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What's New A wonderful wiki of words!

Thank you, this was exactly what I was hoping for!

That's really convenient way to handle it. Can wait to try it when it would really start working :)

Ausgezeichnet! Excellent! Superb! I feel like I've been waiting my whole life for this! Now, if we could just add an Etymology section too! :D

Will mems be edit-suggestable as well? I often find a good mem exists but it could be improved with a picture...

That sounds great :)

@psykokid, yes, a "remix" option for existing mems is very much in the plans! It will be a few weeks before it is up on the site though, but hang in there and it will come!

@Llavez, you can add etymologies as "etymology mems" - does that not do what you would like it to? How could we improve that feature?

Thanks!

Ben

A question. I just tested this out by doing an edit/correction to change the English word for "balene" (Italian for whales) to "whales" instead of "whale." Now I'd like to know, if I add an alternative of "le balene" to the Italian side, would that change it so that a person doesn't get zinged for including the definite article when typing in the response while "watering"?? If so, then let me at it. !! In fact, I'll go give it a try right now with this word, but I won't do any more words until I know it's okay/useful.

@l0rri, yes, that is exactly how it works! So please do make the edit and then once a curator has had a chance to check it on the patrol page it will go live. Thanks!

Ben

Cool

Is there already a way to deal with similar definitions?

It's quite annoying that I have to memorize definitions word to word to get them right.

@raneksi - what is the exact problem that you are having? would you like there to be more alternative meanings added, so that if you are prompted with an english word, there are more correct answers that you can give in the target language?If so, then yes, you can do that! Just sugest the alternative by clicking on "edit word" when you see it in a learning session (or by clicking on the word from the course view) and then click "add alternative".

Does that help?please let me know if I have missed the point,

Thanks

Ben

This has nothing to do with this topic - sorry But I am having great difficulty using your site. Soemtimes I can't get into my account - I come up as "new user" Most of the time I am not given any points. I have tried using IE and Firefox.

@JuanColina, I am really sorry that you are having these problems - could you give me some details and we can track down the problem. When you can't get into your account, is that because it won't let you log in, or do you click on a link somewhere and it takes you to a page where it has automatically created a new username for you? Are you using your own computer or a public one? Which wordlists are you using? Any more details that you can give will help us to track the problem down fast.

Best wishes

Ben

Ps, the best place for reporting this kind of issue is to go to "community" and then "forums" - then you will see a "bugs" forum. Thanks!

The patrol function does not work for me. Clicking on 'Moderate' takes me to the 'Oops - Something has gone wrong' page (e.g. http://www.memrise.com/topic/english/moderate/) and logs me out of the website. The same applies to the English for German speakers topic in which I'm a curator, too.

@gloda, I am really sorry to hear this - but I'm also not totally sure I understand what is happening: that link is for the moderation page, not for the patrol page; do you mean that neither of these pages work for you, or is it just the moderation page? I will look into the right away,

Thanks

Ben

Well... this is confusing indeed! I thought they were the same thing. When I click on the 'Patrol' tab from a topic's main page, it takes me to a page with a number of moderated words and just under that, a button which says 'Moderate'. There is nothing else for me to click on. If I do click on that button, it gives me the error message I described earlier.

'Oops - Something has gone wrong' happens to me also. I'm a curator for russian, when I open a tab "Patrol" for Russian, this page opens up: http://www.memrise.com/topic/russian/patrol/

When I click on "Moderate" there, I get "Oops" error message.

I went on Patrol and clicked to review the suggested changes, and everything that I tried to say apply on said that I didn't have permission to change this setting.

@gloda, ah, it seems that there are a couple of things at work here: The "moderate" button isn't showing up on the Mandarin topic, so I didn't realise that it had gone live yet. You are right, it is there (as you know!). The second bug is that there is something going wrong with the moderation permissions. We are looking in to that right now. @Pros, this is the same situation for you. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Once someone has suggested some changes in your topic, you will see a "patrol" button come up on the left hand side which you can press to review the changes.

