Since December 2013, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) has been using their blog as their primary communication tool, including announcements for events, protocol updates, specific equipment upgrades and discussions about the Ethereum Vision and roadmap. This blog is a great resource for people to stay on top of the latest developments.
But the problem is that most of the information is only available in English, meaning it is inaccessible to the billions of non-English speakers around the world.
The Translation Program at Ethereum.org
Ethereum.org has been using a community-driven model for translations since 2019. This has seen an increase in the number of languages available, with 48 languages currently live on the site, and thousands of volunteers translating millions of words each year.
The Power of Community Participation
The success of the organization is dependent on its ability to attract and retain top talent. The translation program has attracted many thousands of enthusiastic supporters who find translation to be one of the most meaningful ways to contribute to the Ethereum community and to learn, teach and give back.
Ethereum.org currently has:
- 3,800 translators
- 48 languages live on the site
- 2.9 million words will be translated in 2021
- Over 1.9 million words have been translated so far in 2022
Are Translations Actually Used?
The experiment with translations on ethereum.org has proven to be a success, with the most complete translation being the simplified Chinese version of the website. The conclusion is simple: the more content that is translated, the higher the percentage of traffic to translated pages. Even intuitively, it makes sense that members of the dominant English community would prefer to read content in their native languages.
Translate Everything!
The success of the translations on Ethereum.org has made it clear that there are many other opportunities for translation. For example, a guideline to become a solo participant or setting up a validator is available in 20 languages. Additionally, some translations have been added to selected blog posts. However, this is a sub-optimal workaround as the blog did not natively support internationalization.
Blog Updates: What Has Changed?
Here is a quick overview of the work that has been done and what is planned for the future.
Support Internationalization
Today’s release includes internationalization support which covers all aspects, including the ability to choose a language, view all posts in the target language, a language-specific search function and dedicated RSS feeds for each language. Design improvements have also been made for right-to-left languages such as Arabic.
Performance Improvements
The code has been migrated from the old tech stack to a modern web framework called Next.js, which optimizes for end-user performance. This should result in faster loading times and an improved user experience, especially for those with slow internet connections.
