Languages and Translations

[whoabuddy]

Phillip (@paradigma-cl) brought up an excellent point during our 2020/04/15 governance call, one blocker to completing the survey may be the issue that respondents are required to write in English instead of their native language for open format / open answer questions.

Jenny (@blockstackers) pointed out that the issue also applies to the testnet documentation, and could be something that we create Github issues for so that others can jump in and help.

Jason (@whoabuddy) talked about the CoronaTracker group's recent work with translations, looking at their process using a shared document including progress so far, possibly enlisting help from their team, and addressing their inquiry about language support in Blockstack Connect. (tagging @tesla809 and @salvolpe on this one)

I am opening this issue to discuss ways we can make it easier for our International audiences to interact with the governance survey, and hoping we can extend that to our Blockstack resources/tech, as well as other content published within our ecosystem.

[lrettig]

Seconding how important this is. Resources are scarce and there are probably a small number of "low-hanging fruit" languages that would get a pretty high return (in terms of increased engagement from the international community). Based on my experience in Ethereum, Spanish and Chinese are great starting points. Another inspiration here is Andreas Antonopoulos, who crowd-sources subtitles for his many, many YouTube videos. I like crowd-sourcing. It's a straightforward, helpful, concrete thing that literally any community member can help out with. It would be good to use software that makes it easy (as YouTube happens to).

[lrettig]

Discussed on the working group call today. We may want to offer bounties for translation efforts - this has been discussed in the PoX working group as well. CC @HaroldDavis3, @whoabuddy

[whoabuddy]

@hozzjss recommended using a crowdsource tool like Crowdin in #135

[whoabuddy]

Discussion during #154 that we could use the advocates program to create bounties for this type of work.

@hozzjss also recommends creating a meeting with interested community members to create a smaller group / active advocates group, so translation community can reward itself