en: An English translation of Marc's message follows. fr: Une traduction anglaise du message de Marc suit pour les éditeurs anglais. Yours cordially, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) ------------------------------------------ Hello, I'm writing here, rather than on the Scriptorium (for obvious reasons), about a case which could turn out to be problematic: http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/User_talk:Marc?diff=345891 It concerns a translation derived from non-free translations. I quote: "The funniest part is that had I lied and said that the translation was mine, it would have passed, might I say, like a letter through the mail... Be reassured that I refuse to indulge in such practices." For the specific case which concerns the contributor, I don't have any particular opinion; it is not what he published that I want to talk about, but the problem that it raises. I in fact agree with what he said; the "page" extension might assure the quality of original editions, but translations made by contributors can cause major problems. I have no difficulty imagining someone copying several non-free translations, combining them, and adding them to Wikisource with nobody the wiser. Marc

Marc Galli wrote: Le cas de ce contributeur serait, bien entendu très particulier. S'il aurait commencé à partir de sa propre traduction, même si plus tard il aurait essayer de résoudre ses différences avec les versions protégées il n'y aurait pas de problèmes. Dans le cas particulier, concernant un document de 1812, n'y aurait-il pas eu de plus anciennes traductions libres? Il est toujours important d'encourager de nouvelles traductions, ou de traductions collaboratives. C'est là précisément qu'on profite d'être un wiki. Comme ça on peut avoir des traductions d'oeuvres jamais traduits avant, ou des traductions libres pour ceux dont les traductions qui existent resteront protégées pour longtemps, ou des traductions qui présentes un point de vue neutre quand ceux qui existent sont déjà pleins de préjugements. Évidemment on peut facilement imaginer plusieurs façons de tricher avec les traductions, mais l'imagination est loins de l'actualité. Le fardeau de la preuve devrait toujours rester avec celui qui dit qu'une traduction est vraiment une copie illégitime. MY TRANSLATION The case of this user is, of course, very special. Had he begun with his own translation, even if afterwards he tried to resolve his differences with protected version, there would be no problems. In this particular case, which concerns a document from 1812, would there not have been earlier free translations. It is always important to encourage new and collaborative translations. That is precisely how we benefit from being a wiki. That way we can have translations that were never produced before, or free translations when the ones that exist will be yet protected for a long time, or neutral translations when those already extant are full of prejudices. Obviously one can easily imagine numerous ways of cheating with translations, but imagination is far from reality. The burden of proof must always rest with he who claims that a translation is really an illegitimate copy. Ec