Crowdsourced Translations in the NEAR Ecosystem

Over the past few months, we’ve seen a tonne of energy and enthusiasm from individuals and groups looking to translate the content on near.org into their local language - which is awesome to see!

The NEAR Community is global and will only continue to grow, so it’s logical to pursue localisation throughout all of the key documentation and websites.

Currently, the NEAR Foundation is working to establish a process to ensure localisation of near.org and other relevant pages. We agree, wholeheartedly, that information should be available and easily accessible to every member of the NEAR Community (and beyond!). And, to achieve that goal, we need to continue to translate our content.

However, until the process for localisation is established it’s clear that there are plenty of contributors who are looking to get started earlier.

So, I ask you, what’s the best way to facilitate this?

Here are a few thoughts from me:

Pick the Low Hanging Fruit

Let’s aim for the core information which can:

• Help people understand NEAR
• Help people onboard to NEAR
• Highlight why NEAR is the number one choice for developers and end-users in the crypto ecosystem

A great place to start would be near.org, but we should be selective as to which pages we translate. For example, the Grants page might be more valuable to translate than the Brand page?

Praise the Existing Translators!

There is a tonne of Guilds and contributors in the ecosystem who, as part of their funding requests, have folded in the desire to translate articles that are published by NF and beyond.

I think it would be wise to leverage these groups, who are already receiving funding, and direct them toward the translation of the website and other core documentation.

Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal (CrowdIn)

Ethereum.org has an incredible translation program that has been ongoing for some time.

You can check out the details here.

TL;DR - Check out this video.

By leveraging Crowdin, a crowdsourced translation tool, Ethereum.org has been able to translate almost 3m words with 3k+ contributors.

Crowdin seems to do an excellent job at facilitating translations. If there are other preferred platforms already in use by community groups, feel free to propose them below.

Considerations

• How do we prevent double work?
• Is Crowdin the best platform to facilitate this?
• How do we ensure the quality of the translations? IMO, this needs professional intervention
• There’s an entire crypto-focused lexicon, will this prevent issues when translating into other languages?

Final Thoughts

Right now, we’re not looking to pay per submission. A crowdsourced translation platform is, IMO, the best avenue to pursue. Perhaps we can explore NFT distributions for contributors?

Right now, I, nor any other member of the NF, will be able to provide a tremendous amount of oversight for crowdsourcing translations. Though, this may change in the future.

Looking forward to hearing thoughts, suggestions, and everything else from you!

cc @crypto_blckhntr , @Alecaseg, @jeph ,

Hola, siempre es un gusto leer tus comentarios, pues siempre son bastante correctos.

Agradezco el que tengas pendiente las traducciones.

Tal como he comentado, coincido en que tener la información en varios idiomas ayudará al crecimiento de la comunidad de desarrolladores y de usuarios finales.

Pienso que ya comprobamos que CrowdIn solo ha funcionado en 1 idioma y la mitad del otro:

https://crowdin.com/translate/near-docs

Parece ser que es necesario el estar detrás de las personas para que traduzcan allí.

David_NEAR:

Is Crowdin the best platform to facilitate this?

No quiero decir que estoy en contra de CrowdIn, sin embargo mi respuesta a esta pregunta sería no.

David_NEAR:

Final Thoughts

Me parece que es un tema que estamos dejando pasar y que es muy importante, a mi me hubiera gustado tener disponible la documentación en español, para mayor facilidad, y conozco varios desarrolladores que no han podido entrar a la comunidad porque su inglés no es lo bastante bueno.

Y ni hablar de las dApps, si bien es cierto que hay gente que pone dinero en donde sea sin leer, hay otras personas a las que les gusta leer antes de “arriesgar” su dinero.

Creo que la “facilidad” de darle clicks y siguiente puede llevar a traducciones mal hechas, como decimos en México:

“El flojo trabaja doble”

David_NEAR:

Ethereum.org has an incredible translation program

Debo admitir que es la primera vez que entro a esta página, y me dispuse a elegir un tema al azar y ver si me brincaba un error, lo cual sucedió en no más de 30 segundos.

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No es transición, es transacción.

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No es Bobs, es Bob, seguramente alguien lo tradujo dando clicks nada más.

Nuevamente, agradezco tu tiempo y esfuerzo en este tema, espero podamos encontrar un equilibrio, y que sea lo mejor para NEAR.

This is the first time that I write something in Spanish in the forum, I think it supports the idea of the importance of translations.

I will write this text in English in a few minutes.

