Translating the Ethereum Foundation blog

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Since the first post in December 2013, the Ethereum Basis (EF) weblog has been the first manner groups throughout the EF talk. From announcements about events, to grant waves, protocol upgrades, common updates from specific teams or discussing Ethereum’s imaginative and prescient and roadmap, the weblog has been a useful useful resource for these trying to keep within the loop.

Nonetheless, there’s been one large downside: regardless of our international Ethereum group, this data has primarily solely been obtainable in English. Accessing this data is a problem for the billions of non-English audio system around the globe.

ethereum.org and the Translation Program

We have already seen ethereum.org reveal a profitable, community-driven model for Ethereum translations. In 2019, ethereum.org started translating its instructional, open-source content material into a number of languages. Over time, this effort has scaled to 48 languages available and tens of millions of phrases translated annually by 1000’s of volunteer contributors.

Neighborhood engagement

An important part of the Translation Program’s success is its thousands of enthusiastic contributors. For a lot of, translating is among the most significant methods they will contribute to the Ethereum ecosystem with a view to study, train, and provides again to the group.

Ethereum.org at present has:

3,800 contributing translators
48 languages dwell on website
2.9 million phrases translated in 2021
1.9 million phrases translated in 2022 to this point

Are individuals utilizing the translations?

The ethereum.org staff’s experiment with translations sheds gentle on the worth of creating Ethereum content material obtainable in a number of languages. The takeaway has been clear: the extra content material that we translate, the better the share of total visitors goes to translated pages. The pattern has been regular, with translated content material driving 5% of pageviews in late 2019 to now comprising 22% of complete pageviews. This makes intuitive sense—even group members proficient in English self-report preferring studying of their native language.

Essentially the most full translation of the ethereum.org content material is in Chinese language Simplified. The consequence? 8% of all visitors to ethereum.org is to the Chinese Simplified version of the website.

Translate all of the issues!

Because the success of translations on ethereum.org grew to become obvious, different clear alternatives for translation arose.

The Ethereum Staking Launchpad, an interactive information to grow to be a solo staker and arrange a validator, has been translated into 20 languages.

Since early 2022, we have now additionally added some translations to pick weblog posts (e.g. recent testnet upgrades). Nonetheless, these have been a suboptimal, momentary resolution given the weblog did not natively help internationalization. Translations weren’t simply indexable, searchable, or intuitive to search out.

Weblog updates: what has modified?

Beneath is a fast round-up of the work we have accomplished to this point and what we plan to enhance subsequent.

Internationalization help

As of as we speak’s launch, the EF weblog has full internationalization help, which means if you pick a language to view the weblog (e.g. blog.ethereum.org/zh), it is possible for you to to view all posts in your goal language. This replace features a language-specific search feature) and devoted RSS feeds for every language (e.g. blog.ethereum.org/zh/feed.xml). We additionally made structure enhancements for right-to-left languages, like Arabic.

Efficiency enhancements

As a part of the weblog rebuild, we migrated the code to a completely new tech stack (from Jekyll to Next.js). Subsequent.js is a contemporary net framework optimized for end-user efficiency. We count on efficiency upgrades to be noticeable by everybody, however these with out entry to high-speed web ought to see essentially the most vital enhancements in loading speeds and person expertise.

Accessibility enhancements

This rebuild additionally improves normal accessibility of the weblog by offering higher expertise with display screen readers, improved keyboard navigation, and a few colours updates to extend the distinction. These enhancements are largely due to our UI library, Chakra, which adheres intently to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)—shout out to their staff of open supply builders!

UI/UX enhancements

We simplified the location menu to enhance the navigation expertise throughout gadgets. We additionally redesigned the archive and search pages to current content material in a clearer manner.

Future plans

Whereas this new weblog is a dramatic enchancment from the earlier model, we nonetheless have additional upgrades we would wish to make.

Electronic mail subscriptions

As a part of the weblog’s rebuild, we enhanced help for RSS readers. So as a substitute of getting to periodically verify the weblog or counting on our Twitter for updates, you may subscribe to the RSS feed of your most popular language.

Nonetheless, in 2022, individuals count on a extra easy possibility: electronic mail notifications. That is subsequent on our precedence record as we consider this might be a big enchancment within the weblog’s person expertise for all. Keep tuned!

Expanded languages

ethereum.org has demonstrated the demand for all kinds of languages. At present we’re launching with support for 16 languages however we’re hoping to broaden these choices quickly. Which brings us to our subsequent level…