Critical issues presentations/How the French Wiktionary became a grown-up project

Video

Slides

Submission no. 121

Title of the submission

How the French Wiktionary became a grown-up project

Author of the submission

• Noé Gasparini
• Lucas Lévêque
• Benoît Prieur

Country of origin

France; France; France

Topics

Outreach

Keywords

• Wiktionary
• Wiktionnaire
• Communication
• Redefinition

Abstract

Over the past year and a half, French contributors to Wiktionary have worked hard to increase the project's reach. Wiktionary is not only a lexical database but an ongoing dictionary and thesaurus with its own potential and milestones. This document sums up initiatives that illustrate some of the cool features of Wiktionary.

Firstly, we have been involved in Wikiproject with Wikipedians and Commonists, online with Wikicheese (etymology of cheeses and a thesaurus), and taking part in an editathon on Renaissance art (definitions and spellings). Secondly, we've presented to large audiences at a dozen public conferences, including lexicographers from traditionally published French dictionaries, and open-source enthusiasts. All these actions have been highlighted by means of a monthly news journal started at French Wiktionary in April 2015, and developed via a monthly meetup in Lyon, France.

The contributors have also launched an annual reporting process to write about their personal experiences and the highs and lows of the project. Writing the report was methodologically interesting, and the results -- published in December 2015 -- will challenge our existing views of the project. One outcome is a drive to improve the help pages. Another is to compile a list of Wiktionarians' skills, to present our work on the project in a new fashion. The report also provided an opportunity to resubmit a proposal to tag featured pages, which represent a minimum standard of quality, and can be used as a source of suitable entries to be shown at meetups or exhibitions. Finally, our self-reflective and exploratory procedures have demonstrated the need to share experiences across Wiktionary projects and, more broadly, with the rest of Wikimedia.

Result

Accepted

Interested attendees

1. I have my opinions but I definitely want to hear the others'! An extremely important topic, I believe Wiktionary is the frontier of Wikimedia. Nemo 20:36, 15 June 2016 (UTC)