Bank of Ideas
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Introduction
We all tend to have many ideas, but we are not always able to implement them. We end up by postponing them till we actually forget them, and thus we lose nice and creative ideas that could even interest someone willing to carry them on.
The intention with creating this Bank of Ideas is to prevent this loss of ideas. If everytime we have an idea we annotate it in a place we are sure it will not be lost, we will them be able to plan our work better and not run the risk of having the same idea again, which happens quite often: one has an idea solving one specific problem, then you forget about it; months later, you face the same problem, and you struggle in finding a way to solve it, and you end up by having the same idea you had and you forgot months ago.
What we post here is a list of summaries of ideas. Try to be concise in your writing. It is important that you post not only the idea itself, but also your suggestions/solutions on how to implement it, you had better show us it is doable.
But then the name "Bank of Ideas" was not without a purpose. It will work like a bank where you withdraw money. When you find an idea of this Bank interesting and you think you can make it work, you will then make a "bank loan" for it.
You edit this wiki page saying you have "borrowed" this idea and you will have a term of three months to present results, progresses with the idea for the bank. And several people can of course also work on an idea together.
Take note of the following rules:
- Use the existing ideas as markup template for new ideas
- Please add the ideas before the other ideas in the category, that way we have a chronological view with the latest idea on top.
- Add your name and the date (preferably in YYYY MM DD format) in the title so everybody can see who suggested the idea and when this happened.
- When you want to work on an idea, mention this in the bulleted list below the idea in a uniform fashion. Add your name and the date.
For ideas that have turned into actual Projects, check the Project Center
Ideas: Forum
Number the Replies (by Kota, 2006 June 24)
If we put in numbers with the replies, it would be easier to identify which entry comes first. As it is, we have to look for the dates in fine prints. It can come in the following manner: Reply #7, Reply #8, Reply #9 and so forth.
Ideas: Chat room
LingoBot Autotranslate room (by cein 2005 Jun 13)
There should be a room where everyone speaks in different languages and LingoBot automatically translates what is said and PMs the translation to everyone in the room in their own language. It would be like the UN, where each person can speak and listen in the language of their choosing yet still communicate (at least somewhat ;) with others.
Integrated voice / chat room (by Axystos 2006 Sep 15)
I was wondering if it was possible to integrate the voice chat into the text chat and/or implement a voice/text chat room?
Ideas: Language Resources
Why don't we extend the project "Sonidos del Mundo" to the "histories" included in the language resources? In other words, we could record mp3 files for each history. I would be glad to do it for Italian. - author?
- I like the idea very much. It would make the material available in the project so much more useful... and it wouldn't be hard for anyone to contribute; they just would have to read a few paragraphs in their native lanfuage (or any lingo they can speak in properly). I could record the Spanish examples and also exaples of how foreigners pronounce English awfully, lol. ---Pablo- 10:40, 25 June 2006 (CEST)
New language courses / idea
I recently formulated a new idea for language courses: courses that aim to break up the material as much as possible, resulting in lessons that can be completed in just one study session. This would both make it easier to learn (since the student will always have complete understanding of what was taught so far, never leave off in the middle of something) and it would provide more feelings of success for the student, since he will complete lots of lessons quickly and always be aware of his progress. I explained the idea in detail in this article in Wikibooks, but now I'm thinking that the Unilang wiki would be much more fit for the development of such lessons. Is anybody interested in collaborating to make good language courses? Please send me a message through the forum. Junesun
Ideas: Main Site
I just wanted to suggest that the admins send PMs to Unilang members who are celebrating their birthdays everday. If they're active members, then maybe there is no need to, as usually other members open threads to congratulate them; but if they're inactive, it'd be a good way to attract them to the forums, I think.
- I see no use in doing so. The inactive members haven't left because they forgot Unilang existed; they did it because they decided so. Because of that, I don't see the point of "remainding" them that Unilang is there. They know that and when they feel the need, they will come back. For the active members could make sense, but as you've said, most of them are congratulated in the forums. ---Pablo- 10:57, 25 June 2006 (CEST)
Ideas: Possible new Projects
Interactive vocabulary learning idea:
(by nikita32 2006)== It has been proven that listening to vocabulary in your sleep can help someone improve over a few weeks. We Should provide mp3 files that can be downloaded. They can contain words spoken in the learning language and then the translation of them heard in the persons language. This could be a very succeful learning tool. ==
Interactive Vocabulary Learning (by Abavagada 2004 Mar 10)
Basic learning of vocabulary words. Short list of words in the persons language is displayed, and as person clicks on a word, the word in the learning language is displayed, along with a simple picture to represent it. If designed well, this could use the MG database and work with any two languages in it.