Greetings.

bro, waiting ur idea in English text.

you have created TRANSLATORS GUILD: Introduction Translators Guild

so can you add me to the that GUILD as a Turkish Translator?
I’m the person who translated the NEAR WALLET into turkish lang.

This is great. I believe translating articles will break language barrier as some cannot fully understand some complicated words. Looking forward to this!

jeph:

I must admit that this is my first time on this page, and I set out to pick a random topic and see if I got an error, which happened in no more than 30 seconds.

That is why they employ professional translators once a language is complete - we would 100% have to do the exact same thing.

jeph:

I don’t want to say that I am against CrowdIn, however my answer to this question would be no.

What alternative would you have in mind? I don’t think a ‘free-for-all’ approach would be very efficient.

jeph:

I think we already checked that CrowdIn has only worked in 1 language and half of the other:

Crowdin

This is for docs and, AFAIK, not managed by NF but, rather, Pagoda. We would probably have to pursue a new one.

Translation of my last comment:

Hello, it is always a pleasure to read your comments, because they are always quite correct.

I appreciate that you have the translations pending.

As I have said, I agree that having the information in multiple languages ​​will help the growth of the community of developers and end users.

I think we already saw that CrowdIn has only worked in 1 language and half of other:

https://crowdin.com/translate/near-docs

It seems that it is necessary to be behind pushing the people so that they translate there.

David_NEAR:

Is Crowdin the best platform to facilitate this?

I don’t want to say that I am against CrowdIn, however my answer to this question would be no.

David_NEAR:

Final Thoughts

It seems to me that it is an issue that we are letting go without a good solution and that it is very important. I would have liked to have the documentation available in Spanish, for greater ease, and I know several developers who have not been able to enter the community yet because their English is not pretty good enough to understand every concept.

And not to mention dApps, although it is true that there are people who put money anywhere without reading, there are other people who like to read before “risking” their money.

I think that CrowdIn’s “ease” of clicking and following can lead to poorly done translations, as we say in Mexico:

jeph:

“El flojo trabaja doble”

“The lazy works double”

David_NEAR:

Ethereum.org has an incredible translation program

I must admit this is my first time on this page, and I set out to pick a random topic and see if they had an error, which happened in no more than 30 seconds.

jeph:

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jeph:

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Is not transición, but transacción.

jeph:

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Is not Bobs, but Bob, surely someone translated it by clicking continue and nothing else.

Again, I appreciate your time and effort on this topic, and I hope we can find a balance that will be the best for NEAR.

NEW TEXT:

David_NEAR:

That is why they employ professional translators once a language is complete - we would 100% have to do the exact same thing.

You’re telling me the page I visited wasn’t 100% complete and that’s why I found a mistake so easily? (It is a real question, I don’t know how they work, I don’t build there, so I never looked at their docs before).

David_NEAR:

What alternative would you have in mind? I don’t think a ‘free-for-all’ approach would be very efficient.

Yeah, I don’t think a “The Hunger Games” of translations is the best approach, it needs someone dedicated to verify and mediate in case of doubts, problems, errors, typos, …

But yes, giving opportunity to everyone, double checking if their translations are good enough, if they are good, continue.

As I said in the other post, I would be that person, I can dedicate time to lead the translations team, I would collect every translation done in a “Google Doc”, and collect it in “google sheets”. (It’s just an idea).

And the true thing is that I can’t start with all the languages of the world, but I have a team of leaders that could lead 6 different languages starting next week.

With your approval we can try for a month, I have no doubt that we would succeed.

If you think someone else would do a better job with the lead position, I’m fine.
I just want to keep helping onboarding people to NEAR.

JEPH

Yeah, sure.

I’ll message you later, thank you for your interest.

Hi @jeph , I agree with you.

jeph:

Tal como he comentado, coincido en que tener la información en varios idiomas ayudará al crecimiento de la comunidad de desarrolladores y de usuarios finales.

It is hard for Spanish speakers or other language speakers to get onboard to the whole NEAR ecosystem when everything is in English, and their English is not the best.

jeph:

No es transición, es transacción.

It is funny to see this error, but it is also so common that sometimes the hurry and not double-checking led to this.

Even though they say in the Ethereum translation program that they have a review process, this kind of thing happens, and it took only a sec checking. Imagine if you go further.

jeph:

You’re telling me the page I visited wasn’t 100% complete and that’s why I found a mistake so easily? (It is a real question, I don’t know how they work, I don’t build there, so I never looked at their docs before).

