-= Corpus maintainers' and advanced contributors' attention needed =-

I'd like to draw your attention to the fact of mass sentence linkage detected recently. Please, take a look:
http://tatoeba.org/rus/contribu...corvard/page:1
http://tatoeba.org/rus/contribu...corvard/page:4
etc.
I'm far from blaming the member who made those links for wicked design (yet) but I'd like to raise the question: should we consider acceptable the situation when a contributor links the sentences written in languages he never stated/proved his proficiency in, especially if one of those language is not his native one?

It seems that slashes are more or less standard way to mark a line break while citing the poetry (at least, it suggested in many sources). Using C-style literals ('\n') is not a very good idea, I think.

I'm voting for him with both hands.

Hi, vijaysharma!
What kind of sentences did you mean by "sentences consisting of consequences"? Can you give an example?

> How about this link? http://teaboat.net/eng.php

Still no go. The progress bar indicates that the page is being loaded but all ends up with a blank page.

> And android version... I try to do it. but have some problem. please wait.

Sure! No need to hurry. :-)

Hello, sheabi-san! :-)
TEABOAT looks pretty nice on my PC but every time I try to open it on my Android device (I'm using Dolphin browser, WebKit based), I'm getting just a blank page. Could this be fixed? And what about stand-alone application for Android? :-)

To tighten screws a bit more, I think a member shouldn't be allowed to contribute anything before he announces his country at least and, highly desirable, the language he considers his mother tongue.

> It is because there are almost no credible systems or
> guidelines to deal with that vast numbers of orphans and
> each contributer works in our own way.

Actually, the answers to many questions a contributor may ever have are already among documents in Help section (http://tatoeba.org/help). Unfortunately, those documents were never translated into Japanese and this is real problem. Additionally, as Tommy-san noticed, Japanese localization of the user interface leaves much to be desired, to put it mildly, and this is the problem, too. So, putting all together, we can outline the following vital issues concerning Japanese part of Tatoeba:
- catastrophic level of sentences of unsatisfactory quality among unadopted sentences;
- no documentation in Japanese;
- poor Japanese localization of the user interface.
Apparently, the issues above give rise to one more issue: small number of active Japanese members. And this issue affects the Tatoeba Project in a whole, I have to say, and makes things look like an exclusive circle: we need more Japanese members to improve Tatoeba but we have to improve Tatoeba to attract more Japanese members. Fortunately, and I have not the slightest doubt about it, there are all chances to break this circle and I hope you and Tommy-san, and bunbuku-san and other Japanese members can do much about this. With the help of all Tatoeba community, of course.

Tommy, I second to the most of your considerations, they are quite reasonable and clear. I think, your examples were convincing enough to leave no doubt that the need of changes is ripe. I just want to add a small remark: any idea is doomed to fail unless it has supporters. I'm sure that everyone here who, somehow or other, concerns about Japanese part of Tatoeba would do everything within his/her powers to help. And I hope, more native Japanese speakers will join us or all efforts will be wasted.

> By definition, newcomers don't know how to activate filtering options.

Quite true, so unadopted sentences could be hidden by default, I guess. Anyone interested in correcting them could then make them visible by changing personal settings in his profile. The problem is that there's not such thing as "personal settings", though... Well, maybe just hiding unadopted sentences from regular members and non-members (read: search engines) will be efficient enough for the time being.

> But here, we're facing hundreds of thousands of
> sentences that not even a fake native would adopt over a
> period of 7 years !!!

Yes, this is real problem. Every now and then I bump into sentences (I'm talking about sentences in my native language) that do have their owners but still don't worth the bytes on the hard-drive they stored on. Many of the members who wrote them are inactive for a long time and some others just tend to furiously defend their precious children no matter how ugly they are. Of course, the scale of this problem is far less than that of the one we have with Japanese and English parts of Tatoeba, but it grows as the time flows, I'm afraid. The potential number of members who produce "bad" sentences is always bigger than the number of members ready to spend their time correcting others' mistakes.
I don't really think that deletion of orphan sentences will improve the situation in long-term outlook. I'd rather said, we need structural and conceptual changes in Tatoeba engine and ideology. Splitting Tatoeba in two sections, trusted and "dirty", seems to be effective enough, though I don't know if this idea will be implemented any soon. Another, much simpler solution, is to implement a mechanism to filter (hide) unadopted sentences and sentences tagged with certain tags so people who seek for quality materials will have an instrument to sort the wheat from the chaff.

