foreign
[Music]
so before we get started on our next
talk we have a couple of announcements
so today is the last day of Defcon and
the closing ceremony is at 3 30 p.m on
the top of the mountain followed by an
after party on the Shiva lounge and also
the entire venue will be open on
Saturday and Sunday from 9 A.M to 6 p.m
for co-working for anyone who has a
Defcon wristband but please join me in
welcoming our next speaker who is going
to be talking about growing the global
ethereum community Through localization
we're going to be joined by Luca who is
on the translation team for ethereum.org
and also works on the ecosystem
development team at the ethereum
foundation please welcome me in joining
Luca
foreign
my name is Luca and as Madison already
mentioned I work on ethereum.org mostly
focusing on the translation program
thanks for coming to this talk it's um
happy to see there's interest in this
topic which is something I feel quite
strongly about
being in South America for this Defcon
which is Amazing by the way big shout
out to the Defcon team
um yeah
being in South America for this Defcon
the topic of providing content in
different languages to
make ethereum more accessible and
inclusive is even more relevant
this space is highly Technical and a lot
of the focus and effort is on technical
breakthroughs and progress which makes a
lot of sense and is key for the
technology to mature and reach its
potential
however with ethereum as a technology
growing and improving a lot of the focus
is and will continue to shift towards
other things like education Community
Building inclusivity
this talk will touch on all three of
those as they're often closely related
ethereum is a global technology that is
inclusive and accessible at its core
however a lot of the content including
educational content application front
ends websites or anything else people
use to interact with or learn about
ethereum is usually not very inclusive
and accessible as it is often only
available in English
we will look at some deep more detailed
stats later but the main one we should
all be aware of is the fact that over 6
billion people in the world do not speak
English at all
by only providing content in English and
not translating or localizing it for the
global Community we are often limiting
how inclusive ethereum is for all of
those non-english speakers
my aim is to drive home the importance
of this issue and look at some potential
solutions that we can use to grow the
global ethereum Community by just
providing content in the language that
they can understand
you can see some stats for uh Languages
by the number of native and non-native
speakers here just two numbers that I'd
quickly highlight are over 7 000
languages in the world and 10 languages
with more than 200 million speakers
so one number that I've already
mentioned but it definitely warrants a
repeat is the 6 billion non-english
speakers there's a couple of stats like
this that I will repeat throughout the
talk because they are significant and
important to think about
so English is the most widely spoken
language in the world as a first and
second language
it is also the
um
it is also the most learned language in
the world as a second language and yet
still only about 17 of the world's
population speaks English at all
if we really want to gain worldwide
adoption and on board the next billion
people to ethereum we need to remove
this language barrier and make our
websites documentation and apps
available to everyone
61 percent of websites are available in
English but English only reaches about
26 percent of global internet users
I know we don't like to compare this
space with traditional companies or
existing Tech Giants due to different
ideologies goals and approaches but the
fact is that they've all done a great
job at gaining worldwide adoption and
increasing their total addressable
Market including by breaking down
language barriers this list could really
go on forever but I'd just like to
highlight a couple of examples the most
popular websites in the world by traffic
are Google YouTube Facebook and Twitter
they are also available in 150 80 46 and
111 languages respectively and they all
get billions of views
these companies aren't translating all
of their content just for the sake of it
um they are all aiming to address and be
accessible to the global population and
realize that by providing their content
only in English they would be limiting
their target audience by about 80
percent
another example that more people here
might relate to is Wikipedia which
doesn't make money from visits and is
essentially a public good
while not exactly accurate based on the
definition you could also think of
Wikipedia as being open source it is
available in well over 300 languages
simply because its purpose is to be
inclusive and accessible and its target
audience is the entire world
an english-only Wikipedia would
definitely not be the seventh most
visited website in the world
yesterday about 48 of all page views on
Wikipedia were in English
however the English version of Wikipedia
also has about three times more articles
available than most of the other popular
languages so even this 48 number isn't
telling the whole story
in fact Wikipedia gets about seven times
more page views in English than in
Japanese but the number of Articles
available in English is also five times
higher than in Japanese
accessibility and inclusivity also on
the only aspects we should think about
when talking about translations another
one is efficiency understanding basic
English is often not enough to be able
to read and understand a lot of the
content around ethereum which can often
be quite complex if you've ever tried to
read up on any of the latest
developments about ethereum you'll find
that they're often very complex topics
um studies in bilingual countries have
consistently shown that people who learn
in their native language tend to learn
more perform better on tests enjoy the
experience more and are less likely to
drop out or lose interest in the topic
in fact a study from CSA research has
shown that 65 percent of non-native
English speakers prefer content in their
native language even if they are highly
proficient in English
this doesn't even take into account the
complexity of many ethereum related
topics and content and the new
terminology that is often exclusive in
this space and the we've basically made
up or are keep making up
so maybe you're not bothered by
inclusivity but just want to drive
traffic to your project gain users
increase dvl or the number of
transaction that your app gets and just
want to increase your Revenue
in that case you should still definitely
be thinking about translations
um again a lot of chat stats to choose
from I've just identified a couple that
I think are pretty telling
from a company perspective Fortune 500
businesses that invested in Translation
were one and a half times more likely to
observe an increase in Revenue
and the second one Fortune 500 companies
were reported to be over two times more
