Wiktionary talk:Thesaurus/Purpose

Reason for creating page Wikisaurs/purpose

In the debates around Wikisaurus, there have often been "wrong" assumptions made about "The" purpose for Wikisaurus.

• It has been often ssumed that if you want to use Wikisaurus to find synonyms for a word xxxx, that you will want to look up that word under Wikisaurus:xxxxx. This ignores the power of using search to find perhaps many occurences of the xxxx word in Wikisaurus, each Wikisaurus entry with a range of synonyms depending on the usage etc.
• It has often been assumed that if a reader finds his xxxx word in Wikisaurus, he can assume it is approrpiate to use any of the listed synonyms found. Whereas, often, many of the words would not be suitable in the context. The user may get more information about usage in the Wikisaurus entry (it may be listed under a "Taboo" or "Vulgar" or "Euphemistic" sub-heading, or have usage note at teh line level). And the user would always be wise to check the main defintion entry for the synonym word also, to check usage.

  This assumption has led some to argue that Wikisaurus must therefore only have acceptable direct synomyms. Wehereas this directly limits it's usefulness.

Therefore, lets have a seperate page, and thus also a separate debate, around the purpose of Wikisaurus.--Richardb 09:44, 11 June 2007 (UTC)