User talk:Orracudi

Welcome!
Hello, Orracudi, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:
 * Introduction and Getting started
 * Contributing to Wikipedia
 * The five pillars of Wikipedia
 * How to edit a page and How to develop articles
 * How to create your first article
 * Simplified Manual of Style

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Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Mathglot (talk) 18:30, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Translation from French
Hi, Orracudi, back in September, you asked a question at the Help Desk about How to translate a French Wiki article into English. Did you get a satisfactory answer to your question?

I have translated a fair number of articles from French (and other languages) so I have a lot of experience with this issue. There's no really easy way to do it, but I've learned a lot about how to ease the burden and make it go a little more smoothly, and save time. (I mean to write up a help page about it one of these days, to help others, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.)

I see you've figured out how to use WP:User subpages, as in your versions of User:Orracudi/Upcoming translation draft; great! User subpages are one good tool that's available to you for saving drafts online. Another, similar method is Wikipedia's WP:DRAFTSPACE, which is a whole, separate area where anyone can create and develop their drafts. To use Draft space, just create a page with  before your article name, and develop the article there. There are many advantages to this, which we can talk about if you like. That's usually the way I do it, unless the article is very short and can be created in one go.

There are lots of other tips and methods I use in translating articles, and I'm sure I could learn from your ideas, too. If you have specific questions about translation, let me know, or if you just want to have an open-ended discussion about it, we can do that, too. We could start here; just use the to reply to me, so I'll get notified about your message. Thanks, et bonne continuation! Mathglot (talk) 19:02, 10 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi Mathglot, I did get two good answers back in September. The most useful was the one explaining about the "infamous publish button". However, after weeks using the User:Orracudi/Upcoming translation draft, I gave up because the notes and references disappear when copying to the namespace page. I also tried the experimental translation subpage, but unfortunately the double column system is hopeless when, instead of a "literal" translation, you are omitting some paragraphs and adding others to make the result more compatible with the target language: everything ends up completely "décalé" and useless. As for the WP:DRAFTSPACE, that also seems really complicated, starting with the warnings about what not to use it for... So, to close the subpage topic, let me just say that I finally went back to the old system I have used during 50 years as a translator: do the draft on a blank page using Word, and copy/paste to the namespace when ready, adding the notes and references once you've arrived (otherwise they just disappear). I must add that, although I love reading the Wiki guides and manuals when I have plenty of time, they are too long and complex to be used while working, or you don't get any more work done! Even your suggestion about "just use the to reply to me" is unclear to me: where do I find that? or where do I insert it? So I'm just trying this method of replying: let me know if you get it! Thanks, at least if you reply I know where to find it ("talk")!Orracudi (talk) 07:30, 11 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Apparently my "reply" didn't work, or else you just haven't yet anwered, but how to know? Only after I have succeeded at least once! (but how to know?) I never could figure out how to reply and thank the two users who answered my September questions either. In the French version, you can just click "reply" and it's all automatic. Also the "draft" page in French is much easier: no American lawyers, so you can simply save your draft, period, as of course you already know. By the way, how can you get "templates" on your page to choose from? Nothing seems to let you check "templates"... Now we'll see if you get pinged.Orracudi (talk) 06:58, 12 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi, Orracudi! You're right, the first reply didn't work, because you copied from the wikicode: that is, you coded , which merely *linked* the template, instead of transcluding it.  But your ping worked, because you coded it directly (without the ' ' part) and so this time, I got it! (Just wanted to tell you that right away; I'll be back later with more substantive comments; if I forget, just ping me .) Mathglot (talk) 20:39, 12 October 2021 (UTC)