likely to improve profits when they
invested in translation
if this is true for Fortune 500
companies which already have massive
existing customer bases and product
Market fit we can assume that it's even
more relevant to a new and upcoming
technology and products in this space
and from a user perspective
75 percent of consumers are more likely
to buy products from websites in their
native language
around 40 percent of Internet users said
they will never buy from websites that
are not in their native language and
another stat that I've already mentioned
but it's telling enough is 65 of
non-native English speakers prefer
content in their native language even
though they are highly proficient in
English
so almost half of Internet users would
never buy from websites that are not
available in their native language how
about using dapps or depositing their
money into D5 into a D5 protocol that
isn't available in their language
probably not right
I hope all of these help get the point
across which is really as simple as we
should be translating more content make
it more accessible reach more people
educate the world about ethereum and
onboard people from all over the world
to this space
and if anyone has found themselves
thinking that they should be consid
start considering translations for their
content or level up their translation
efforts we'll move on to some concrete
ways of how we can solve this
to be honest addressing this is pretty
simple we need to be aware of why
translations are important and basically
just start doing it my main goal is just
to highlight the importance of
translating content and providing
content in different languages
making the space more accessible
onboarding more people to ethereum
it is up to individual projects users
people organizations websites
and content creators to decide if they
want to start translating their content
and expand their translation efforts
going about it is fairly simple there's
many different approaches to take for
example you could just order
translations for your content from a
translation agency
or you could create a translation Bounty
translation program or something else to
get the community involved
the quality of machine translation is
increasing as well so post machine
editing is becoming significantly
significantly more used in the
translation space where text machine is
translated where text is translated by
Machine translation and is then reviewed
and edited by a professional linguist
probably not the most applicable to the
content in this space because as we've
already mentioned there's a lot of new
terminology and a lot of things that are
still very much in the works and keep
getting updated and changed
all the combinations of of the above
approaches are possible and many more
and then there's also the review process
quality analysis process
all of these have their advantages and
disadvantages which we don't have time
to get into but you can find more
information about all of them online if
you're interested
we've also come up with a translation
program Playbook which is mostly aimed
at ethereum related projects and covers
some of the basics of translating
content you can find it right here if
anyone is interested
um hopefully it helps answer a question
or two
we created this as a resource based on
our experience with translating content
on ethereum.org and a couple of other
websites
and if you do check it out and have any
input or feedback or
can think of a way to collaborate with
us even if it's just looking for help
translating your content please reach
out to us I will share a bunch of
contact details in a minute
I would also like to mention some of the
results that we've seen on ethereum.org
by focusing on internationalization
ethereum.org is an educational resource
that covers many different topics has a
lot of resources for beginners to teach
them about ethereum and blockchains to
help them get on board it to help them
identify the right tools to use when
they're new to the space so making it
accessible is very important to us
there's also resources for more
intermediate and advanced users
community members developers basically
anyone else
the approach we're taking is very much
in line with the open ethos of ethereum
and focus on open source the website is
fully open source and anyone can
contribute to the content features code
design and Community aspects of it as
well as the translation process
since the translation program launched
in 2019 our community of contributors
translating the website has grown to
over four thousand
the program represents a simple and low
barrier way of getting involved and
contributing to ethereum without needing
a lot of technical Knowledge and Skills
basically the main requirement is just
being bilingual
these contributors are also the main
reason why the website is currently
available in 50 languages
for quality assurance purposes we're
also working with a translation agency
to make sure that all of the
translations get reviewed before being
added to the website so our approach is
really a combination of the
community-based and professional
localization processes
while participation in the translation
program is voluntary we do try to
acknowledge our contributors as much as
possible to the point where some of them
have transitioned from joining
contributing to ethereum.org and are now
working full-time in the space or have
launched their own initiatives or
communities
the ethereum.org translation program is
also very much a community building
effort and this aspect is an important
part of why the community-based approach
to translating website content works for
us
getting involved and contributing to the
website is a great way to join the
ethereum community make an impact at
some value contribute to ethereum in
some way without needing a lot of
technical skills and it's also an
amazing educational experience we've
heard from many of our contributors that
the knowledge they've gained about
ethereum by simply helping to translate
the website is immense as it allows them
to really read through all of the
documentation that is available on
ethereum.org while also contributing at
the same time
translating content has impacted the
website in
different ways as well not just building
an amazing community of people who share
our passion and goals
analytics on the website clearly showed
that the more translated content we have
accessible
the more non-english pages we get
the number of non-english page views
still depends a lot on the general
traffic to the site
but the ratio is going up constantly in
fact this month has been the 12th
straight month where the ratio of
non-english versus English page views
has gone up and hit a record high with
non-english page views currently
representing around 26 percent of all
visits to the website
over traffic over a quarter of all the
traffic to the website is in languages
other than English
this chart shows the total page views on
ethereum.org in the last couple of years