I have to agree with @jeph, some sentences are awkward, and you can find them on the main page of Ethereum.org in Spanish.

David_NEAR:

How do we ensure the quality of the translations? IMO, this needs professional intervention

I believe a translation team is the best way to approach this. A guild for this was working on the idea: “The translators guild.” and I think it should get the support.

Even though CrowdIn is a great way to collaborate, sometimes you don’t get the best results, and it does not have the scope in other languages.

The expertise of a professional is needed. Or at least people who have worked with a text translation.

Translating is not an easy thing to do. People can speak and understand a second language, yet, translation requires knowledge of that foreign language and an understanding of one’s own.

For example, Spanish has so many rules that it can be harsh even for a native speaker to follow them.

The Translation program of Ethereum is good, but we can be better.

So hopefully, the idea of @jeph will be something to consider.

Best regards

crypto_blckhntr:

I’m the person who translated the NEAR WALLET into turkish lang.

We are waiting to same thing on Near Ecosystem.

David_NEAR:

By leveraging Crowdin, a crowdsourced translation tool, Ethereum.org has been able to translate almost 3m words with 3k+ contributors.

Dear; Unfortunately, the translation that has been made for the Turkish language is not suitable, yet all of the errors have been confirmed. So I think the Crowdin is not the right place…

crypto_blckhntr:

Dear; Unfortunately, the translation that has been made for the Turkish language is not suitable, yet all of the errors have been confirmed. So I think the Crowdin is not the right place…

What’s the alternative you propose?

ame9986:

I believe a translation team is the best way to approach this. A guild for this was working on the idea: “The translators guild .” and I think it should get the support.

If we’re going to move forward with a Guild focused on this, which IMO is not the best route, then we need to be able to move forward from:

‘We trust this Guild to be competent enough at translation’

TO

‘This Guild is verifiably capable at translating, i.e - they’re professional translators’

David_NEAR:

‘This Guild is verifiably capable at translating, i.e - they’re professional translators’

This is something that we already did with the NEAR Design Guild:
http://gov.near.org/tag/design-guild

We trust them, we support them, and they are a group of professionals that has proved their value.

From my side, here are some of my translations (there are even more at LNC):

NEAR Translators Guild – Medium

Official Guild of NEAR Protocol for translation and share of information in different languages.

Of the languages that I’m talking about that I want to start translating, I completely trust my team, their work is of high quality too, the translations are reviewed at least once by another person.

Of course, if you want to pay 3 times to a company (That 99% sure, they will not accept NEAR as a payment method) and, like any other human, it’s not free of errors, then you can, despite the fact that 90% of us think that it is not the correct option.

David_NEAR:

If we’re going to move forward with a Guild focused on this, which IMO is not the best route, then we need to be able to move forward from:

You are a very important member of NF and the community, your vote is the only one who counts in this, I think there is nothing left for me to say here, and we will wait for your solution.

Your friend:
JEPH

Hello to all.
I’m not sure the french translation could be called professional.

I am a French native speaker and I’ve worked on many translations in the Crypto space. I also sometimes write articles about Crypto terms.

The only thing I could say is what I have noticed based on my experience is that translating doc is very harder than writing articles.

To be brief, my proposal is to launch a translation ‘‘marathon’’ of translating a text of 1k words Near docs based and let the concerned community to vote on wich one is better understanding, only one.

Then go with collaboration with the most rated translator.

Thanks

Fidèle

Hey, I just want to comment that limiting the job to one person centralize the possibility of error, and I think is against the idea of giving job opportunities to the community.

But this is your opinion and it is valid, respected and considered.

For the other side, if you want to join the team and make French translations (if the proposal is accepted) send a message to @Alecaseg please, you’re more than welcome to join the team.

Hio !

I was one of the first contributors who has translated (English-German-Turkish) Ethereum Dapps/Products with Crowdin on Steemit.com via Utopian.

On early days everything was perfect, but it was easy to outwit the system too. So after the team got negative feedbacks they moved the whole contributions to Github. But with this move the contributions decreased more than 50%.

I really haven’t got a perfect suggestion for a platform, but I can share with you my experiences and tell you about the processes, which we performed out to get high success in a more professional way.

Hierarchical Structure:

1. Translators
2. Proofreaders
3. Admin

Example: Building a group for English-German translations. Employing three Translators, two Proofreaders and one Admin. Translators working together in batches or separate, sending their translations to the Proofreaders. Proofreaders checking up the translations and sending them for the final approvement to the Admin.

