I've tried to start two new translations, but the tool keeps telling me that they are "ongoing" and doesn't allow me to do anything. I checked, and 1) neither article exists in the spanish Wikipedia, and b) the mentioned "authors" aren't active, so it's possible that they started a translation but abandoned it.
What can be done?
The translations are from en:wiki to es:wiki. Articles: Midori Gotō and Eleanor Hallowell Abbott.
Currently translations are blocked by the user who starts them, which can be problematic if the user abandons them. We planning for better supporting this scenario in the future by allowing multiple users to work on the same topic (more details in this ticket) as well as reminding users about inactive translations (more details), but for now the only option is to coordinate with those users.
Thanks for the reply. All I can say is that I think this was a bad design choice. It doesn't make sense to "lock" a translation that hasn't even begun, specially since we know there is no way to "lock" a Wikipedia article (so I still can override the lock simply by translating without the tool). Yes, you can put a sign telling others that you are working on the page, but that's a very different story.
More than a "design choice" it has been a technical limitation. A limitation we planned to solve, but it has not been the high priority yet since we found it was not happening very often due to the high volume of articles, languages and the low volume of users since the tool is in beta still (although things may become different as more users adopt the tool). In any case is something we really need to solve as the tool becomes more mature.
