I'd prefer to keep a doors open policy to anyone that is interacting here in good faith. We do need to figure out a solution for folks who want to use other languages though.
It will probably sort itself out with subs.
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Makes sense. Perhaps the right time will be when tags, categories or filters appear on the roadmap.
I'm particularly interested in the rollout of Spanish as there is no doubt in my mind that growth of Stacker news will skyrocket when the Latin American community feel at home here. It may also help my sub-par Spanish writing skills 😅
Some potential approaches:
  • Multiple posts + single area - Each language post is shown on a single board (will need filtering once traction obtained in other languages)
  • Multiple posts + multiple areas - Each language post is segregated in a separate language area (leading to potentially echo chambers)
  • Single post + single area + auto-translate - Each post has a button to attempt to auto-translate the post beneath it (more dev time and potential inaccuracies)
  • Single post + single area - Each post has a translatable title & description - requiring author, workers or mods to populate (not scalable)
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I kind of like the idea of users setting their preferred language and as a result get shown more posts in their language + some kind of translate button. I'm not sure how expensive translation libraries are though, keeping in mind we'd want something privacy-forward.
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Here's a preview of what's possible via Smartcat in ES, FR, RU. Seems to process the entire page fairly quickly. Although does look on the pricey end 🙄
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That's neat. Their pricing page hurts me though - wtf is a "smartword"?
I think we'll end up needing something that I host and pay a flat licensing fee or something.
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Haha got to appreciate the marketing spiel.
Did spot a great looking free open source tool in Libretranslate which looks promising & cheap to host. I'll keep a lookout if I find anything else that can be hosted.
There actually seem to be no shortage of expensive translation APIs, including Weglot, Transifex, Translite, Dilingual, Smartcat and Crowdin. I wonder if they're all using the same tech under the hood. Crowdin seem to not charge for open-source requests although would be an extra online dependency.
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