TOPIC:

Hello Everybody,

this is just an idea inspired from the thread of dr. Freeman regarding the translation of his PPT presentation in other languages.
I come from a non-english speaking country (RO) where most of the HCV patients are not speaking English. This means they are not able to read nor understand the interesting and useful information posted on this forum. Thus they need to rely on what others are telling them (most being doctors who perhaps do not know much about for instance the REDEMPTION study) which in fact means they receive extremely few information or none about options to get cured of HCV.

What if we could create sections on fixhepc where volunteers, registered users of fixhepc having english skills could translate relevant HCV information in the native language, and post it here (press releases, available studies, etc)? Based on their posts made here on fixhepc they could later on discuss / inform various websites from their home countries that "Hey look, there is an interesting news published on fixhepc in our own language ....".

What would you say?

Before I get started here, I'll point out that there is a translation tab on the upper left of your screen. But yes, I know that translation engines are poor in some languages, really suck in others and are incomprehensible in others. For academic articles they are generally pretty good as well as for old style news writing ... but journalism anymore ... I won't get started about journalism majors .... for the purposes of this forum, I understand that online translation engines can be difficult to use.

So ... on the surface it sounds like a good idea, but there are many problems. Remember that there are spammers coming in here, there are unverified sellers trying to get sales, some being con artists, and we've seen well intentioned people come here and post incorrect or even harmful information. Imagine if that were to start happening in 40 languages, or 200. Our moderators would have no way to safeguard the forum.

It could put peoples lives at risk and the owners of this website could be held legally liable if things got bad enough.

It would probably be better to have authorized parallel websites in different languages each with their own set of moderators. Maybe a FixHepCChina.com, FixHepCBrazil.com, or similar ... and each with their own administrators to take legal responsibility for the content of the sites.

Hi rohcvfighter,

Fixhepc's intention is to be as international as possible. In case you are not already aware, something that may assist those who cannot read English is the translation function build into the site. If you look in the top left corner of each page you will see a "Select Language" button that automatically translates into other languages. This may be of some assistance for readers.

For translating links to other sites press releases and reports the following Google Website Translator may be of assistance:

translate.google.com/m/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en

Copy and paste links to other websites into the line that says "Touch to Type", set the language translation to suit you and then click on the blue arrow at the end of that line and it will allow you to read anything on that website in your preferred language.

Please let us know if any of this assists with your request and if so please pass it on to your own and other country's forums.

(I have moved this topic to the Technical Support section of the forum where it probably better fits)

Also, per klhilde's comments there are difficulties with maintaining a site in multiple languages.

Dr James Freemean did post some thoughts about setting up versions of FixHepC in other countries and languages per below.

"But what if we had many sites, in many languages, in many locations?"

fixhepc.com/forum/buyers-club-nodes/141-...social-movement.html

There have already been some efforts behind the scenes to make some "official" translations of the most important sections of the FixHepC web site (French, Vietnamese, ... and maybe others?). Maybe they will eventually appear one day?

But the info on the english version (especially the blog) is evolving very rapidly and it is hard for the translators to keep up. Also, as far as I can see, there may be a technical question of how to integrate different language versions with the main forum?

The automatic language translation feature (menu at top left of page) is probably good enough to let most non-english speakers get the gist, but it would obviously be better if there was a top level language version for each of the main world languages, and a language-specific web address for each...

Anyway, if anyone is really motivated to do some serious translation, they should contact Dr James (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) with any suggestions or ideas.

Cheers, Ciao, Hasta luego, À plus,

Vororo

Hello Gaj and Klhilde,

thank you for your replies, it does contain couple of information it worth thinking on it.
Yes, spammers, people trying to sell things, etc. are part of the real life. Also managing websites in various languages is quite a challenge. But this would be too BIG for the moment.

The idea proposed would be to proceed in small steps (or at least as big as it can be managed) having the following issues in mind:

Issue1: using the automated translation option does not allow (afaik) search engines to index websites. This means if someone looks for a keyword in another language than English, most probably will not reach fixhepc.com.
Issue2: indeed, translations made by translation engines are .....funny...(let's use this word for the moment).
Issue3: human translation means skills&time&effort that not so many people have available.
Issue4: trying to reinvent the wheel (like create a new forum somewhere) and doing something BIG in short time most probably will lead to failure.
Issue5: spammers, faulty translations, etc. can invalidate the initial goal.
Issue6: I was extremely surprised that since 16th of April until today, I could find only 1 website in RO who published an English article related to the EASL presentation made by Dr. Freeman in Barcelona. I could not find any other website or publication in RO to at least instruct people that there are HCV news on the horizon....coming from Australia.

Looking at all these from above, the situation looks depressing. This is the point to have in mind the old saying "A little stone in the way overturns a great wain." and thinking "What if a small effort can have a butterfly effect?"
e.g.:
- invest 30 minutes to voluntarily translate a text being not very long (for instance a press release) from English to the native language. Make sure to always indicate the source of information and/or if possible make a bilingual document. (see the file attached for instance)

- invest 15 minutes to make sure the translation is not faulty. (Garbage text will will end in the trash can)
- invest 5 minutes to create a post on the fixhepc forum using 2 titles: the English title of the text and the title translated in the native language (hopefully search engines will find them both) and upload the translation (perhaps as PDF file as it would enable the easy share of information).
- invest 10 minutes to announce interested forums in the homeland about the translated text being available in the native language.

---

Total time invested : 1h
If such a post will be read in the homeland by at least couple of people, it will be in any case a step forward.

I am aware this idea is not perfect and that it can be further improved. Yet, by simply put it into practice it might turn into a small contribution that could help other people.

Thinking on my story, I managed to find out about fixhepc just because an european doctor (not from RO) told me that I could be cured with Harvoni. This small piece of information, "Harvoni", was the trigger for me to find out about India, Greg Jefferys, fixhepc. What if such "small pieces" of information like a simple press release translated in the native language might trigger others to find&get help.

Sorry for the long post,

BR
RHF

If you are interested in running a Romanian native language version that is entirely possible.

The moderation issue is important. Most users don't see the spam that arrives on the forum because it is rapidly identified and deleted, so once you have a forum it's like a garden - you have to continuously weed it!

Sighisoara. We will be there most of June.
My home away from home.
m