To those who have recently been reading and curating posts on Steemit, it comes as no surprise when I say that is becoming quite obvious our international community is growing rapidly. More and more often I am seeing posts in various languages on the new section, most notably Chinese, Russian, Korean and Japanese. There is no doubting that this is fantastic for Steemit as a platform but I believe we will soon come to a tipping point where more will have to be done to support these users. In my opinion building multilingual infrastructure is the most important way we can demonstrate the real value of Steemit to the world. A note before reading this, I don’t know what Ned, Dan or any of the other developers have in mind for the future so many of these ideas could be on their to do list.
Multiple Instances of the Steemit Website
Currently we have tags for different languages such as ru for Russian speakers or cn for Chinese speakers but this is not enough, we NEED to make separate instances of the site. Part of what makes sites like Steemit or reddit so great is you can explore every type of interest with precision and without a jumble of topics. If I want to read about Japan I just go to the Japan tag or if I want to talk about money I go to the money tag, ect. This is what makes these types of social media platforms intuitive and fun to use, but currently other languages lack the ability to use these features. Sure they could use tags like moneyru or moneyjp but it just adds a layer of unneeded complexity to the platform. A possible, better alternative, would be to just run a translated, separate instance of Steemit.ru or Steemit.jp with its own topics, tags and posts. We aren’t talking about using a separate blockchain, just creating an easier tool for other languages to access the content relevant to them.
English is only spoken by 6%-8% of the world in terms of total population and isn’t even in the top three most spoken languages in the world! We are essentially pushing away 92% of the market by not providing separate instances of the site to other languages. When other websites or companies try to move to other markets in the world they have to do multitudes of work with rebranding and changing products to cater to a different population, but Steemit doesn’t need to do any of that. At its core, Steemit is a blank canvas that allows people to do with it whatever way they see fit. All we need to do supply the paint and the paintbrush. By adding instances of the Steemit website platform we can grow our user base exponentially. Just use bitcoin as an example and see how many Chinese people have flocked to that platform, which by many accounts, has many more Chinese users than all English speaking users combined. Let’s not hurt our potential by isolating ourselves from the majority of the population.
A Client Side Copy of the Steemit Website to Avoid Censorship
One of the strongest arguments for using public blockchain based platforms, is their ability to thwart censorship. Unfortunately in many parts of the world, internet censorship is a way of life and the possibility of website blacklisting is very possible. I know there are some clients currently being worked on by developers, but it will be especially important that we make translated copies for the languages that need them the most. For example Facebook and Twitter are both blocked in China primarily because they provide the freedom to speak your mind and start movements. Steemit being a censorship resistant platform could give anyone living in a country that censors the internet, massive value. Even if the Steemit site is blocked, there needs to be a UI friendly client side copy of the website that can provide the same service to users in these countries.
The worry isn’t just about censorship of content though, there is also a real worry about getting your identity outed on a centralized website. There are numerous countries in the world that can easily obtain identities from a site posting and have those people thrown in jail. In many place journalistic freedom of speech is something that is not a right, but a luxury that can be revoked at any time a government wishes. With the anonymity that blockchain technology provide, people will be able to sleep better knowing no one is going to kick down their door in the middle night because of a post they made criticizing a government.
How Can We Achieve This Goal?
The most important thing to talk about here is how we can achieve this goal with what we currently have. If we don’t attempt to put a plan in action then this is all just talk. The developers we have are fantastic but they will not be able to do all of this by themselves. The developers have and could earn more than enough to hire a few translators and developers to create an instanced version of each language. I am sure there are people that are part of this community who will do it and are willing to be paid in Steem. I have seen them recently hiring for other jobs and this one is just as if not more important. Im called on @Ned and @Dan to make a plan for expanding to multi language user bases, or at least comment on what they have in the works for the future. I know it may be asking a lot from them but in more ways than one, other parts of the non English speaking world need this technology and the value it adds to their lives, more than us.
