[ARIN-consult] Consultation on Offering ARIN Content in Multiple Languages

[Scott Leibrand]

In my experience working with multilingual PDPs in other RIRs, the overhead
of providing official translations is probably not worth it for a region
like ARIN's where participants in the vast majority of the region
speak/read/write English as a primary or second language. Automated
translation services are widely available and easy to use, but the overhead
of resolving ambiguities and conflicts between documents in multiple
languages create far more issues than having a single language be
authoritative and translating as needed into other languages.

The following translations were generated by Google Translate and checked
by reversing the translation. / Las siguientes traducciones fueron
generadas por Google Translate y verificadas invirtiendo la traducción.
/ Les traductions suivantes ont été générées par Google Translate et
vérifiées en inversant la traduction.

En español:
En mi experiencia trabajando con PDP multilingües en otros RIR, los gastos
generales de proporcionar traducciones oficiales probablemente no valen la
pena para una región como la de ARIN, donde los participantes en la gran
mayoría de la región hablan, leen y escriben inglés como idioma principal o
como segundo idioma. Los servicios de traducción automática están
ampliamente disponibles y son fáciles de usar, pero la sobrecarga de
resolver ambigüedades y conflictos entre documentos en varios idiomas crea
muchos más problemas que tener un solo idioma autorizado y traducir según
sea necesario a otros idiomas.

En français:
D'après mon expérience de travail avec des PDP multilingues dans d'autres
RIR, les frais généraux liés à la fourniture de traductions officielles ne
valent probablement pas la peine pour une région comme celle d'ARIN, où les
participants de la grande majorité de la région parlent/lisent/écrivent
l'anglais comme langue principale ou seconde. Les services de traduction
automatique sont largement disponibles et faciles à utiliser, mais les
frais généraux liés à la résolution des ambiguïtés et des conflits entre
des documents dans plusieurs langues créent bien plus de problèmes que le
fait qu'une seule langue fasse autorité et traduise au besoin dans d'autres
langues.

-Scott

On Mon, Feb 13, 2023 at 10:00 AM ARIN <info at arin.net> wrote:

> ARIN is seeking feedback from the community on open suggestion ACSP
> 2022.10 (
> https://www.arin.net/participate/community/acsp/suggestions/2022/2022-10/)
> to provide announcements and policy documents, such as the Policy
> Development Process (PDP) and Number Resource Policy Manual (NRPM), in
> Spanish and French. The aim of the suggestion is to encourage greater
> participation and discussion from non-native English speaking members of
> our community.
>
> ARIN has investigated various options for implementing the suggestion to
> provide content in Spanish and French, including using translation service
> products and the necessary website setup and maintenance. We noted that
> ARIN lacks the ability to verify the accuracy of these products and
> discovered that there are publicly available tools that allow users to
> translate content as needed.
>
> In 2022 ARIN conducted a survey with our community on what was most
> important for ARIN to focus on providing. According to the results of the
> 2022 Prioritization Survey (
> https://www.arin.net/participate/community/community_surveys/surveys/2022prioritization/),
> the suggestion for multi-lingual versions of the PDP and NRPM received the
> lowest rating among all suggestions ranked.
>
> We are now gathering final input from the community on this specific
> issue: should ARIN provide multi-lingual support for these documents
> (recognizing the associated cost and limitations in verification of the
> translations), or instead direct users to generate their own translations
> as necessary?
>
> Please provide comments to arin-consult at arin.net. You can subscribe to
> this mailing list at https://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-consult.
>
> Discussion on arin-consult at arin.net will close on 24 February 2023. ARIN
> seeks clear direction through community input, so your feedback is
> important.
>
> If you have any questions, please contact us at info at arin.net.
>
> Regards,
>
> John Curran
> President and CEO
> American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)
>
>
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