Anthere wrote in part:
ah, you ring a bell here. I several times felt the consuming desire just to create an empty page (or an *horrible* stub) in english, just to link a french page that existed.
Sorry for those who don't like stubs, but *this* issue is just a call for stubs. Or, we need to find another way to indicate links from a empty link.
I've thought about this as well, and this has bothered me, since I'm supposed to be one of the people opposed to horrible stubs.
But I think that there is a way to avoid horrible stubs here. It doesn't avoid stubs completely -- but I'm not against non-horrible stubs.
My idea is that you should translate the first paragraph of the article. It's quite unreasonable that you should translate the whole thing, but translating the first paragraph will provide a good stub. Then the language link will show people the fuller article.
My phrase "the first paragraph" has to be interpreted appropriately. Some articles' first literal paragraphs are too long, some perhaps too short. There may even be badly written articles whose first paragraph doesn't properly introduce the subject, and the second would be better. But generally speaking, the first few sentences should be sufficient, without being a great burden on the putative translator.
And you don't have to translate it *well*; use bad grammar and spelling, it'll get fixed.
Your proposal (snipped) is not a bad idea either, but it will take some programming work to happen. Translating the first paragraph can be done now.
-- Toby