> Please ask Sysko to make you an advanced contributor. ☺

This is absolutely necessary, I have to say. :-) Additionally, we need an active native Japanese corpus maintainer badly, too. :-)

> There are 124,005 orphan sentences in Japanese now. In my
> rough estimation, about 20% of them are worth adopting,
> while the others are somewhat unnatural or unattractive

Oh, my! Looks pretty impressive. When I was writing my considerations I couldn't even imagine how deep the abyss is. In such situation, your proposition of hiding orphan sentences looks quite reasonable, but, in effect, it raises the question of splitting Tatoeba database in two separate sections: trusted and working. This idea was proposed by alexmarcelo some time ago (http://tatoeba.org/rus/wall/sho...message_15321) and it definitely worth implementing and I hope it will be done eventually. But until that we have to try to make the best of what we have now.
So, what can be done? I think that:
- unnatural sentences could be tagged "unnatural". It's better than to just having them left unadopted since it indicates that a native speaker had a look at them.
- if there are typical mistakes and it's possible to classify them, there will be sufficient to describe them once and then just edit unnatural sentences leaving a short reference to the precedent in the comments (don't know if this idea is any vital, though)
- minor mistakes and typos could be corrected without notice;
- good sentences should be adopted.
And, last but not least, if you feel that another, more natural, elegant, etc. version of the sentence could be added - don't think twice, do add it. :-)

I think, the wall is a good place for example requests. Other option is to write a PM to any active Japanese member.
By the way, though it seems to be no examples with 寧ろ, there are enough sentences with むしろ. :-)

Personally, I think that sentences on Tatoeba should be as natural as possible. First and foremost, this concerns newly added sentences, not translations. Saying that I understand that in many cases a sentence taken out of context may sound unnatural, weird, ambiguous, etc., so I think we should encourage the contributors to avoid adding such sentences or, at least, to provide usage examples whenever it's necessary.
As for the translations, I think that a good translation should meet at least the following criteria: it should be grammatical, natural, has the same meaning and/or the same effect. Word-for-word translations often have nothing to do with those criteria and, thus, should be avoided unless we want to illustrate some peculiar property of the original sentence. In this case a "good" translation should be added along with the literal one and the latter should be marked with an appropriate tag(s) (i.e., "literal translation", "unnatural", etc.).
The biggest problem is what to consider "natural". Sometimes even native speakers have polar points of view on the same sentence. This means that it's highly desirable to raise a discussion whenever we bump into a doubtful sentence. At least, corrections shouldn't be made without notice and explanation.
Thus, I think that:
- ungrammatical sentences should be corrected unconditionally;
- unnatural sentences should be corrected unless a context or usage example that makes it sound natural could be found. "Unnaturalness" should be explained by a proficient/native speaker.
- if the sentence sounds unnatural due to literal translation made on some purpose, the reason should be explained and the natural translation added along with the literal one.

And so do we all! :-)
Welcome to the Tatoeba Project!

Welcome to the Tatoeba Project!

Although Tatoeba wasn't designed as a place for learning languages, I think it still can be used to extend you knowledge and to make new language partners. So, good luck! :-)

Hello, Rockelle!
Welcome to the Tatoeba Project!
> I also don't know where to start
The most people here do two things: translating existing sentences and adding new ones. Whatever activity you choose, your contribution will be highly appreciated. :-)

> Should a native speaker who corrected or confirmed a
> sentence remove the @needs native speaker tag and add an
> OK tag instead?

I think, this is acceptable since "@needs native check" and "OK" tags are mutually exclusive.

I think that

> 1. Who can put this tag?

Currently, only advances members and corpus maintainers can tag sentences. I think it's possible to allow owners to tag their sentences with "@needs native check" regardless of they rank.

> 2. In what situations should this tag be put?

The tag should be put every time when the sentence is added by a non-native speaker and there is a doubt about if a sentence is natural and/or grammatical.

> 3. Who can check sentence?

Anyone who is fluent (proficient) in the sentence language can check it and leave an appropriate comment then. Though, the decision of removing the tag should be left for the corpus maintainer who claimed his proficiency in the sentence language, a native speaker preferably.

> 4. What is the difference between @needs native check and @check?

Strictly speaking, I see no big difference between those two tags. But, "@needs native check" may indicate that naturalness of the sentence needs to be validated first of all, while "@check" may refer to the need of validating translation quality, grammar, punctuation, etc.