Interactive Vocabulary Visual Drill (by Abavagada 2004 Mar 10)
A series of simple pictures is displayed, and a word in the learning language is displayed. The user then clicks on the proper picture that the word represents. The program then gives another set of pictures and word, keeping score. This works nicely because the system doesn't even need to have a secondary language. [If you are learning Russian, for example, you see Russian words.. it doesn't matter if your Italian, Chinese, etc.]
Linguistic map of the world (by geoff)
I am not sure about the format, but I thought about it while reading about Fenek's suggestion of making country links in the Wiki. E.g. the page on Finland would mention Finnish, Swedish and Saami, number of speakers, some linguistic facts, existing dialects, providing information and links to other pages. Another (complementary) possibility would be to maybe have a world map (without country borders?), only showing language boundaries, something like here, and then with links to the Wiki, though I am not sure how best to deal with bilingual/trilingual areas. Zoomable would be nice too.
A good implemantation of this can be found at the False Friends of the Slavist--Davan839 20:32, 20 December 2007 (CET)
School System Comparisons (by Arthaey, 2004 Mar 14)
An explanation of various countries' school systems, since they are all so different. A chart comparing the names of the schools to the ages that attend them and whether attendance is mandatory would be good, too. (Relevant forum thread: http://www.unilang2.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2314)
Group Study (April 24, 2006)
In order to study vocabulary as a group and across many languages, the group chooses a topic that runs for a specified period of time, like Ulalemo. Topics may include science (i.e. astronomy, biology), history, geography, culture (i.e. music, food), etc. The group provides online resources regarding the subject, natives perhaps write articles about subject, and group discusses in depth. Discussions may refer to vocabulary, specific resources, concepts...
Ideas: Wiki (technical/organizational)
Ideas: Other
Aim: to develop a universally applicable phonetic alphabet more comprehensive than the IPA - directly relating to human physiology
Step one: Collect all sounds from various languages from around the world with existing character and sound representation
Step two: arrange them logically considering - the location of the production of the sound - the involved parts of the vocal organs - the stress level of the sound
Step three: - code each vertical location of voice production (glottal, pharyingeal, uvular, velar, palatal, retroflex, alveolar, dental, labio dental and bilabial) - code each type of voice production - correlate the character with the location of the production of the sound (the coding should be clear to the student at which part of the vocal organs the breath is stopped or controlled to get the desired phoneme. Once this relationship is established and assimilated the reader gets the logic and understands the alphabet logically, never to forget it!)
Step four: make the character logical and aesthetically and calligraphically appealing
Step five: this can easily be coded like the Unicode and put on the net for all to migrate from IPA to this truly unilang character codes.
It would be the first step to evolving a true UNILANG!
The basic idea is to develop a new alphabet system which is universal, logical, related to the human voice production and hence more mnemonic and capable of being more comprehensive and not related in anyway to any culture. This could equally be appealing to the Japanese or Chinese, to the various Indian language speakers, the Russians, the Arabs and to the Western language users.
Since I am new to this site and not too sure about the ways of going around it. If someone could help out in our venture, it would be useful to humanity as anyone could read the matter written in any language! Isn't that exciting?!!
gmankottil
Language/linguistics resources 'database'
Well, I'm a student of both languages/linguistics and library/information science, so... I think it would be great if we could have a section where various resources (books, magazines, tapes, ...?) could be added. With the usual catalogue information (title, author, series, ...), and perhaps a rating system? Integrated with the review section of this site? Enabling registred users to 'mark' which they own? It could be a huge project, but at the same time a great way to find resources, especially with reviews and/or votes.
If this project ever would be started there is a lot of questions which need to be answered, but I leave them be for now. And, I would be willing to help in any possible way, should this be realized in some way.
- Kess 19:41, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Better late than never... we do actually have such a review system/database, waiting for people to use it: http://home.unilang.org/resources/reviews/reviewmenus.php --Geoff 03:28, 25 May 2005 (CEST)
