Dictionary Website

Make an online Dictionary that * users can update * with new or alternative definitions of words or phrases or simply with stories, comments, thoughts about the words or phrases.

Include contextual information which provides examples of each idea, and the generic of each. E.g. a "roadster" is a type of car / automobile / etc... and types of roadsters might include "runabout" or "two-seater"

The current version (not updateable) is now at:
http://golovchenko.org/cgi-bin/wnsearch?q=

(now updated to version 2.0 of the WordNet Database) based on
https://wordnet.princeton.edu/ the Princeton Wordnet database.

Also: Natural Language processing. Glossary, Quotes, De fun itions

Mark Twain: "I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way"

See also:

http://ogden.basic-english.org/basiceng.html "Basic" English is the 850 most used words which represent about 90% of the concepts.
http://www.wikipedia.org/ Now that Wikipedia is online, I think it does everything you wanted.
James Newton replies: Well, just about! wikipedia is a really great innovation and I have used it myself many times. There are some things about it that I don't like or that concern me:
- Allowing anyone to modify the entries is frightening and I do understand that the previous versions are available if someone really hacks it up, but I would prefer a version (like mine :o) that implements some security. Wikipedia has constant problems with this and has reciently had to change thier pollicy. They no longer allow unregistered persons to make new pages.
- Wikipedia seems focused on technical entries which is fine, but I'd like to see a site that encourages wordsmiths rather than techies. Wicktionary may become just like that.
- All the pages in the Wikipedia are stored as database entries. No problem, and they could generate a CD or other HTML copy of the site (BIG batch job!) but I prefer to keep the site as HTML and write the scripts to edit the files based on user input. By doing so, I can easily burn (and sell ;o) a CD or DVD copy for offline use. Also, ANYTHING that can be done in HTML can be done on the site and there is no processing required to fetch the page much less convert it from wikitext to html.
- And finally, since Wikipedia and Wiktionary are open source, I can use that content on my site if I want. I just have to download it (I won't rip it) and convert from Wikitext to HTML. I have a page at http://www.massmind.org/dict/wikitxt.asp That does a fair job of this, based on code from Pilaf at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pilaf/Live_Preview
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pilaf/Live_Preview JavaScript that converts WikiText (Wikipedia style) into HTML.
http://fmg-www.cs.ucla.edu/geoff/ispell-dictionaries.html list of dictionaries.
Richard Lederer www.pobox.com/~verbivore
http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn/obtain/
http://www.etymonline.com Online Etymology Dictionary
http://www.worldwidewords.org Excellent site with volumns of interesting information about words.
http://www.ethicalvalues.com/ An interesting comparison and groupings of words related to emotion
http://victorian.fortunecity.com/palette/187/session10.html Ethics and the Nature of Evil
http://www.torstenpihl.com/Definitions.htm
http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/contents/humour.html

Allowing the user to double click any (non-linked) word to look it up.

HTML: <body ondblclick="lookup()"

Script:

function lookup() {
	if (document.getSelection) {
		t = document.getSelection();
		opennewdictwin(t);
		}
	else {
		t = document.selection.createRange();
		if(document.selection.type == 'Text' && t.text != '') {
			document.selection.empty();
			opennewdictwin(t.text);
			}
		}
	}

function opennewdictwin(text) {
	while (text.substr(text.length-1,1)==' ') 
		text=text.substr(0,text.length-1)
	while (text.substr(0,1)==' ') 
		text=text.substr(1)
	if (text > '') {
		document.location='http://golovchenko.org/cgi-bin/wnsearch?q='+escape(text);
		}
	}

Style:

.Txt
{ CURSOR: url('http://www.massmind.org/images/curs/add.cur') }
CURSOR: url('http://www.massmind.org/images/curs/dclick.cur')