Still to be done

Instructions for new users

This site supports multilingual collaborative terminology. If this is your first time here, please register so that you can specify your language preferences.

Specifying your language preferences allows for the display of records side by side in your first two preferred languages (the wiki allows for more than two languages at once).

First, register:

• Click on the Register link.
• Fill-in the form and click on the Register button.
• One or two minutes later, you will receive an e-mail with a confirmation link. Click on that link.
• Now that you are registered, you may specify your language preferences.

Please note that registration alone does not give you the right to modify records. One of the administrators may add you in the list of the Editors if it is necessary. If you think you should be an editor, please contact the administrators.

Specifying your language preferences

If you work mostly in a few languages (e.g. English and French), then you should specify your language preferences. The advantage of doing this is that when displaying a term in multiple languages, the system put your first two preferred languages side by side, for easier comparison.

Note however that you must first register on the site.

To change your language preferences:

• Go here (or click on the link Preferences of the left menu)
• Choose your mother tongue as your Preferred language, instructions of the site will then be displayed in that language.
• Click on Can you read more languages?
• Click on Select language...., and then on your second language.
• You can repeat that step to add additional languages. Make sure you add the languages in the order that you most frequently use them.
• Click on the Change preferences button located at the very bottom of the page.

Searching for a term

To search a term:

• Type the term in the Search a term field of the Terminology module (usually located on the top right corner).
• Select the the language for the search.
• Click on the Go button.

If only one term is found, it is automatically displayed.

If you specified a second language in your language preferences, the system will display the terms side by side in those two languages.

When the system finds more than one term, it will displays the list of all terms matching your query.

Modifying an existing term

First, you must search for a term.

Then, simply click on the Modify button located under the term you want to modify.

If you do not see the Modify button, it means you are not in the Editors group. If you think you should be allowed to modify the records, please contact the administrators and ask them to add you to that group.

Creating a new term

To create a new term in a given language:

• Type the term in the Search a term field of the Terminology module (usually located on the top right corner).
• Click on the Go button.
• If the term does not already exist, a button starting with caption Create the page appears. Click on that button.
• This will create a page pre-filled with template fields. Simply fill the provided fields. For example, if you want to add a definition, simply erase the word None (located at the right of the __Definition__ tag), and replace it by your own definition.

Creating an equivalent in another language

When a term has no equivalent in a target language, you may proceed as follows:

• Go to the chosen term.
• Click on the Translate button located under the term.
• Select the language for the new equivalent in the Language of the new page list.
• Enter the equivalent in the Name of the new page field.
• Click on the Create the translation button.
• Delete the Translation in progress mention.
• Write over or simply rewrite from scratch as you prefer.
• Click on the Translation complete button.

Asking a question:

If you want to know how a term translates in a given language, you have two options:

Option 1: Ask your question on one of the forums. Once you know the answer, you may also wish to help the community by creating a page for this term. See section Create an equivalent in another language.


Option 2: Go to the term's page in the source language (or create it if it does not already exists), and add a comment asking for the equivalent in the target language. Click on the "watch this page" icon (the eye located at the top of the page) to tell the system that you want to be notified when this page is modified. The system will notify you when the record is modified, including when someone answers your comment.

Adding more equivalents for a term

If you know another translation for a term found, you can proceed as follows.

Simply modify the page for this term and add an alias in the section Synonyms and Acronyms.

To add an alias, you must enter (alias(other equivalent)), where "alias" is the word "alias" as such, while "other equivalent" is the new equivalent you want to add.

As an example, if you see a page "email client" and want to add "email reader", you modify the page "email client", and add (alias(email reader)).

Creating a record for a different meaning of an existing term

Very often, meaning of a term will be different according to the context or the domain. However, in the terminology tool that you are currently using, each word or expression is associated to a given record, and each record can only define one and only one meaning.

To deal with that while achieving the goal of having two records, simply create a new record for the new meaning. The name of the new record will have to be different from the existing one, which can be achieved by adding a few words prefixed by a double dash to avoid the ambiguity.

For example, suppose you want to create a record for term "terminal", in the context of transportation (i.e., the place where people get in or out of an aircraft or train), but find that you already have a record for "terminal" which captures the meaning of that word in the networking context (i.e., a node of a network).

You would create a term called "terminal --transports", and write the appropriate definition in it. It might also be a good idea to rename the other record from "terminal" to something like "terminal--computer science" (simply go to the "terminal" record and click on the Rename button).

Contacting the administrators

Documentation to come...