1236375 - The en-US dictionary provided on AMO has not been maintained for three years, dictionary provided is from 2007.

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(addons.mozilla.org Graveyard :: Dictionaries, defect)

Description

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Users with a localised version of Firefox who wish to install an en-US dictionary will most likely visit
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/language-tools/ and then
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/united-states-english-spellche/

This add-on is out-of-date. In a lengthy thread about the en-US dictionary at
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.platform/3q7AATMNrsQ/i5yrQ_yyAwAJ
we read that the maintainer, jooliaan (Giuliano Masseroni), is not longer contributing.

I suggest to move the maintenance of the add-on into the responsibility of Mozilla or at least transfer the add-on into the responsibility of another willing contributor.

AMO should contact Giuliano and discuss the issue with him.

In the meantime I have created a "competing" dictionary:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/us-english-dictionary/

My aim is to offer a real alternative which essentially offers more words. It uses SCOWL "size 70" (large) with common variants and accented words instead of "size 60" (normal) and therefore does not suffer the problems of the Mozilla maintained dictionary (bug 301712, bug 1144254, bug 1235506).

Comment 1

[Giuliano Masseroni [:jooliaan]]

Who said that https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/united-states-english-spellche/ is discontinued? Not me for sure...
Anyway, feel free to offer the best alternative as possible, I have no complaints about that. Same if mozilla wants to publish another en-US spellchecker.
My best wishes for a joyful 2016.

Comment 2

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

No one said "discontinued". I've just changed the summary to describe the problem better.

Quoting from https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.platform/3q7AATMNrsQ/i5yrQ_yyAwAJ:

On 2/01/2016 12:37, Pascal Chevrel wrote:
> AFAIK, jooliaan (Giuliano Masseroni) is no longer contributing to the
> Mozilla project, he was part of the Italian volunteer community.
> Pascal

The dictionary was last updated in March 2013. It is certainly not in sync with the current Mozilla en-US dictionary. I suggest to refresh it or wait until once bug 1235506 lands and refresh it then.

Comment 3

[Giuliano Masseroni [:jooliaan]]

As I said, everyone can offer better alternative to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/united-states-english-spellche/
The only thing I want is to keep the ownership on my add-on.
That's all.

Comment 4

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

The page appears on the official "Dictionaries & Language Packs" page at:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/language-tools/

In other words, your add-on at
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/united-states-english-spellche/
therefore more or less "officially" distributes the "official" Mozilla maintained en-US dictionary.

Your add-on is out if date. So what are your plans to get it back into sync which Firefox?

Right now, it is not a good idea to do the resync. I've just done a spot-check: The erroneous words I found in bug 1235506 don't appear to be in the 2013 version. So we might want to keep this version on AMO for a little while.

So right now, there is no action required.

Comment 5

[Giuliano Masseroni [:jooliaan]]

I just uploaded a new version of my add-on. I updated the dic and aff files to the latest version of 24.08.2015.
Hope this is enough.

Comment 6

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Thanks. Now it is in sync again.

Sadly the new version contains more errors than the 2007 version which was previously provided. Sigh.

Comment 7

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Maybe you could change the description of your add-on to clarify where the dictionary comes from.
This is in fact the "normal" SCOWL version from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/wordlist/files/speller/2015.08.24/

It is not the en-US dictionary that is distributed by Mozilla with the en-US version of Firefox.
If you're interested, I explain the differences here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/us-english-dictionary/
Read at the bottom.

Comment 8

[Jorg K (CEST = GMT+2)]

Time to update your dictionary, SCOWL 2016.01.19 is now available.