[ARIN-Suggestions] New Response for ACSP Suggestion 2022.10

[ARIN]

A response from ARIN has been posted for the 2022.10 suggestion. The original suggestion and our response are below:

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ACSP Suggestion 2022.10: Multilingual PDP, NRPM, and announcements
https://www.arin.net/participate/community/acsp/suggestions/2022/2022-10/ 

Description: Multilingual PDP, NRPM, and announcements - Drive participation and inclusion

Value to Community: ARIN has had issues with participation for quite a few years. We are currently looking for new innovative ways to get the community involved. ARIN, while an English-speaking organization first, still services areas in North America including Canada with large French-speaking regions, and the Caribbean Islands which speak Spanish and French. While the language of most businesses is English and ARIN services the English-speaking Caribbean islands, we still have companies with employees where English is not their first language. Studies have shown customers that can read documents and websites in their own language (first language) are more likely to share that information with others where English is not their first language. We have, sometimes, heated discussions over words like ‘shall’ and ‘must’ during our in-person meetings. Exact verbiage is important when discussing policy. The current option for anyone reaching out to ARIN is to speak English, read all announcements in English, and to discuss everything in English. While I understand the need to use English first for the majority of what we do, our outreach efforts should at least include French and Spanish. While it would be great to have everything ARIN does in all three languages, an excellent start would be to get the PDP, NRPM, and announcements in all three languages. These three items drive the most discussion within the community. Google translate should not be their only option as this is commonly wrong. Close enough in the case of NRPM and PDP may not be good enough when trying to discuss topics within the region. ARIN has strived for inclusion and higher participation; this would be a great step in that direction

Timeframe: Not specified

Response from ARIN: Thank you for your suggestion, numbered 2022.10 upon confirmed receipt, requesting that ARIN make the Policy Development Process (PDP), Number Resource Policy Manual (NRPM), and announcements available in French and Spanish to encourage participation from non-English speaking community members.  

In the past, ARIN has provided translations of documents, but abandoned the practice because they were not utilized and there were significant costs involved in production of the documents. We will conduct a consultation to measure the interest in offering specified content in French and Spanish during the 4th quarter of this year. Prior to the consultation, we will investigate the costs associated with offering content in those two languages. This information will be provided as part of the consultation so the members can decide if there is sufficient value of providing content translation in light of cost and impact on the delivery of other high-value content development projects that are currently in our pipeline.

Your suggestion will remain open while we conduct this assessment and consultation.

Regards,

American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)