-Calaber24p
Thanks speaking for us. I just translated the Steem White Paper into Chinese and put on Gituhb. My post ehre . I hope this could help more chinese to learn about Steem.
Regarding the steemit instance in other language, we can do it by ourself. Source code of steemit.com is now open. We could just register a domain name and run a clone. I'm doing this on steemit.cn.
Glad to see you here! Do you currently own Steemit.cn ? Its this type of community involvement which will let us succeed as a community together. Maybe when you get the site up you can get dan and ned to verify it or make a post about it. What do you currently need to get it up and running/ how can we help?
👍great post.. @calaber24p
funny to se how easy it is! check this out :)
https://steemit.com/vote/@baconwish/1000-comment-share
Now if autotranslators have perfected themselves.. lol. Nice one @calaber24p! You're on fire! Keep the great content flowin' in bro!
Thanks kevin! Yeah sadly autotranslators, especially for Asian languages are shit. Im an intermediate level Japanese speaker and in my classes I quickly learned to never use google translate for anything past a word.
funny to se how easy it is! check this out :)
https://steemit.com/vote/@baconwish/1000-comment-share
We achieve anything....!! thx
We do not need multiple instances for different languages. Everything can be achieved with:
2 simple features and 1 line of code.
https://ipfs.pics/ipfs/QmSyak5pFBPJ4eXDpiXGjvKp8rUxY2frzuXFsVKk1v9rs7
Something like WeChat 👍👍👍
Press a button to translate all languages , would be excellent
I think your solution is totally valid and could address a majority of the problems as well. I do like the idea with the prefixes as an alternative to the suffixes and the xyz tagging method because it seems automatic unlike how you would have to manually do it on todays site. However I disagree that we don't need to translate. The interface is clean and simple, I think translating the small amount of words wouldn't be that complicated.
ok, agree but I think this can be made in second iteration :)
ive been thinking about this a lot as im constantly curating! and i really agree with your ideas, a whole new steemit for each language would work the best.
@warrensteem
UPVOTES away
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Thanks! There are definitely good arguments for filtering tags and creating new language tags, but IMO these are not user friendly ways. If each site has its own search engine optimization and its own url with only their native language, it will appeal to them much more.
that would be nice as it would lead to a much more organized and professional look for steemit.
As for content in Russian there is a filter available already https://steemit.com/steemit/@primus/first-local-community-site-based-on-original-steem-blockchain-meet-the-russian-steem
This is a good start, but the steemit english site has a much cleaner and easier to use UI. I know because it is open sourced anyone could build it, but I think having the devs openly support a site with the url Steemit.ru with the standard of quality we have here is an amazing way to get new users.
aaa nice article XD love it
upvote done @calaber24p
To isolate parts of Steem in local-languages domens - bad idea. Language tags are the simplest and the best, maybe it's worth to implement them in Steem GUI.
I disagree with you but I understand your opinion. I think having multiple languages even with tags will clog up the news feed. Sure you could have a feature to block tags, but I still think that going to a .ru site for a russia or a .jp site for a Japanese person would be more user friendly and being user friendly on a social media site is how you gain organic growth.
this is the nearest solution for language barrier.
https://steemit.com/money/@algimantas/life-changing-in-ear-device-automatically-translates-foreign-languages-so-you-can-talk-to-anyone
Maybe not for reading, but for talking for sure!
Its a cool idea but I think were a ways off from that happening.
english is spoken by way more people than you think when you count "english as a second language"
Yep there are about 1-1.5 billion, but the varying degrees of fluency is debatable. Plus many people will only interact with people on social networks in their primary language. But even if we take the high number of 1.5 were still talking about 80% of the world left untouched.
I totally agree! I was thinking some of the same thoughts myself, but you did a way better job than I would have done at putting them together and communicating the message :) Steemit international will add lots of value to Steemit! Great post!
most of whales are speak english, so most of the content of STEEM would be written in english. So easy to understand.
Why waste my time to write a post on my native language when an english post have more visibility? (visibility = SD and upvotes, obvious) --> THIS must be changed, but nobody is listening to me...
