Announcing the ProZ.com dictionary and reference board

ICL wrote:
I just saw some entries that, for example, in the feedback space merely give the same description of the book, but say nothing about why we should buy them

Niraja Nanjundan wrote:



I think it is possible for more than one person to provide feedback on any of the dictionaries or reference works listed. So, if someone wants to add anything to the already existing feedback or disagrees with it, they can do so. That way, there's a kind of mini-forum on each dictionary/reference work entered.

ICL wrote:

P.S.: I forgot, are we planning on allowing to include online/Internet entries, too?

Nikki Graham wrote:



As we already have Glosspost for online glossaries and dictionaries (please see http://www.proz.com/glosspost it's under the community tab), the D&R Board will not be used for that purpose.

[Edited at 2009-03-20 09:46 GMT]

ICL wrote:

I just saw some entries that, for example, in the feedback space merely give the same description of the book, but say nothing about why we should buy them or, like Attila suggested, at least give a yes/no straight answer about this (I think this would be a great feature, at least to get the reviewer's general/personal feeling about the work reviewed; I guess the idea is that the rating number given should answer that?).

On the other hand, I don't know how the entries are being vetted (and if they are being vetted), but I guess they could be vetted organizing the volunteer team to actually take the time to check the entries that are being submitted and see if, when the reviewer did not really give a useful feedback comment (or did not complete all the fields), we can contact her/him to request more details, improve the feedback comment and then vet it. [P.S.: maybe add a checkmark icon or something indicating that the entry has been vetted by the organization team.]

Nikki Graham wrote:

Frankly, if some people feel that another person's comments are not useful then that is their problem. In the Blueboard I believe it is possible to give a rating for an outsourcer without making any comments at all. I do not think it is my job to tell someone that what they have written is not good enough (or that I won't post it because it has spelling mistakes, for example). However, the record, as it stands, can be improved upon as others come along with more information (to edit a record you would need to contact someone in the Admin team) and additional feedback comments. I think it will also be possible in future to edit your feedback and add more information. Users of the Board can always contact the people who have left feedback comments for more info, and this may then encourage the person who left the feedback to add more detail.

I hope that's clear, but I have a deadline and can spend no more time on this right now.

ICL wrote:

Just one clarification on my part: I was not suggesting to judge anyone's feedback comment, but only to get a different feedback comment when someone has used the same description comment in the feedback space. I saw an entry like that, and that's why I commented on this.

Nikki Graham wrote:



When you click on search and you see the alphabetical list of references you see the description of the resource, not the feedback comment, and in the feedback column you see the average rating. You need to click on the entry to see more details and the feedback comments. Is this what the problem is?

If not, could you please send me a link to the entry you are referring to. Thanks

Cindy Chadd wrote:



Hi Jenny,

In the menu at the left, click on "Add a new resource". It will bring up the form to fill in.

Jenny Forbes wrote:

Thank you Cindy, but I can't see any menu on the page, either at the left or anywhere else, so I'm baffled.
Any further suggestions, please?

ICL wrote:

Finally, I tried the basic search tool, and it worked for the word "Spanish", but not for the word "Romanian", of which I had just seen an entry, so maybe there is a bug or something here.

Mihai Badea wrote:



Hi Ivette,

The reason why the search didn't work for "Romanian" is that no book that includes this word in the title or description has been entered so far. I've tried with "român" (the Romanian word for "Romanian", and it worked). Yesterday I entered a dictionary called "Lexicon economic englez-român".

With this occasion, I noted that the search returns no results if the diacritics are not used. I'm not sure what the situation is with other languages, but Romanians tend not to use diacritics when performing searches. I think the ideal solution would be to return the results regardless of whether the diacritics are used or not, like Google does.

ICL wrote:

I see. I also just realized that my search does not work in the "basic" search tool, but it does work in the "advanced" tool, where you can simply choose the language pair fields and leave the search field blank, and then you get all the dictionaries in that pair.