As I read the Help section, I see that in the examples of works, a translation counts. There are many books that have been translated into many languages. Each is a work?
Just double checking before I start adding translations as new works, instead of as editions of existing works.
This is a nevermind. I just found this statement there, “Translations will both be a new Work and a new Edition for it.”
There has already been a longer discussion about this starting somewhere in this topic: https://community.metabrainz.org/t/alias-name-variant-for-work-titles/488461
I still prefer the variant, that only the translator is added as a relation to the translated work. But other add the author again. But in both ways the same information will be in the database.
There is one pitfall and that is for items that have had many translations. These would include religious works or really popular books like Pilgrim’s Progress and so on.
When you start a project like this you have to deal with masses of editions of famous works. It doesn’t matter, which way you choose, there will be problems. Personally I think that this is the better way.
I think it’s very much expected that we’ll end up with lots of entries, but all in all I believe having separate works for translations gives us the maximum amount of flexibility and detail — or rather removes restrictions of having a single work to describe all the potential relationships and details.
I think there will eventually need to be some kind of overhaul of how translations and editions are displayed. Some things with countless translations and editions (like Platonic dialogues) are going to quickly become nightmarish to traverse.
