Are dictionaries off-topic?

Question

My question https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/q/7035/903 has so far received 4 close votes. At the same time, the dictionary tag exists, and I see two others questions of IMHO the same kind without any close votes:

• Maintained open source offline Japanese dictionary for Android? (5 upvotes, 0 close vote, 0 downvote)
• Bilingual French-English dictionary for the Amazon Kindle (1 upvotes since migration , 0 close vote, 0 downvote)
• Encyclopedia that works offline (alternative to Encarta) (3 upvotes, 0 close vote, 0 downvote)
• English to Greek Dictionary (2 upvotes, 0 close vote, 0 downvote)

So, are dictionaries on- or off-topic?

Answer 1

This is closely related to the distinction between software and data sources, which is currently unresolved.

All four dictionary questions listed in this meta question 1 2 3 4 have a dual aspect: they cover both the software to access the dictionary and the dictionary content. Three of them have an offline requirement that make them heavy on the data source aspect; without an offline requirement, an answer could be “use this application which is able to query data sources using one or more standard or proprietary protocols”.

https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/7035/matlab-numpy-scipy-matplotlib-dictionary is different because it's purely about the data source. There's no non-trivial requirement that the data be queried with a particular workflow or within a particular environment. I think this makes it firmly off-topic, but we haven't settled this.

Answer 2

I would say a off-line dictionary or Encyclopaedia (Eg Microsoft Encarta) can be on topic. Where they exceed what would be expected of a normal document.

A language dictionary is more than documentation, such a a dictionary program could provide features that would not be found in a mundane one. For example a dictionary software may have a in built audio for pronunciation. A PC Encyclopaedia could include video.

However if there is no requirement in the question, or in the answer "program" does not have such features, and is more or less a document, perhaps with indexing etc, would not software, it is a document.

For example this is the Mathematica Manual. It is a fairly complex website, tons of styling and hyperlinks and pictures, but it is basically static. Its a document. The Help functionality built into Mathematica that will let you (for example) right click on a function and load its Manual Page, is a Feature of the Mathematica Software. Even the inbuilt Help which is the same general content of

This is a borderline, for sure. In general: If it has a author rather than a developer, or if it is written rather than programmed, then it is a document, not software.