User talk:Aristoxène

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Hello, Aristoxène, and welcome to Wikisource! Thank you for joining the project. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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Again, welcome! — Alien  3
3 3 20:25, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Author:Ravachol

Do you know if works by or about this author were translated into english? (Je peux aussi parler français, si vous préférez.) — Alien  3
3 3 20:26, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

@Alien333 Hello, yes some of them (Forbidden defence speech) are translated in English (see the WP page at the bottom I added the links). And for Pierre Martinet I just added a text to the FR:Wikisource of them and Ravachol and I wanted to translate it into English to start filling the Martinet page too since he produced a lot of writings I'm finding but only in French Aristoxène (talk) 20:29, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Though I was reading the helping guide about like how to translate and I didn't understand it a single bit, but I'll figure it out eventually, probably. Aristoxène (talk) 20:29, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

If you mean administratively, yes the help pages are a bit hard to understand. For translations it's essentially:

• if it's your own translation:
  • there needs to be a scan-backed original at the corresponding-language wikisource (here frws)
  • it should be put in Translation: namespace
• if it's a published, PD translation:
  • treat it like any other work

And that's about it. — Alien  3
3 3 20:34, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

@Alien333 Thanks you for all these elements ! So if I understand correctly, I don't have to do the whole djvu scan since it's already in French and I can create directly the page of the work without asking for it to be parsed from the djvu file ? Aristoxène (talk) 20:36, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

The correct way to do translations is to use the DJVU, make an index with it, but instead of putting the content in Page: namespace, you put your translation of it. So that others can see precisely what is a translation of what and perhaps refine the translation. See for example Translation:Shulchan Aruch/Orach Chaim/282. — Alien  3
3 3 08:33, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Oh ok, thanks I'll check that and correct @Alien333 Aristoxène (talk) 09:21, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Ok, good! Thanks for the work. — Alien  3
3 3 20:30, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Could you tell me if the text translated and added is fine ? like did I create the pages and code needed or am I completely lost ? :/ @Alien333 Aristoxène (talk) 21:40, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Author:User:Aristoxène

I think you created Author:User:Aristoxène in the wrong namespace. I've moved it to your userspace. (Since you're quite active on several other wikis, I'm far less inclined to think your edit was vandalistic.) Duckmather (talk) 21:04, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

@Duckmather Oh sorry yes, I wanted to add something in the page to fill the gap and not put it in red in the translation I'm adding rn but haha I see how that could be seen as vandalism Aristoxène (talk) 21:05, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

So sorry for that :/ I'm kinda lost so far but I'll get to it over time, I'm sure Aristoxène (talk) 21:05, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Forbidden Defence speech

This is a versions page for listing multiple published translations, but we have only the one translation. When there is only one translation, no page to disambiguate the translations is needed. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:42, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Also, please note Wikisource:Translations: "There should only be a single translation to English per original language work." We do not make user-created translations in multiple copies, but only once per work. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:47, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Per this policy, This index is nominated for deletion: Wikisource:Proposed deletions#Index:Declaration de Ravachol original.djvu. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:56, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey It would be better to delete the older one, since it's not the original but a revised version by his lawyer, then ; but we would lose the difference between the two works, which are very different one to another. It's not the same work at all, you can compare. Aristoxène (talk) 16:22, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Generally, if we're translating ourselves, a published copy is preferred over a handwritten one. The published copy with be edited and typeset. A handwritten copy will have both the translation and the transcription as possible concerns. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:38, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey The issue with that is that those are not the same texts in many occurrences. Lagasse didn't just edit the spelling and typography, he changed the text, added paragraphs, removed others ; we are not here in front of a normal edition of the text, something that was also noted by those who published the photographs of the manuscript - they say that the text was modified to the point where one could doubt that he didn't search to falsify it.(1)