Best wishes

Ben

@Ch3lsea, you shouldn't be able to see a button for something that you can't do. I will check this out right away, thank you for the heads up,

Best wishes

Ben

You guys are awesome! Seriously.

Yeah, I had the same issue as Ch3lsea (in the German section). Plus it would only let me see one word and then stops.

But it's still not possible to delete a mem ?

Back to the memes and updates, I was thinking that the etymologies could be a separate section, just like the pronunciation, written script (for mandarin, as an example), and other helping sections are separated. If it were to just become another meme, it would be very difficult to track which words already have an etymology in place and which ones are still without one. The etymologies, to me, just add a completeness and history to a language and act as yet another tool to pull the interest of the learning back to the language when they feel overwhelmed, fatigued, or disinterest sets in.

Respectfully, Brandon

@gloda & @pros: I think I've fixed the 'Oops' bug that was stopping you getting to the moderate page. Sorry about that, and do let me know how you get on with it.

P.S. We're hoping to make a series of changes to the interface for duplicate-merging and moderation at some point, but the existing 'moderate' page serves its purpose for now.

Patrol isn't working for me with mandarin so far. It seems to redirect me a couple of times and I seem to end up in a small watering session.

@zelim.wolff: do you want to be able to delete your own mems, or other people's?

Another small suggestion might be to add an "example sentence" that could be used to solidify the learning, but as the word appears each time, not only on the learning portion when the word is first being taught. Perhaps, it could be an option that you can click to the side like "on/off," this way those who want a sentence to pop up every time can have it and those who don't wish to see it won't.

I hope I'm not in the wrong spot for this - just simple suggestions really. :)

@Llavez, that is something that we are working on right now - the sample sentences that you see when you are learning are going ot be used as the basis for further learning and reinforcement of the words and also for testing. This is coming soon!

regarding the etymology, there is a separate mem type, just as there is a "how to write it" or "how to pronounce it" mem. Or do you want the etymology to appear right up next to the definition? this seems a bit too prominent to me; but perhaps I am misunderstanding.

Are you learning Mandarin? It is possible that the etymology section has been turned off for that topic - it is difficult to distinguish between which mems are etymologically correct and which are not. There tends to be debate over a lot of them. So we are not distinguishing at the moment; the debate and the division takes attention away from the most important thing, which is to help you to remember them.

Thanks

Ben

@greg Thank you, moderate page is working now. Just a few notes: in Unmoderateds all the letters in words and definitions are capitalized (at least for the russian section). And I don't see what changes have been made to the words. I can just approve or reject them. There's no

"When deciding whether to accept a change, you can see the old version, the suggested version, any comments that have been posted about the change, and the history of all the changes to that word." @Ben

Being able to see the changes would be very helpful.

@Pros, it sounds like you are just seeing the "moderation" page, and not the "patrol" page. This may be the case if there are no changes waiting to be checked in the Russian wiki. The "patrol" button should be to the left of the "moderate" button if there are items to be patrolled.

Does that make sense? Thanks

Ben

@benwhately Oh, I didn't know there are 2 buttons. Yes, there are "No suggestions to patrol". But what's the "moderation" button then? Does it list all the new words added by someone? What should happen if I approve or reject any?

Okay, the 'oops' bug is gone. I don't really know what the different options in the Moderate section do, though. 1) What happens if I reject any given unmoderated item? Is it removed from the database? Can I make corrections to it instead? 2) If I merge two items from the duplicate words or duplicate definition section, is one of them simply swallowed by the other? Which one of the two? Is it possible to edit the merged item so that it will contain the information of both?

Regarding patrol, in the English for German Speakers topic, it simply takes me on a watering session of items that are in my garden. I haven't had an opportunity to test it with any other topic yet.

@greg I'd like to delete my own mems of course :) We don't need an option to delete other persons mems..

"patrol" doesn't work for me either.. it just gives me a watering session..

Patrol just gives me the Ooops every time I try opening it.

I think it's great that every user can comment on an entry and curators can review the proposed changed.