you can see the total page views on the
website the non-english page views and
the ratio between them
as you can see regardless of what the
general trend is and how many people
actually visit the website pages and
other languages continue to Trend
upwards and and now represent an
ever-growing pers of all visits
in short the more translated content we
have on the site the more people read
content in their native language
the demand is clearly there for
multilingual content and all of us are
very well positioned to ensure that
ethereum continues to be as inclusive
and accessible as possible
on ethereum.org we always appreciate
feedback inputs new community members
new contributors to the website if you
have any feedback for us or see a way to
collaborate in any way feel free to send
us an email to translations ethereum.org
if it's anything related to translations
or to website at ethereum.org about
anything else really
you can also stop by our booth on the
third floor if you want should be
pointing up not down yeah our booth on
the third floor if you want to say hi to
the team get more information about
contributing to ethereum.org give us
some feedback
collaborate on translations or anything
else really and if you want to talk
about translations feel free to reach
out to me or catch me here at Defcon I'm
always happy to chat
that should be it for the most part I'm
going to be showing a cup like all of
the languages that the website is
available in right now if you wanna
surf the website in your language
um just want to leave you all with a few
few closing thoughts
everyone should be very proud of what
ethereum has a technology all the
projects building on top of it and the
ethereum community have achieved so far
and we can all be even more excited
about what the future has in store
there is obviously still a lot of
research development and building in
front of us but we I think we can all
agree that we have a lot of reasons to
be optimistic
if there's just one thing that I would
like people to take away from this talk
it is the fact that everyone can make an
impact and play an important role in the
present and future of ethereum
there are countless ways to get involved
and provide value to the ecosystem and
sticking to this topic
this is especially true for making sure
that the ethereum that ethereum content
websites interfaces and communities
become increasingly inclusive and
accessible to everyone
repeating another number that I've
already mentioned only about 17 of the
world's population speaks English at all
this doesn't even mean that they are
proficient in English but that they can
understand the most basic words and
sentences in English
if you're bilingual translate content
create content in another languages make
videos podcasts Twitter spaces whatever
in your language spread the word and
build your local community if you're a
project protocol dap website make sure
that your content is available in other
languages this is how we reach most of
the world's population educate them
about ethereum blockchains wallet dapps
D5 all of it this is how we onboard the
world to ethereum thank you
amazing we have time for a couple of
questions does anyone have a question
for Luca
hi I wanted to ask besides going faster
what do you think are the advantages of
a community-based approach to
translations
so
we have thought about
this a bunch really
one thing is that we've seen is
a lot of the people have this assumption
that
you need to be highly Technical and have
a special skill set to make an impact to
contribute to ethereum
um we feel like the translation program
is a good enough proof that that is not
the case
anyone can get involved anyone can
contribute anyone can make an impact and
like I've said
we've had a lot of people who started
contributing to the website learned
enough that and were exposed to the
community enough that this led them to
get full-time jobs in the space or
create something of their own it's the
translation program in our mind is a
great starting point to join contribute
add value and then level up doing
whatever people want
thank you so much I actually worked in
an AI translation industry before
migrating to web3 so this topic is
definitely very close to my heart I
actually have two questions first you
presented the translation Playbook but
what are like the efforts from the
interior foundation on creating a
glossary with shared
um terms in the web stream space I mean
you mentioned of course that like every
day we come up with a new technology
with a new term uh With A New Concept
but I think like having those
foundations would be important to also
escalate and to also like people create
uh independent initiatives on
translating the content the second one
that I wanted to mention
um
translating text let's say static
contact
content is already challenging enough
but what are the also uh Alternatives
options what are like the efforts to
also translate videos infographics
um any kind of dynamic content thank you
thank you those are two awesome
questions that we've really thought
about as well so the first one is
we have a glossary that we have been
building up through basically since we
started translating ethereum.org
um it's not open to everyone but if you
visit the translation program Playbook
or the translation program page John
ethereum.org there are sections in there
that basically say do you want to use
any of our resources reach out to us and
we will share them
um
the reason they're not open is because
we're using a translation tool that
really doesn't make it easy to share the
glossary
and also another point on this is there
are a lot of independent efforts to
create glossaries of terms for specific
languages countries regions
which I think is what how it should work
um
we make a lot of efforts to translate
the website into as many languages as
possible but not everything is a problem
that the ethereum foundation should be
solving for if you listen to any of the
talks from any of the people at the EF
there is this philosophy of subtraction
which is pushing power outside and
empowering everyone else to do whatever
they want to grow ethereum and that can
mean a lot of things but that is also
creating glossaries is a good example of
that we
are not best equipped to create a
glossary for every specific language
whereas there are organizations and
initiatives in different countries of
native language speakers who are far
better equipped to do that than us
and your second question was ah
translating videos infographics yes
that's also something so at some point
we started a trial project to translate
some videos
it didn't go great it didn't go as good
as we'd hoped
um but that's not to say we won't pick
it up and try to level it up at some
point again as far as infographics goes
there's been some people on our team
advocating for creating infographics for
the website that are made in a way that
they're easy to translate
also something that is very much in
progress but it is something we are
thinking about and want to solve for