Given that the first publication in December 2013the Ethereum Foundation (EF) The blog has been the primary way teams within EF communicate. Of event announcementsa grant waves, protocol updatesregular specific equipment upgrades or discussing the Ethereum vision and roadmap, the blog has been a helpful resource for those looking to stay in the know.
However, there has been a big problem: despite our global Ethereum community, this information has mostly only been available in English. Accessing this information is a challenge for the billions of non-English speakers around the world.
ethereum.org and translation program
We have already seen ethereum.org demonstrate community-driven success model for ethereum translations. In 2019, ethereum.org began translating its open source educational content into multiple languages. Over time, this effort has escalated to 48 languages available and millions of words translated every year by thousands of volunteer collaborators.
Community involvement
A vital component of the success of the Translation Program is its thousands of enthusiastic supporters. For many, translating is one of the most meaningful ways they can contribute to the Ethereum ecosystem to learn, teach, and give back to the community.
Ethereum.org currently has:
- 3,800 contributing translators
- 48 languages live on the site
- 2.9 million words translated in 2021
- 1.9 million words translated in 2022 so far
Are people using the translations?
The ethereum.org team’s experiment with translations sheds light on the value of making Ethereum content available in multiple languages. The conclusion has been clear: the more content we translate, the higher the percentage of total traffic that goes to the translated pages. The trend has been steady: translated content generated 5% of pageviews at the end of 2019 and now accounts for 22% of total pageviews. This makes intuitive sense, even English-dominant community members self-report that they prefer to read in their native language.
The most complete translation of ethereum.org content is in Simplified Chinese. The result? 8% of all traffic to ethereum.org is for the Simplified Chinese version of the website.
Translate all things!
As the success of the translations on ethereum.org became evident, other clear opportunities for translation arose.
He Ethereum Betting Launchpadan interactive guide to becoming a solo participant and setting up a validator, has been translated into 20 languages.
Since early 2022, we have also added some translations for select blog posts (for example, recent test network updates). However, this was a sub-optimal workaround as the blog did not natively support internationalization. The translations were not easily indexable, searchable, or intuitive to find.
Blog Updates: What’s Changed?
Below is a quick summary of the work we’ve done so far and what we plan to improve next.
Support for internationalization
As of today’s release, EF Blog has full internationalization support, which means that when you choose a language to view the blog (eg. blog.ethereum.org/zh), you will be able to see all posts in your target language. This update includes a language-specific search function) and dedicated RSS feeds for each language (eg. blog.ethereum.org/zh/feed.xml). We’ve also made design improvements for right-to-left languages, such as arabica.
performance improvements
As part of the blog rebuild, we migrated the code to a completely new tech stack (from jekyll a Next.js). Next.js is a modern web framework optimized for end-user performance. We hope everyone will notice the performance improvements, but those without high-speed Internet access should see the most significant improvements in upload speeds and user experience.
accessibility improvements
This rebuild also improves the overall accessibility of the blog by providing a better experience with screen readers, improved keyboard navigation, and some color updates to increase contrast. These improvements are due in large part to our user interface library, Chakrawhich adheres closely to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)Thanks to your team of open source developers!
UI/UX improvements
We have simplified the site menu to improve the browsing experience on all devices. We also redesigned the archive Y fetch pages to present the content in a clearer way.
Future plans
While this new blog is a dramatic improvement over the previous version, we still have more updates we’d like to make.
email subscription
As part of the blog rebuild, we improved compatibility with RSS readers. So instead of having to periodically check the blog or rely on our Twitter for updates, you can subscribe to RSS feed of your preferred language.
However, in 2022, people expect an easier option: email notifications. This is next on our priority list as we think it would be a significant improvement to the blog user experience for everyone. Stay tuned!
extended languages
ethereum.org has demonstrated demand for a wide variety of languages. Today we are launching with support for 16 languages but we hope to expand these options soon. Which brings us to our next point…
Involve!
Would you like to help translate the EF blog?
Find everything you need to participate in our translation program.
Thanks in advance for making Ethereum information more accessible to millions of community members around the world!