This is the safest way to get high success for translations.

P.S. '‘Language is the code of communication’'

I agree with you that the task should be open to everyone, but! the translation should not be everyone’s business.
You should work with a team that has already proven itself on NEAR or Blockchain translations because the blockchain contains technical and some new expressions, so it requires further research, technical analysis, and revision as well.

In a team;

1. Translators - Proofreaders.
2. A Supervisor !

David_NEAR:

If we’re going to move forward with a Guild focused on this, which IMO is not the best route, then we need to be able to move forward from:

‘We trust this Guild to be competent enough at translation’

TO

‘This Guild is verifiably capable at translating, i.e - they’re professional translators’

This is our consensus.

and “near.org” is not an ordinary-common article, so it should definitely be translated into very clear terms.

I think language is a serious thing to accelerate adoption and education about the NEAR ecosystem

My advice regarding this, anyone can register to become a translator/proofreader, by stating their proven work related to translation (of course they must have a strong foundation related to the crypto ecosystem, especially the NEAR protocol!)

we can entrust to the Region Guild by asking for feedback/recommended people

so that there is a responsible party to assess the results and make a decision to continue / not (DAO council)

Steps to do:

1. Create Translator DAO
2. Open for Sub-DAO which represent several regions or languages
3. Determine what kind of council can be “responsible” and anyone who wants to become a “member” must provide evidence and the results of their work
4. Distribute the job, evaluate whether they are good or not at all

Hi David

I love the notion of crowdsourcing translations. In fact, I have been contemplating this for my children’s books.

It would be very helpful to see the NEAR wallet and the AstroDAO interface translated into Spanish. I see that we have Portuguese and Turkish, etc which is great.

I think we can crowdsource but it needs final approval by professional translator.

David_NEAR:

Looking forward to hearing thoughts, suggestions, and everything else from you!

Crowdin is awesome solution.

David_NEAR:

How do we ensure the quality of the translations? IMO, this needs professional intervention

Open poll of candidates with proven experience in crypto, and at least, bachelor degree.

Hope you can have an idea of Crowdin final results, and I say Idea, because just when you speak another language you can identify mistakes no only in grammar, but technical language.
Indeed, Translations should be under human supervision to avoid such problems already exposed.
To prevent double work is not that issue. Just a control spreadsheet helps to verify what is done.
Also by working teams: Translator, proofreading and admins is the best way to guarantee high quality. There are already experienced translators in NEAR Ecosystem, so just a call with proven experience in crypto as @Dacha proposes will work.
It is sad to read all this, it’s like all the power is just in one person in a non-hierarchical organization. I wonder other’s leaders opinion about bringing the opportunity to non English speakers to have information in their own languages.

The importance of the interaction in the forum through the projection of information in our social networks will be what gives more confidence and importance to projects and ideas in the future, here I leave the publications of @nearcircle

Lots of good ideas! I think at the end some coordination needs to be done, in particular with specific terms to be translated always the same way.

Why not “outsource” the coordination to Guilds doing translations, give them a sample text to translate and let community decide if it’s “approved” and good, as some sort of test trial. If community approves they can go ahead and translate the rest.
If someone wants to join the Guild, can do so as well…

Further there should be some coordination on which texts to translate first in any language, otherwise we will have different parts translated in each language.

Marcos:

Why not “outsource” the coordination to Guilds doing translations, give them a sample text to translate and let community decide if it’s “approved” and good, as some sort of test trial. If community approves they can go ahead and translate the rest.
If someone wants to join the Guild, can do so as well…

It’s something I’d be open to but I would still err on the side of caution, in light of the fact that these translations will be hosted on near.org. Maybe a professional translation company would still be pulled in to verify - or, ideally, we have pro translators in the community?

David_NEAR:

It’s something I’d be open to but I would still err on the side of caution, in light of the fact that these translations will be hosted on near.org. Maybe a professional translation company would still be pulled in to verify - or, ideally, we have pro translators in the community?

We are here @David_NEAR

Alecaseg:

We are here

I chose not to answer, because that question seemed rude to me:

David_NEAR:

ideally, we have pro translators in the community?

My translations seem to me more than perfect.
Mintbase actualizó 544 contratos NFT

As are yours (@Alecaseg ).
Comment créer votre portefeuille NEAR

Nacho’s (@nacho.near ).
DeFi en Protocolo NEAR: Un Tour por los DEXs

Luis’ (@LuisAponte99 ).
NEAR lanza el programa de formación de 1.000 profesores

Or, if @David_NEAR can tell me otherwise about my translations, or any of yours translations, I’ll stop translating right away.

