Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters

mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
Might take a few more days, though I expect they'll send out something to the effect of "wait a few more days" shortly.

FWIW, to reiterate my previous comment, being more-or-less fully apprised of the situation myself I can say that the lack of details is temporary + with good reason; irritating whatever % of Outlier's Kickstarter backers remember the original target of May + are waiting impatiently for an update is unfortunate, but there are a number of alternatives that are much worse.
 
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dlezcano

秀才
delays are OK if there is a good reason for it, just would have had more updates. Still waiting for the official announcement.
 
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marcelbdt

秀才
This is like watching a mystery show on TV. The dictionary an excellent and innovative project. Obviously are lots of good reasons why such a project might be delayed, and no one should grumble about that. But what I (and my wife, she is clever, I asked her) cannot solve is why giving some minimal info, like "unfortunately we won't be finished until Christmas" is a much worse alternative to not saying anything.

But except for that interesting conundrum... Be nice to these people, they are trying something good. Maybe the task is more complicated than expected, but then we just have to wait for them to finish. Give them the time they need, we can and should wait for it.
 
mikelove

mikelove

皇帝
Staff member
IMHO, a vague "it won't be finished until X" is rather less satisfying than a more detailed explanation that also covers the "why" and provides some reassurance that they have reasons for claiming it'll be ready when they claim it'll be ready.
 
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marcelbdt

秀才
Absolutely, but we are not likely to get that, are we? Anyhow, it doesn't matter that much. When this thing is ready, I'll buy it.
 
NickF

NickF

秀才
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...ictionary-of-chinese-characters/posts/1534068

Hi,

As you may have guessed, the dictionary release will be delayed. There's a very good reason for that, but I'm going to have to ask everyone to bear with us for a few more days before we give any more details—we're waiting for one last thing to fall in place before we tell you what's going on.

We know our silence has been deafening lately, and how frustrating that must be for all of our backers. Please know that there’s a good reason for our silence.

Our next update (as soon as we can, I promise!) will have more details about the reasons for the delay, as well as an updated release schedule.

-Ash and John
 
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Miguel

状元
I bought the dictionary and, of course, I understand these kind of projects can be affected by delays and I don't mind waiting for longer. I can even accept explanations like "the dictionary release will be delayed. There's a very good reason for that, but I'm going to have to ask everyone to bear with us for a few more days before we give any more details". And I don't care if at the end I end up just with a few pdf (nice but pricey in that case :)). Founding these projects have these kind of things

But I would have liked to receive a little bit of information from the developers during these months. Not too many details, just something like "We are still working on it and we haven't forgotten about you" (I think the "good reason" doesn't impede them to send a pretty basic email to their clients...) . Because with their complete silence I was not feeling very confident about the project (independently of the final outcome). Excuse me for being so sincere and maybe I am the only one unsatisfied as an Outlier-Linguistics customer so far. Anyways I hope we can see someday this dictionary as I really believe is going to be a very cool one!!! :)
 
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Moro

秀才
At this point I'm not sure what makes me more impatient, waiting to receive the shiny new dictionary or to hear the reason for this secrecy! :)

I mean we all have heard the scary stories about the cutthroat world of etymological dictionary makers, where even a single word falling on wrong ears can mean life or death... or worse... ;)

(Just in case it does not come across in text, I'm posting this in good humour. No doubt the guys have something interesting for us. But I agree with Miguel, there wouldn't be this many impatient people, had the OL guys provided some updates along the way. Even as simple as "635 characters out of 2000 ready" every couple of months would've given a very different feeling.)
 
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Miguel

状元
Moro said:
At this point I'm not sure what makes me more impatient, waiting to receive the shiny new dictionary or to hear the reason for this secrecy! :)
Click to expand...
Haha, yes! One thing is sure, they have created a lot of expectations with the dictionary...
 
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Moro

秀才
sobriaebritas said:
Maybe the delay has to do with something not so simple as the number of characters.
Click to expand...

This might very well be the case. I was trying to say that in my opinion if we've had updates along the way (when hopefully it was mainly about the number of characters) then the lack of information now would've been much easier for people to handle.
 
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marcelbdt

秀才
Maybe, by bad luck, they happend to restore the original form of some dangerous arcane word. In ancient times, Cangjie trapped a malevolent spirit into this character. When the ancient form was recovered after all these centuries, the spirit was released. Kapoo! Now they are afraid that if they actually publish the dictionary, they might unleash the demon on the world.

Whatever the horrible truth eventually turns out to be, we must not loose our focus. Eventually this will most likely be a very nice dictionary, and we have waited at least 3000 years for it. We can wait another year if that's what it takes. We are happy that someone is working on it, and if Cangjie's demon should actually escape, destroying Tokyo for starters, then so be it. We mainly care about the glorious Chinese language anyhow.
 
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Miguel

状元
marcelbdt said:
Maybe, by bad luck, they happend to restore the original form of some dangerous arcane word. In ancient times, Cangjie trapped a malevolent spirit into this character. When the ancient form was recovered after all these centuries, the spirit was released. Kapoo! Now they are afraid that if they actually publish the dictionary, they might unleash the demon on the world.
Click to expand...


:D:D:D . I hope the real explanation is as spectacular as this one.
 
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Miguel

状元
Thanks for the announcement, John. Sorry to hear about those problems you have experienced with this co-founder. I am sure you'll be able to learn a few things from this experience. Now I understand why you were not informing us about the progress of the dictionary (difficult situation to deal with and keep us informed at the same time... hard task). Anyways, as most people said here, waiting longer won't be a problem. 加油!
 
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cloudtrapezer

秀才
Quite a bombshell. What they are saying is one of their small team ran off and took the money with him. (We only have one side of the story). This is not a technical problem of the sort that any project can come up against and which we'd all accept, but something absolutely fundamental. In the circumstances, I found the perky, upbeat business-speak in the announcement (good news, cool products, bright future, our commitment to you etc....) particularly irritating. It's noticeable that there are no dates in their new "plan" and that they are just now hiring researchers and assistants. I guess we won't see anything for a while.
 
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