Hi Elisabeth,

It seems Wikipedia only allows one person to translate a given page and any changes would have to be made after it is published.

In the case of very large pages, it may be convenient for teams to translate them and then the leader of each team can copy and paste the texts into place.

Let's remember that different people can contribute to Wikipedia in different ways. One person can translate, another can cite bibliography, another can add photos (esp. if he or she has lots of good, relevant photos of his or her own), etc.

Best wishes,
Chris Canaday
(PS: The website logs me out at random. If it gives me the page for posting on, it is understood that I am logged in.)

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your reply and it was so great to "e-meet" you in the virtual workroom durnig the edit-a-thon on Monday and Tuesday!

Just to clarify on Dorian's question: if I understood right he's saying that the translator tool only works on the entire article but doesn't let you translate section by section (with that tool). Is that correct?
Or have you found a way of using the translator tool in a different way?

About letting others know about translations in progress: I think that is a very good idea. I would suggest you put that kind of note on the talk page of the English article and also on the talk page of the other-language article (if it exists already). People planning to translate a page should then first check on the talk page.

In addition, we can also use this Forum category on Wikipedia for this purpose. Furthermore, I am thinking of perhaps creating a mailing list for Wikipedia SuSanA enthousiasts which could then also help for this purpose (I am yet to run this idea by the secretariat). What do you think about this idea?

Regards,
Elisabeth

Hi Dorian and July,

I would say that all of the above are fine, depending on each person's time and interest. Remember that Wikipedia is put together by human beings and not robots. Everyone brings to the task their own interests, knowledge, experience, photos, and sensibilities. If we look at the versions of various pages in the different languages, they are almost never exact copies of one another.

I do like the idea of somehow announcing that someone is doing a certain translation, to avoid duplicating efforts. We could do this here on the forum, on that other page that was created for the Edit-a-thon, AND/OR by simply uploading immediately the intro on to Wikipedia with a little note at the end, something like "(I am continuing to translate this page and, if anyone else wants to help, we can divide up the sections.)"

Best wishes,
Chris Canaday

Hi Dorian,

I would say the first strategy is better to provide a well-detailed article in the first place and let other editors focus on adding information or edit language later on.
We have discussed both strategies with Elisabeth and we agreed that it should be working better with strategy 1.
Otherwise, we should communicate on which articles we are working, to avoid being two people working at the same time on the same article.

I have used strategy 1 to translate in French the Behaviour Change article fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changement_de_comportement It worked quite well!

Kind regards,
July

Hi everyone,
I'm currently translating some articles from English to french as part of the edit-a-thon event.
I'm hesitating between two strategies:
1st: Create a new french article as detailed as possible from the English version. ( even if it's a really long article ?)
2nd: Start to translate the LEAD part for all of the key articles of the list presented by julyG (link below) then make the rest after.
forum.susana.org/component/kunena/198-wi...cles-to-edit--edit-a

I think the 1st way is better because it will allow us to quickly provide a basis of content for further editing.
But, I'm wondering about the consequences if for example, I go back to an articles that I have already partially translated a few days before. Is it going to overwrite all the contributions done by others between my two editing?
In others words, is it possible to use the translating tool to translate section instead of a full article?

If not and if the only way to translate a full article with the tool is to do it entirely before to post, should we follow the 1st strategy ?

Dorian