I don't see the point of being a curator (as I am) and not being able to edit the items in their own page. If I understand correctly I have now to make a comment on a word, that word goes to a page that right now has a few issues, it then gets lost in 60,000+ un-moderated words, sits there for who knows how long, then eventually is displayed to a moderator (that could be me) and finally modified. And all that is how many days or weeks instead of a couple minutes of my time?

As a moderator I don't mind doing the research on words as I find them in lists. I often improve the definition, include alternates, update pos & gender. I however don't have the time or desire to go through lists of requested modifications. It is my opinion that both ways to edit should be kept, the patrol tab for users requests and the direct edit in the word page for curators.

@sfrenchie I can still edit words directly on their own page, including those I did not create but which are in topics I am a moderator of.

@sfrenchie, apologies for the current teething issues with the patrol function. It should allow you to edit since you are a curator, and your changes be applied. Non curators need to have their changes checked. But there are glitches to be ironed out. We are working round the clock on this and it will be sorted very very soon.

So it will work pretty much as you say once it is working properly!

best wishes

Ben

@benwhately, @greg : thanks for all the time you at Memrise are spending for making this work.

I notice that in a given course, using the course content editing feature (where you have a wordlist with columns), most words are completely editable (a pen appears when you approach any cell), others are not : they can just be deleted (as shown by a X sign on the right).

It may be a coincidence but at least for one such word, when it happened on patrol (because it had no part-of-speech), I got systematically an error message after I tried to save an edit for it. Looks like a corrupted or unexpectedly formated database entry preventing any modification but not display or quizz.

No problem Ben. Thanks for the feedback.

Loving the new word-editing page.

I like the countdown pie on words, but I'm sad that the different tests (pinyin, meaning, etc.) don't have the different coloured bubbles. What happened to that?

I think the number countdown was much more effective... now I can't see the individual seconds ticking away... forcing me to give a quick response. Now it is more of a mild reminder that there is some kind of time limit, but nothing worth worrying about. I think the timer countdown creates much more motivation. Just my humble opinion. ;)

When I try to go to the patrol tab for Esperanto (where I am a curator), I click on the patrol tab and then the website times out. Is there a reason for this?

@spacegandalf, this definitely shouldn't happen, thanks for the heads up, we are checking it now.

Best wishes

Ben

@ben, i hate to be bothersome, but can you please verify whether or not the "patrol suggestions" button should now be working? I have been trying it several times a day since it appeared, and if it hasn't timed out, it has taken me to a watering session. I gather from other peoples posts, that some have had success loading this session as it was intended, so I was wondering if the error is language topic specific?

@mangodurian, really sorry about this - it should now be working in most topics - I know that there is an issue in Spanish and Mandarin. Please let me know if you are still having trouble. Apologies that this is taking so long to iron out.

Best wishes

Ben

Yay that's fantastic! My recommendations to fellow curators: Unless it's something you are super sure of yourself already, check everything in TWO dictionaries first if you can! And do not not not use Google translate!

Well drat, I just tried it and this is the message I get:

Oops

Something has gone wrong. We're busily sacrificing an engineer to fix things as quickly as we can.

Sorry about this.

Don't hesitate to get in touch (info@memrise.com) if we can help.

It's a great idea anyway, looking forward to seeing it when the kinks are ironed out!

In other news I like the timer better than the number because I can look at it out of the corner of my eye where as I had to move my eyes in order to see how much time I had left before.

Good point about using at least the two dictionaries RabbitWho!

http://www.memrise.com/topic/russian/patrol/ was working before, but doesn't want to open now. Chrome tells me "Error 324 (net::ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE)"

@ben.. still not working on the czech side.. it times out getting to the main patrol page, and starting the "patrol suggestions" page, now gives me the error message:

Unfortunately, there was a problem - try refreshing or picking something different to learn. We'll do our best to fix this as soon as we possibly can. Sorry about this

seems like there are still some kinks need ironing out..

When are these facilities likely to be working?