I completely agree with you.This crossed my mind after I posted the article as well but ultimately it would have to be up to the users to purchase steam and power it up to empower the community. If we become stable and there is good money to be made by powering up and curating, like there is today, rich people in various communities will buy in and start spreading the wealth, ideally. In practice we could see something different but I think as a community we need to especially upvote content in other languages so people are empowered to post in their native writing. Its hard to upvote a post at 0 cents if you cant read it but, I look for multilingual posts with about 50 cents or more and upvote them even if I cant read them. I dont make that much from curating anyway so I mostly try to upvote posts under 5 dollars or so to keep people coming back.
Good idea. I favor to write in german. For steem it i try to write in english. Many texts are broken :D
yeah I feel like many people are in the same boat as you. I commend you for forcing yourself to write in English though. I speak some Japanese and if I see a Japanese post I try and take like 10 minutes to decipher it and post a comment.
Yes decipher from english to german is not a problem for me. On the otherwise its a big problem for me. I try it with google translate. Obviously its not the best of all .
the irony is this morning when I woke up I was just thinking about this... Steemit in multiple languages..
Maybe were twins with a mind connection... :)
@calaber24p
My friend , you have nailed it already!!!!
""Direct hit""
A GREAT JOB INDEED well done
41 minutes at $1404
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
UPVOTES away
Cheers
🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Well done!!!!
One Steem Train - All on board
He nailed it indeed :)
Hmm, I'm curious why do you not used any one of this languages an preview image?
I do not see Chinese, Russian, Korean or Japanese characters on your preview image.
And I'm curious why all upvoters for this post give you more then thousand of SD in value but they do not want to support locals in real.
For example, already mentioned here russian community site announcement post earns only $30.
Well done, community support!
Ребят, лайкните, что ли, этот комментарий.
А то реально бомбит от того, что тема про запуск русскоязычного Cтима набрала всего 30$, а вот такие посты ни о чём от наших зарубежных коллег набирают полторы штуки баксов (и это в первые полчаса после публикации).
Если бы также лайкнули анонс о запуске нашего русскоязычного сайта, то давно бы уже на steeme.ru и дизайн был самый лучший и API доступ к блокчейну давно бы уже прикрутили.
Долблюсь тут один как рыба башкой об лёд.... в общем, поддержка сообщества не помешает.
@primus ,
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
Supported n UPVOTES
Upvote away
Now is supporting @bullionstackers
I agree I picked a bad image ill change that now I just liked the bubble picture but there are the greetings in those languages there just they are written with roman characters. I also really should have put up one of the language tags as a preview image, but my screen caps were big hard to see in the thumbnail so decided not to put them on the article. Ill throw one in now too. But I agree that post should have got more. It all comes down to who follows your content though and if someone sees it. Overtime this will change like I said in a few of my other posts and how the distribution is changing.
my guess is that a whale upvoted. the whales have huge voting power while minnows like myself have zero voting power.
@johnhtims
If we supports each other , let say in a larger community , we would be much stronger .
Unless you are super rich
Witness me yeha hahaha luckily i hit upvote before evrything went big . how much i can get :).
That is why google translator is very handle with multi countries.
Everyone needs Steemit and everything is possible. Steem on!
#8, This is because we are a week of hard work，Come on ：）
Great work!
I really like your way of thinking.
Everybody should be friends, support each other and meet new friend's
We need to actively interact with the Stemmit community.
This is the key to enjoyment.
Personally, I use Chrome with Google translate and am able to read posts of other languages fairly easily. If a translate option could be embedded into each post when it is presented, that would be fantastic.
Yuck yuck
Please don't @dan and @ned. I wòuld hate to need to switch to another site for reading Spanish posts.. Many users this would be a nuissance..
This makes me feel so ignorant, being able to only speak, read & write in one language!
Why ignorant? I use two languages because I need to.My native language is polish but I live in the UK so I am forced to develop my english skills.If you live in the country with english as a primary language why do you feel ignorant?
#PORTUGAL