Feature request: add comment section and share knowledge

[anhnha]

Is it possible to include a comment section for each word in a dictionary where users can freely contribute their knowledge, such as suggesting new meanings, sharing interesting sentences, providing tips for better understanding, and so on?

 

[mikelove]

Not something we're currently planning - adding social features like that is a HUGE hassle, you get into all sorts of issues with moderation and privacy and internally-self-contradictory 700-page EU laws and so on. And all of that much worse in an app with an internationally distributed user base like Pleco - there's no way we could possibly keep up with what every country people use Pleco in expects from us.

We do plan to improve our pipeline for reviewing / incorporating user-submitted feedback, though - I'd like to both be able to use a lot more of it and do so a lot faster.

 

[LeonardoM]

I still don’t understand this moderation problems. Can’t developers just hold users responsible for their actions?
Either way, the above proposal would actually be awesome.

 

[mikelove]

No, there are all sorts of ways we can end up liable for stuff too.

And even ignoring legal issues, what are we supposed to do if somebody posts a political comment (that fits the context, e.g. explaining more detail about how a particular politically-charged term is used somewhere) and authorities in some jurisdiction flag it + tell us to take it down? Do we give in to them and have people call us fascist stooges, or do we not give in and possibly have our entire app banned there?

I could imagine us adding a feature someday to pull in data from a user-selected set of feeds - there's no reason you couldn't have a Fediverse protocol for "adding commentary on generic/universal topics" (in fact that would be a pretty interesting idea for a lot of reasons), say - but I'm extremely reluctant to have something like this officially hosted by Pleco.

 

[LeonardoM]

No, there are all sorts of ways we can end up liable for stuff too.

And even ignoring legal issues, what are we supposed to do if somebody posts a political comment (that fits the context, e.g. explaining more detail about how a particular politically-charged term is used somewhere) and authorities in some jurisdiction flag it + tell us to take it down? Do we give in to them and have people call us fascist stooges, or do we not give in and possibly have our entire app banned there?

I could imagine us adding a feature somebody to pull in data from a user-selected set of feeds - there's no reason you couldn't have a Fediverse protocol for "adding commentary on generic/universal topics" (in fact that would be a pretty interesting idea for a lot of reasons), say - but I'm extremely reluctant to have something like this officially hosted by Pleco.

Yeah... I guess our society is too complex.
So the only viable solution - if you wanted to let users add comments on the various characters - is to have a person/team reviewing each comment, is that right?
Not sure how many users Pleco has, how many people would actually post comments, and how much Pleco 4 will influence these aspects, but perhaps in the future it's gonna be a possibility to have such feature.

 

[Fernando]

what are we supposed to do if somebody posts a political comment (that fits the context, e.g. explaining more detail about how a particular politically-charged term is used somewhere) and authorities in some jurisdiction flag it + tell us to take it down? Do we give in to them and have people call us fascist stooges, or do we not give in and possibly have our entire app banned there?

Hey, I've recently heard a certain spaceman make a very similar argument and get roasted for it mostly by people who, with no sense of irony, think that speaking up on certain issues should not be allowed.

And the extent to which the comparison doesn't apply is exactly the point here. Pleco is not social media, and should not move in that direction. Lexicons are already under enough pressure from culture wars as it is, and the strain is showing.

 

[anhnha]

It's one of the greatest features of a dictionary I'm using (not a Chinese-English dictionary). People share meanings, slangs, and mnemonic devices, among other things, which are incredibly helpful.

 

[Fernando]

I understand that Pleco is used not only as reference by advanced learners, but also by intermediate and basic-level learners who can benefit from greater focus on things like everyday communication skills and contemporary usage. Pleco does have offerings geared towards that audience and that's obviously a good thing, though I believe that nothing can replace direct contact with native speakers.

As for myself, I collect as many offline old editions as I can get, not only Chinese ones, cause I'm tired of seeing dictionaries vandalised with ideological rubbish by obnoxious moralisers who wouldn't be able to compile a reasonably comprehensive lexicon of any language even if given 30 lifetimes to do so.