We do not do these posts for pleasure, or because we have plenty of time to explain the same thing again and again.

We are pushing to do these translations, because they are important for getting even more people into NEAR.

Every day that we are not given the opportunity to start, there are people who try to find this information in Spanish, or some other language, and who give up.

So I repeat what I already said:

jeph:

your vote is the only one who counts in this

We can ask for a quantity to start and DEMONSTRATE (again, because we have proved already) our capabilities, maybe 4,950 USD and pay as I already said:

Introduction Translators Guild

0.045c per word for the main translator and 0.015c per word for the reviewer.

(4,950 USD / 0.06 = 82,500 words / 5 languages = 16.5k words per language)

Please everyone vote for the preferred option:

Completamente de acuerdo con tu exposición… Otros miembros del equipo se sumarán y votarán.

Hello colleagues I have already left my vote, hopefully this can move forward there is a lot to work, greetings.

What would qualify as pro translators in the community?

Translators who had already worked in different projects inside and/or outside of Near (as translation projects in Fiverr, Crowdin or other freelance platforms) who already proven themselves to give results of high quality, and who are even on the Crypto scene from a long time ago?

Or translators who just have a piece of paper validating them, which have mostly no knowledge of the crypto ecosystem whatsoever?

It is okay to choose to have both, but it will be as close as finding a needle in a haystack.

And I don’t think that with what the crypto ecosystem represents, it should be just determined to people with degrees.
Since they can underperform in a huge way compared to people in the scene who have lived other experiences and know the ropes already.

Dividing high quality collaborators from people whose expertise is determined by establishments who do not fully prepare its prospects, is just saying all of their experience is useless.
A shame to see that.

Sorry to be so direct with my opinion, hopefully that gives it more value, since I’m not a “pro translator” in the community.

vote casted! thank @jeph for your professionalism and leadership.
I hope this situation ends up with a fortified translator guild and a lot of translated content for NF!

nacho.near:

And I don’t think that with what the crypto ecosystem represents, it should be just determined to people with degrees.

Nobody has ever said this should be the case?

nacho.near:

Dividing high quality collaborators from people whose expertise is determined by establishments who do not fully prepare its prospects, is just saying all of their experience is useless.
A shame to see that.

Again, this was never said.

I’m not in a position to determine the quality of translations. Hence the need for a professional. As the old trope goes in the blockchain world, “don’t trust, verify”.

jeph:

We can ask for a quantity to start and DEMONSTRATE (again, because we have proved already) our capabilities, maybe 4,950 USD and pay as I already said:

I have never mentioned pay in this post, nor am I in a position to help facilitate this atm. I’m sure your translations are more than perfect, but when we’re working with near.org and, arguably, the most public-facing documents in the ecosystem, I would have more confidence to push it live once translations have been checked, double-checked, and triple-checked.

Whether that’s a professional translating agency doing that, or it’s multiple checks through the Community, is yet to be determined.

Hey, @cizi31 and @cryptoheitzi please cast your vote as well.

Definitivamente es correcta tu exposición Juan, totalmente de acuerdo

David_NEAR:

It’s something I’d be open to but I would still err on the side of caution, in light of the fact that these translations will be hosted on near.org. Maybe a professional translation company would still be pulled in to verify - or, ideally, we have pro translators in the community?

David_NEAR:

‘We trust this Guild to be competent enough at translation’

TO

‘This Guild is verifiably capable at translating, i.e - they’re professional translators’

David_NEAR:

How do we ensure the quality of the translations? IMO, this needs professional intervention

David_NEAR:

I’m not in a position to determine the quality of translations. Hence the need for a professional.

Then… I ask again…

nacho.near:

What would qualify as pro translators in the community?

Someone who does this for a job and not just part of their community efforts within the NEAR Ecosytem.

Ideally, a professional translating agency so we have a guarantee of the quality of their work and recourse if the work is not up to scratch.

Hence:

David_NEAR:

Maybe a professional translation company

PSA:

This thread, and my opinions, are not aimed at:

• Denying anyone an opportunity to earn rewards for translation contributions in the NEAR Ecosystem
• Throttling the creation and growth of a translation Guild
• Definitive and concrete ways of moving forward with translations

I get that there are individuals in the Community who want the opportunity to earn with this but my POV is from what is best for the NEAR Foundation and its most public documentation, namely the website.