Also, they note it and it's correct, when they say that it was published in the press as another publication. So you have the manuscript which served as basis for the Le Temps 23 June publication and then 10 days later or so Lagasse republished a new version in La Révolte ; which became famous afterwards. But we have both texts being published with 10 days of distance and both are not the same, to be fair, like there are very huge gaps. Though after speaking with @Alien333 on Discord, they advised me to use the mss version instead of the Le Temps one (I note though that I don't know if they knew that I was going to translate it or if another translation was already made), since we know that Le Temps is based on the mss (and tbf after the work on both versions, the Le Temps one is doing mistakes on some parts compared to the ms) and I didn't know it but they told me that it was usable even though the website giving it is a private company selling the work. So I don't know but I feel that if we don't use the first one, we lose the actual work which is very different (for example in the last part Ravachol speaks about silk related issues a lot to do assert his arguments, something that completely disappeared in Lagasse's version) and if we don't use the second one, we lose the 'textus receptus' of that text in leftist intellectual tradition I would say Aristoxène (talk) 17:03, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

They are different editions, but they are the same work. A "work" is defined using the same language that Wikidata and the w:en:FRBR use. All editions are forms of the same "work" if they are essentially the same piece of writing, even if they have many differences in the particulars. The novel A Clockwork Ornage was published in 21 chapters, but the US edition made changes, including leaving out the final chapter. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published in the US as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, with many changes to specific words and phrases for US publication. Despite those changes, each pair of editions are still the same "work". Wikisource-created translations are limited to one per "work", not per edition. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:05, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

@Aristoxène: I did not tell you to prefer the manuscript version; I was merely trying to say that (in general) we tend to admit multiple editions of stuff.

That being said, I was not aware that the limit of one translation per work was really per work and not per edition. @EncycloPetey: It seems strange to me, as editions can be very different. Take for example the Dickinson poems. If someone translated a text like that into english, depending on the text they based themselves on it'd be a very different translation. — Alien  3
3 3 17:31, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey I understand what you say but both texts are VERY different. I feel like in that case, if we should only keep one edition of the text, we should keep the first one, which is actually Ravachol's work and was published by Le Temps before the other version. It's older, it's based on the manuscript and it's not revised and modified massively (though it's already somewhat, so that would mean I would have to use the Le Temps one precisely because there is a three-fold process here or even four-fold process)

Manuscript -> Corrections by Ravachol himself (same hand and ink) -> Corrections by someone else (another hand and with a pencil, correcting in the ms the most obvious spelling mistakes - I didn't consider this second hand while giving the text but I considered Ravachol's corrections - though it doesn't change the meaning, the second hand is only correcting spelling (far from all mistakes), so not relevant for the English translation anyways) -> Publication of the Ms in Le Temps with already some changes, a ponctuation, while Ravachol wrote without so (which gives a beautiful sensation of the text being rushed and written in a single push) but they kept most of his spelling AND the differences in the content of the text -> Criticism from anarchist circles and media that the original Ravachol's text would be too 'stupid' and 'shameful' -> Louis Lagasse (Ravachol's lawyer) publishes this new version, without any mistake, removing and adding passages (including the last paragraph for example) in the main French anarchist newspaper of the time.

Now, when I say that it's really different, I mean it, and the website where I took it says it too, but let me stress some of the most obvious differences, just to show that keeping one and not another would probably be a mistake, or I feel like we would lose something for culture, because readers have to know that the text they are reading is an high-end intellectual class production on anarchism and the actual Ravachol, while he already spoke about anarchism and related issues, did so in very different ways (I remove all the spelling issues):

Extended content

Original : For today, if you destroy one criminal, tomorrow ten more will rise. So what must be done? Destroy misery—the seed of crime—by ensuring everyone’s needs are met. And how easy this would be! All it would take is to rebuild society on new foundations, where all is held in common, where each produces according to their abilities and strength, and consumes according to their needs. No longer would we waste labor on useless, harmful things—safes, locks—since there’d be no fear of theft or murder. No more need for money to survive, no dread that the baker might lace bread with dangerous additives to cheat customers. Why would they? Profit would vanish; like everyone else, they’d have easy access to necessities for their work and life. No more inspectors weighing bread, testing coins, or auditing accounts—none of it would matter.

