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

[Adam Thompson]

I don't necessarily want to condone the societal or legal stance I refer to here, but many ARIN clients based in and operating in Quebec (Canada) are mandated by law to conduct business in French.  Since Quebec is clearly within ARIN's scope, some accommodation for them should probably exist.  And there do legitimately exist a pretty impressive number of people in Quebec who cannot conduct business in English.

If that means an on-demand translation service, sure, I could get on board with that. Having such a service would also go a long way to accommodate other non-English speakers.  Typically the recurring invariant cost to those is reasonably low, but the usage fees (variable cost) is medium to high.  Or vice-versa, but I think I'd rather optimize for lower invariant cost.

I have a clue what full-scale multilingual operation costs, and I don't currently believe it would be viable at the current intersection of ARIN's mandate and the number of non-English-speaking clients.
That's a very different number than the number of clients with a non-English native language: I'm only looking for "reasonable accommodation" here.

-Adam
________________________________
From: ARIN-consult <arin-consult-bounces at arin.net> on behalf of Matt Harris <matt at netfire.net>
Sent: February 22, 2023 3:10 PM
To: Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com>
Cc: arin-consult at arin.net <arin-consult at arin.net>
Subject: Re: [ARIN-consult] Consultation on Offering ARIN Content in Multiple Languages

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On Wed, Feb 22, 2023 at 2:49 PM Owen DeLong via ARIN-consult <arin-consult at arin.net<mailto:arin-consult at arin.net>> wrote:

I’m not sure staffing this is practical, but there are on-demand
translation services that ARIN could subscribe to to enable
this functionality. I would support such an action.

Owen

I think it depends how many languages are targeted. Simply offering Spanish in addition to English via support channels is likely a low bar and not terribly challenging: hiring someone who is fluent in both English and Spanish in the Northern VA region and who is at least a little bit technical and comfortable in a customer service/support role isn't at all difficult, and many such high quality individuals exist in that talent pool. This is made even easier if hiring remote staff within the US is on the table. Adding support for French makes things a fair bit tougher without hiring outside of the US, and even more obscure languages, even more so. (I'm basing this on my experience hiring and working alongside multi-lingual folks in technology environments in the US, YMMV.)

Take care,
Matt

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