that they will have done so without warning, but if you can come up with specific cases they can certainly be checked out.

Apart from moderators the only other way sentences can disappear is if they are exact duplicates of existing sentences and they are merged by a script.

What do you mean exactly with that video, "swift" who-can't-get-jokes-without-gaping-emoticons? Is this sopposed to be you?

What do you mean exactly with that video, "swift" who-can't-get-jokes-without-gaping-emoticons? Is this supposed to be you?

@blay_paul: yes, I thought I could feel secure but Saeb seems to imply otherwise and I am actually surprised nobody was shocked at this comment...
At the same time, I can see sentences I typed have disappeared although they were not duplicates. For instance, I clearly remember keying in a sentence mentioning linguistic research at the University of Paderborn and there is no trace of it anymore...

> I clearly remember keying in a sentence mentioning linguistic
> research at the University of Paderborn and there is no trace
> of it anymore...

Well, there are a number of ways to find 'missing' sentences.

If you have email notifications turned on (I don't) I think you should have an email when a sentence of yours is deleted.
That would be the easiest option.

If you translated that sentence you can check for the
translated sentences.

If you entered a bunch of other sentences at the same time
you can find one of them and then 'step' forwards from that
sentence number.

The non-sinister options are

a) search index has not been updated. If you search for 'Paderborn' and don't find anything it could just be that it isn't indexed yet.

b) User error on sentence entry. e.g. If you typed the sentence but accidentally left / closed the page before submitting it.

I can confirm that no sentence with 'Paderborn' existed on 21st August. If you wait till Saturday there will be another
update and you can check the sentences.csv download then.

I can't find any sentences with "Paderborn" even in the logs ...

If I were Chinese and wanted to know about the Coalition of the Willing, I would not go on Tatoeba but on Baidu, and ask my half-billion fellow netizens for help in a forum. And I'd probably get it.

If I wanted it immediately, I also would not go to Tatoeba but to Wikipedia, and then navigate the languages tab on the left-hand side.

Assuming I were Chinese but did not know of Wikipedia (very possible), then I probably wouldn't be looking for a French translation of that term but an English one.

Once again, sacredceltic, you have my praise for defending a minority that is so minor that it probably doesn't even exist. I agree with blay_paul here. Tatoeba can't be everything, and some things it can never (and should never) be good at.

@sysko: I created it, though...
Qui détient le pouvoir de supprimer ces phrases ? Saeb avait l'air de sous-entendre qu'elles étaient facilement supprimées. Pourquoi ?

@modérateur: swift a posté ici un lien vers une vidéo représentant un animal, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHjFxJVeCQs, sans indiquer, malgré ma demande, ce qu'il voulait signifier ainsi. Est-il permis de poster des liens vers des vidéos d'animaux dans les conversations Tatoeba, et est-il permis de sous-entendre des comparaisons avec des animaux ? Si oui, quels sont les animaux autorisés pour ce faire ?

@sacredceltic
Seuls les modérateurs peuvent supprimer des phrases, et quand bien même elle serait supprimé elle apparaitrait encore dans les logs, qui eux ne sont modifiables par personne (et qui plus est sont sauvegardé chez moi en plus du serveur ^^)
J'avoue que du coup je suis assez étonné que ta phrase n'apparaisse nulle part, et ça m'embête car si ta contribution a "disparu", ça veut dire que peut être d'autres ont subi le même sort ...
Pour la phrase de saeb, personnellement je l'avais interprété comme "De toute manière personne ne la supprimera, sinon ce serait fait depuis longtemps", dans le sens où justement Trang et moi avons beaucoup insisté pour que les modérateurs ne suppriment / modifie pas des phrases de manière arbitraire.

Et pour la video, j'avoue que parfois je ne comprends pas tout ce qu'il se passe sur tatoeba ...

Come on, sacredceltic! You're the one who called Paul a "dog" (directly and indirectly) some 2-3 weeks ago!

Turn down the volume on that hypocrisy, or you'll be caught.

License to kill, in a way, huh?
Paul was jumping at my throat every second like a pit bull. I stated the fact. I had a conversation with the admin about it who told me she will do something about it and I stopped. He DIDN'T and goes on vilifying me on this community's wall, unprovoked.

My experience is that all communities that tolerated such behaviours were wiped out in no time...

@ALL please stop that, I'm getting bored of this, really bored, tatoeba is about languages. I don't want to now who started , who attacted who etc... etc...
I will take the supposition you're all adult, so PLEASE think

Does my comment has something in relation with the sentence
if yes
=> post
if no
=> use private message

so what about animal videos ?

same, private message

Could you then tell swift, please? Because I think he doesn't understand it more than he does simple jokes.

http://www.nunalik.com/2010/08/...re-a-paraitre/

Thanks, @sacredceltic.
This does demonstrate an expression which is part of a sentence.