Biotech Independent Media Centre is an issue based Indymedia site dedicated to biotechnology and genetic engineering in agriculture, food, medicine as well as its relevance to globalisation. It is about struggles everywhere against the commodification of life, and about alternatives.

Indymedia Biotech is set up by a group of volunteers from different continents working on biotech issues, many of whom are also Indymedia activists of local IMCs. They are committed to a multilingual site to break through language barriers that keep local actions restricted to local languages, or that exclude people that don't speak and write the main language of a global website.

Here is how to help www.biotechimc.org with translations.

• Adding a translation to an article or feature

The easiest way is to do this like any user would, i.e. from the main site. Go to the article or to "read more" if it's a feature. On top you'll see the languages in which the piece exists (original + translations), it's good practice to check this so as not to translate twice into the same language. Click on the "add a translation" link on top.

The form is quite easy to understand, and you'll have the text before you (but only the original, which means it won't help if what you are doing is translating a translation), divided into title/abstract/article. Don't forget to select/add the right language (if it's not in the list, you select "other" and then write it below).

In the case of features or articles posted directly from the admin, you may find that all the text is under "abstract" and there's nothing under "text of the article". In such cases you have to add at least one character in the "article" field, or your translation will be rejected.

In some mir sites such as ftaaimc, html can be activated from the outside. This is not the case with biotechimc, so if you need to turn html on you'll have to go to the admin (which means an incredible amount of time/money, so I'd say the ftaaimc development is an improvement, and so far there's been no problem with it).

• Adding a translation from the admin interface

This process takes longer, but sometimes there is no other option, for example for breaking news or html. This is how it works: once you are in the admin, go to "new article", select "translation" as your type of article, don't forget to click on "published", and it's there where you can turn html on. Here you also have to select the language; if it's not in the list, choose "other", then write the name of that language below. Then you have to select the parent article: click on the button on the left bottom corner, this will take you to the list of articles, select yours and click on "select", and you'll be back with your original translation: save, and save again ("activate changes") and then for good measure "generate all new" in the start page. If the selection is wrong, instead of "de-selecting" one has to select again and choose the right parent article.

For breaking news, you only include text in the "abstract" field, and the "text" field remains empty. This is a very long process for breaking news, i.e. when you are done it's old news already, the pieces have been archived and there's a whole set of new items on the front page. The ftaaimc found a more practical option for this, which is simply editing each piece of breaking news by adding the translation below, so this bilingual version will be featured on every page. This saves lots of time and seems to be better for speakers of the second language.

• Other things

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