Outlier Linguistic Solutions

[xiaokaka]

Over 90% with four days left! I hope that everyone here that hasn't pledged yet consider to do so, I can't wait to have the dictionary as soon as possible!

[mjXueHanYu]

It looks wonderful, backed it at 65. Super hopeful it will reach the target. I guess some of the backers would consider raising their amounts pledged if required.

[oceancalligraphy]

Am I the only one that finds the "days to go" count deceiving? It says 3 days to go at the moment, but it's really more like 3.5 days to go. It rounds down and makes the deadline seem closer than it is.

[OneEye]

Yeah, that's annoying. I don't know why they do it that way. It ends Friday morning at 8am Taipei time.

[markcarter]

I backed it too.  Looks certain you're gonna do it guys - congrats!  Very happy all the effort and stress has paid off for you.

[mjXueHanYu]

I use instead http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/johnrenfroe/outlier-dictionary-of-chinese-characters/

[mjXueHanYu]

Super happy it got backed, hope there aren't any cancellations to take it under 75,000. Can't wait for the poster ^^. Wondering if the there could be a 1,000 character 'beta'.

Did anyone pledge to get both posters printed? I want the posters as an inbetween step whilst waiting for the app.

[lechuan]

Excellent! This will be the first kickstarter I've pledged that reaches it's target!

 

Congratulations @OneEye and look forward to the dictionary!

 

Yes, looking forward to the posters. This will probably be the first poster I hang on my wall in the past 20 years.

[Hofmann]

Whew...it's getting hot over here.

[OneEye]

Woohoo!

 

Thanks for the support, everyone! It's been quite a roller coaster ride! Or as Dr. Moser put it to me, a "character-building experience."

[OneEye]

Did anyone pledge to get both posters printed? I want the posters as an inbetween step whilst waiting for the app.

 

Quite a few people have ordered both printed posters. They should be ready in August or so. Maybe earlier.

[oceancalligraphy]

Congrats! Congrats! Now I wonder if it'll make it to the stretch goal.   ＼(^o^)／  (wishes there was a 加油！ animated smiley)

[tiantian]

First of all: Congratulations for getting funded!

 

I know you'll focus on creating the dictionary now for the next year or so.

 

However, I was wondering if there was any chance there will be an app for learning characters based on the dictionary? Maybe some app that introduces the learner to your concept step-by-step, makes you learn the most important components and their roles and maybe introduces mnemonics that are based on your concept?

 

Or are you following an approach where mnemonics are no longer necessary since the character descriptions of your dictionary kind of serve as mnemonics already?

[mjXueHanYu]

Quite a few people have ordered both printed posters. They should be ready in August or so. Maybe earlier.

 

 

Was thinking more specifically if anyone in this forum had.

Super tempted to get the posters printed but not sure how useful they would be for me as I have a small desk and was wondering from how far can you read the contents of the poster.

Very happy to see you worked out how to provide the workbook for backers.

[OneEye]

Yes, I should announce that here!

 

We're developing a workbook with John Pasden (AllSet Learning/Sinosplice) and Olle Linge (Hacking Chinese/Skritter). It will contain a systematic introduction to how characters work, as well as tips and tricks for learning characters. John and Olle bring an important practical/pedagogical perspective to the project, which we think nicely balances our academic nerdiness!

 

We're offering an electronic copy to any backers who increase their pledge by $10 by the end (17 hours and counting!). And to all our other backers, regardless of donation level, we'll be sending a discount code to order it through our online store, which should go up shortly after the Kickstarter is over. So now's your chance to pre-order this at a discount, either way.

 

 

@tiantian,

 

The workbook I mentioned above will include info on mnemonic techniques. The dictionary itself won't have any mnemonics, but you can certainly use them when learning characters with our method.

 

@mjXueHanYu,

 

Here's an entry, which should be actual size, for your reference.

 

[roddy]

Impressive stuff, congrats! 

[xiaokaka]

Any updates? It would also be nice to be able to see a bit from "behind-the-scenes".

[mikelove]

I believe they've all been taking a (well-deserved!) vacation for the last week or two, but you should be hearing more from them soon.

[Hofmann]

Hey, I'm done. Working on other stuff while the others do their thing.

[HerrPetersen]

Here is an answer from OneEye to some questions I had. (Source forum.koohii.com)
 

 

Other question: How many hanzi are you able to include per day?

That remains to be seen. In theory we're planning on 15 or so per day, but that will depend on how smoothly everything goes in practice.




Is your workflow worked out by now?

More or less. We still have to hire a few people (research assistants and data entry personnel) before we'll be able to actually see how it works in real life though.




Can you give a very brief summary on how the process from a given charachter to a full dictionary entry works?

Once everything is in place, this is essentially how it works: I'll tell our team that I'm planning on doing characters X, Y, and Z next week. Then they'll digitize everything we have in our library (3000+ books) about those characters and enter it into our database. When I'm ready for character X the following week, I'll be able to pull it up in our database and have all the relevant research in front of me rather than looking it up manually in our books. There are certain references we prioritize over others due to the quality and breadth of their scholarship, so I'll start with those and move on from there. Once I've got a good handle on the current state of research on that character, I'll start writing the entry. Naturally, not every scholar will agree with each other all the time, so there are some choices that need to be made based on the evidence available, and we of course reserve the right to put forth our own conclusions if we feel that the evidence doesn't support what others have said so far (though this is pretty rare). We will cite all of our sources in the dictionary so that people can check the research for themselves.

That's basically the first pass. Once that version is released, we'll start combing through more specialized journal articles and update the entries that we find need updating. Those changes will mostly be in the "Expert" info, naturally, as they'll have mostly to do with the historical forms and phonology. One of the benefits of releasing this thing digitally is that it will be fairly easy to keep it up-to-date in the long term, and that's what we plan to do.

Hopefully that answered your questions!