Talk:Lexicon

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Lexicon v. Glossary

Lexicon - A stock of terms used in a particular profession, subject, or style; a vocabulary -http://www.thefreedictionary.com/lexicon
Glossary - A collection of specialized terms and their meanings - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glossary

Structure & a place to begin

Since the AIC wiki is a resource for professional conservators, what I envision for the wiki would be a simply stated definition for each term that could be used for the public-facing publication– something on the order of what’s in CAMEO, AAT, or MuseumWise, with an illustration, followed by whatever else we as conservators might want to express under that simple definition. Nravenel 01:21, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Structuring the Lexicon project within this wiki

With respect to structuring this project given the content that is already here, do we structure this alphabetically irrespective of what kind of material a term belongs to, do we create lexicon pages for each specialization that get categorized as being part of the lexicon project? Nravenel 01:21, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Structuring the page

I would like to suggest making each term a separate section so that it could be explicitly linked to other sections of the wiki.Nravenel 01:21, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with making each term a separate page. They can be linked to the SG by using Categories. The use of Categories may also help create hierarchies and group terms. A list of Categories should be agreed on (the first Category being "Lexicon" in all pages to do with this topic). Within the structure of each term page I suggest having a sub-heading for synonyms with links to the pages of those terms (unless the choice were made to reduce the duplication of terms and try to consolidate equivalent concepts in one same page). lcasella 20:21, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

So, assuming we're starting with condition terms and conservation process terms, in addition to the

• term as a title
• image (when applicable)
• a short definition appropriate for the public-facing printed version. This may be as short as a single sentence or may be several paragraphs, depending on the term.
• synonyms and the term in other languages
• space for longer discussion
• references
• categories

are there other sections that should be added to a template for this lexicon? Nravenel 01:16, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

If several reasources all have slightly different definitions for a term - do we discuss/debate which one is best to pick one or try and melt them? Does that go in the Discussion tab and then the final result is transferred to the content page? In which case we can have a template for our Discussion page which is slightly different from the template for our final agreed upon content on the main page for that entry? How do we decide what our top 10, 20, 50 terms are? --RPArenstein 05:28, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

We need to consider why there might be differences in definitions for a term. If the differences are context-related, then I think our definition should make note of the differences and indicate the context. I've created the start of a template, which you'll find at Template:Lexicon. Looking at the edit page will show you my thinking about what goes under each heading. As you see, my thought was to have the discussion about term nuances on the face of the page, mostly because this is a resource for conservators not for the general public. What I haven't resolved is what to do when there's several images depicting the term. That may be as simple as replacing the single image with a gallery. The way these substitution templates are used is that you start the page by putting in {{subst:Lexicon}} on to the page and then save it to insert the template. Then you can go back to the edit tab to fill in the sections.

As far as choosing what terms we should start with, let's start a list! Nravenel 11:06, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Starting a list of terms to be defined

As a starting point I pulled the list of Condition and Effects terms from AAT and cross referenced with CAMEO and the list of terms defined on the AIC website. Not all of these are terms that we will want to use here and the list is missing commonly used terms that we will want to define for that public-facing publication. For the sake of completeness, I wanted everybody to see what was there, so once I figure out how to do a strikeout in media wiki, I'll do that rather than remove terms on the list. So what terms do you commonly use in your reports or talking about what you do that should be added? Please feel free to add them directly to that list I started. If you want to begin to define a term or 10, feel free to try out the template. I'm open to your thoughts on that as well.--Nravenel 13:51, 7 October 2012 (UTC)