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They are functionally completely independent. And it's true that translation is not necessarily the way foreign-language articles get written. But it's also true that editors can often lift whole sections out of one project to translate into another project, by way of augmenting the article content. What's terrible is when this is bad content, because errors can easily be propogated in very persistent ways! I need to qualify that independence, though: all Wikipedia projects draw from at least two common sources: Commons and Wikidata. Now, Commons is media-oriented, so most of the images and audio provided may be language-independent. Wikidata is something that's not well incorporated in the English Wikipedia, but heavily used elsewhere. For basic facts and data points, Wikidata is a common database that levels the playing field for all projects and helping them expand equally without monumental individual efforts in each community. If you, as an editor, wish to truly make significant changes happen, you can do it from "behind the scenes" in one of these two projects. It is very advantageous to read articles in different languages if you're interested in deep dives on the subject. For each topic, figure out its native tongue and go there to find good info. You can even just Google Translate it back to English. And sign in to your account: the Wikipedia preferences permit you to use an interface language that you can understand. You'll find that English Wikipedia editors have an aversion to non-English sources and citations. They're not prohibited at all, but they are not popular, because other editors like to read and verify them. Unfortunately, English Wikipedia articles on foreign topics can often be built entirely on Anglophone sources, making a very impoverished, insensitive, inaccurate article! I've found foreign-langauge projects which provide foreign-language sources to be really useful in this regard. |