Lagasse's version :

There will always be criminals, for today you destroy one, and tomorrow ten more will arise. So, what is needed? To destroy poverty, the breeding ground of crime, by ensuring that everyone’s needs are met! And how easy this would be to achieve! It would suffice to reorganize society on new foundations where everything is held in common, and where each person, producing according to their abilities and strengths, could consume according to their needs.

Original : In the silk industry, we would no longer see the rampant speculation that has plagued it from the start—where middlemen force silk to absorb various additives to increase its weight or create a false appearance. By the time the silk reaches the dyer, these same additives must be stripped away so the fabric can properly absorb dyes and chemical fixatives. Then, at the dyer’s turn—and because the manufacturer demands it—the silk is made to absorb up to four-fifths (or more) of its natural weight in processing agents.

This is especially true for black-dyed silk; I cannot confirm if colored silks are as heavily adulterated, but I am certain many are.

Yet if we carefully consider all the wasted materials and labor expended to produce them, it becomes clear how much effort is squandered in saturating silk with these chemicals—only to later burn them out. The silk itself is ruined by excessive treatments, many of which are hazardous to workers and render the fabric unsafe against the skin. Even the dust released as these chemicals dry poses health risks.

Under a rational system, dyeing would no longer be a haphazard process, as it is today. Work could be organized efficiently, eliminating the absurdity of dyeing batches ranging from a hundred grams to a hundred kilograms—a practice born solely from the chaos of competing interests. (end of the text)

Lagasse's version : Removes that whole part

Original : Nothing there

Lagasse's version (adds a conclusion where Ravachol would say something about the fact that he is a worker and this would make him feel even more the repressive nature of laws ; a whole part of the text (the conclusion) not to be found anywhere else) (and I mean it doesn't take a PhD to figure that this kind of sentences are not from an illiterate man) : "I am only an uneducated worker; but because I have lived the life of the wretched, I feel the injustice of your repressive laws more deeply than any wealthy bourgeois. Where do you get the right to kill or imprison a man who, brought into this world with the necessity to live, found himself forced to take what he lacked in order to feed himself? I worked to live and to provide for my family; as long as neither I nor mine suffered too much, I remained what you call honest. But then work became scarce, and with unemployment came hunger. It was then that the great law of nature, that imperative voice that brooks no reply—the instinct for survival—drove me to commit some of the crimes and offenses you accuse me of, and which I admit to having committed.

So I don't know what you think is better, but I feel like it's very clear that the Lagasse's version is the less accurate one, he modified substantially the text (maybe it doesn't seem much but we are speaking about 20% of the whole text removed and 20% added by Lagasse) ; you can see that he clearly went way above a simple edition of the text, which explains why the website claims that he nearly falsified it ; and we can understand why he did that - he was trying to save Ravachol by giving a 'better' (in his view) version of the text to the media to impact public opinion - which worked somewhat. But I feel like it's still losing to the actual work ; Ravachol uses different arguments than Lagasse for anarchy, he dwelves in fact, funnily enough, more. He also speaks about very specific elements (silk trade, breadmaking) which show that he was very concerned with Parisian/French labourer-class life, like the imagery he uses, which Lagasse's removed, is an imagery of the working class of the time. Those are just two elements that I see that seem to me to be a loss if we would keep Lagasse's one only but there are probably more. I feel like we should also keep in mind that Lagasse didn't care at all about keeping the best version or doing a scholarly/accurate work ; his perspective was to save his client from jail, not really to stay faithful to Ravachol's writings. Aristoxène (talk) 19:10, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I say jail but it was death, of course. And he was sentenced to death. Aristoxène (talk) 19:16, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I understand that they are very different, and that many, many texts have such differences in their original language. That is one reason policy capped the number of user translations per work to just one. Otherwise, we could end up with endless numbers of user-created translations for any work with many textual variants. Think of the textual variations in Biblical books, which are considered theologically important to many people. Rather than have many multiple translations, we allow just one.

Note that any comments concerning the retention of one edition preferentially over the other should be made in the Deletion discussion, as the community would need to make that decision. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:16, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Ok, thank you for that, I will do that there. :) Aristoxène (talk) 19:17, 13 April 2025 (UTC)