I'm still new here, and have already made a couple of idiotic mistakes.

I've been keeping a word list offline in an Access database, and recently uploaded about 100 words to Skritter in an unpublished list.

Yesterday, I discovered that one of the words I added was wrong. I just keyed in the wrong translation, but the reading and kanji were correct. I emailed the Skritter helpline, and they fixed it post haste.

Unfortunately, I just discovered another one.

Is there a way for me to fix these things myself? Since I created the word (it wasn't in the database, apparently), can't I just remove it and start over? I really hate to bother the developers to continually fix my dumb-arsed mistakes.

mmm, wiki style character/word definition updating, bring it on! (:

Hey, don't worry about it! I've entered far more incorrect words than you will. In fact, two mistakes out of a hundred is not bad at all.

I'm very close to implementing the custom definitions feature, which will also include a "submit as correction" button. It will still have to be accepted/rejected (perhaps by an admin, perhaps by any users who want to steward this stuff--we'll have to see how many corrections we get). If it's corrected by the creator of the word, though, and it hasn't yet been checked over, then we can have the fix go immediately.

I think it will work mawesomely well, yes.

For now, don't stress about emailing us corrections. We have a decent system for handling them and already get several per day. Use the feedback tab on the practice page for quick correction submission.

> I'm very close to implementing the custom definitions feature

I can't wait that :). But a quick question. Will this support also another language definitions? I am particulary interested that it could support cyrilic letters.

"I'm very close to implementing the custom definitions feature, which will also include a "submit as correction" button."

So even if we don't want to submit it as a correction, it still has to be reviewed?

Also, will it be a simple case of clicking on the definition on the practice page and editing? This was what I was hoping for. I've a massive need to add distinguishing or usage notes to definitions, as I've far too many synonyms and words that I forget at the moment as the definition isn't clear or detailed enough. I was hoping to make a lot of these changes.

The thing is, I know that often you guys like to stick with the dictionary definition (rather than, say, having usage notes, let alone having a number or "alternate" written in). Eg. 光明正大, I once submitted a correction as "Openly (do something); just and honourable; some other stupid idiom", but it was corrected as "just and honourable; some other stupid idiom". Not helpful. So, having custom definitions checked does not sound good.

If at all possible (and it might be already, so apologies if it is) could custom definitions be more than 'submitting lists with different definitions' and instead be an easy way to make things more personable and useful? Currently I've got 2800 words added and struggling under the weight and blandness of the current definitions, and it will get a lot worse when more are added.

Maybe you've done this, maybe not. I'm hoping so!

Cheers

I was also hoping to be able to personalize the notes.

Is the word 口语，正式,书面语？
What type of objects does it take/interact with?

There are so many words in there right now which have a English translation which doesn't really help me. All of my word lists are attached to an actual book at the moment. If I don't remember all of those details I go and pull the book off the bookshelf. I was hoping that custom definitions would allow me to cut down on the number of trips to the book shelf.

@jcdoss: I make mistakes all the time. I think the Skritter guys are mostly just happy that we're adding stuff to their DB in the first place.

By the way, Skritter gods, I ran into a possible problem just now. I used the queue to create

http://www.skritter.com/useritem?lang=zh&base=%E6%8A%B1%E4%B9%8B%E6%9C%A8%E7%94%9F%E4%BA%8E%E6%AF%AB%E6%9C%AB&vari=1

and Skritter seems to have also created a simplified variant, which is what I was hoping it would do:

http://www.skritter.com/useritem?lang=zh&base=%E6%8A%B1%E4%B9%8B%E6%9C%A8%E7%94%9F%E4%BA%8E%E6%AF%AB%E6%9C%AB&vari=0

However, it didn't add the simplified version to my queue, even though I'm studying both traditional and simplified. Is that intentional?

I will add 抱之木生于毫末 to my queue manually, but for now I left it in case you want to look at it.

James

Oops, looks like the links don't work. The two items in question are

抱之木生於毫末 (traditional)
and
抱之木生于毫末 (simplified)

James

Rolands: custom definitions will allow other languages, yes. In fact, I'll be hooking it up so that the languages are tagged and you can help add definitions in other languages so we can start to do more than just en->zh and en->ja.

Byzanti: no, you get your personal definition as whatever you want--it's only checked if you want to submit it as a correction to our definition. Yes, you just click on it and edit it (same as mnemonics). I think Scott's also going to try to allow custom definitions to be put in en masse in the list editor, but not sure how that will shake out.

jww1066: sorry, that's a known problem with the queue--it just adds whatever style you put in, not whatever styles you're studying. That will be fixed soon when Scott finishes the new queue, which will behave much more like a list.

Sounds brilliant then!

@James Actually, it’s 合抱之木，生于毫末。The character 合 is missing.

It’s a paragraph from Laozi (老子)
合抱之木，生于毫末；
九层之台，起于累土；
千里之行，始于足下。

Hah, nice catch pts, I did supposedly know that but I copied and pasted too recklessly...

If there are alternate definitions, or entire lists of alternate definitions, does this move Skritter a step closer to being able to support the Korean readings of the characters, with Korean phonetic script for answers? If so I can suggest a textbook for consideration. . .(to save myself having to type it in myself)

Yes, you could put Korean readings into your definitions, but they wouldn't go into the reading fields over the pinyins. That would be a bit of a hack, though, so it's not like we'll be adding any Korean textbooks for you with all the Korean readings.