On Making Multi-Lingual Fannish Communities

[dagas_isa]

Thinky thoughts on translation/multi-lingual features for Ao3, and my personal fantasy features for making fanfiction translations more accessible for fans. This is a completely tangential spin-off from this post by lian, particularly:

I know a bit about advocating for not yet existing users. The strong parallel I draw is between making the Archive English only, because, well, this is where we're at at the moment -- English-language mediafandom. But I think it would be ineffably sad if we denied our own potential as an organisation, denied ourselves to grow and become richer, because we were unable to consider and incorporate other voices and perspectives. Other languages, other definitions of fannish community, of fanworks.

And particularly this comment thread in that post started by boosette which elaborates on translations features.

In general, this idea of creating mutli-lingual/interlingual fandom communities is hugely appealing to me, and the ability to enjoy fannish works across language and culture barriers is a big part of what I would want in an archive. What follows is basically why this would be awesome (to me), what I think would need to happen for the Ao3 to be a mutilingual fan community, and how the Ao3 would have to develop in regards to features in order to achieve that multilinguality.

Why?

• Connecting people and helping to break language and culture barriers is awesome.
• It encourages participation from a wider range of fans, particularly those who want to write fic but do not feel comfortable writing fic in the fandom's dominant language. Or who read fic in the fandom's dominant language, but don't feel comfortable leaving comments.
• It could boost the range of fanworks available for small fandoms, obscure parts of larger fandoms, and fans outside the fandom's usual sphere of participation.
• As a principle, I don't think the largest fandom projects/internet projects should be English-only/English-dominant. Proficiency in English should be a bonus to participating in fandom, not a requirement.
• As far as my awareness of fandom goes, there isn't any sort of fannish space that expressly facilitates interaction between fans who speak different languages.
• If one sees transformative works as having the potential to develop skills, this is definitely a way of getting fans invested in developing multiple language/cultural competencies. (Though that's probably a side effect)
• Did I mention, breaking language and culture barriers is awesome?

What?

• Create a site that's welcoming and easy-to-use for non-English speaking fen and that serves their needs both as individual fans, and as a gathering place as a non-English speaking fandom community.
• Raise awareness of the Ao3 and its multi-lingual capacities to non-English speaking fandoms, particularly small fandoms.
• Create functionality on the site that removes barriers for interlanguage fandom communication, and allows interaction between fans and fanworks across language barriers.

The first two, I think are already part of Ao3's development plan, the third is a spinoff. I also think the first and second are necessary in making the third plausible. That is the Ao3 has to work as a Spanish language archive, a French language archive, and an English language archive for example, before it can even start to work as a place of Spanish-English-French fannish interaction.


How?

General:

• Make the totality of the archive's interface available in as many languages as possible. I believe the OTW is working on this.
• The ability to tag a fic's primary language as a subset of a language tag. They already have the ability to display all the works in one language, but an author does not have the ability to automatically assign a primary language to their fic. ETA: The ability to choose languages already exists, though it's not prominent in the structure.
• Support for non-English/U.S.ian forms of fan-creation. The most obvious example to come to mind would be support for fan-comics/doujinshi, but there are possibly other examples culturally-specific forms of fan-creation out there (I say, fishing for examples).
• Create ways of leaving comments/feedback on works that don't require proficiency in the fic's original language on the part of a reviewer. Ratings/emoticons/a set of stock phrases automatically translated into several languages, for example.

Translation-centric:

• The ability for an author to automatically grant/grant with stipulations/withhold permission for others to translate their work when they post a fic.
• The ability to denote that a work is a translation and not an original work. Conversely, the ability to denote that an original work has translated versions available.
• The ability to link multiple translations and an original work as being different language versions of the same work. Furthermore, the ability to have multiple-translations of the same work in the same language.
• Author notification when a translation of their work has been uploaded.

I am not functionally multi-lingual. I'm speaking mostly as an English-speaking member of a tiny fandom that has a fairly small but international fanbase outside the canon's country of origin. I know some Spanish and some Japanese, but wouldn't feel comfortable doing full-on translations from or into either language.

I am also not a programmer. So I suggest most of these features in a dreamer's "head in the clouds" way without thinking of what it would take to implement them or unintended consequences. If I were trying to use the archive to connect multiple fandom communities and circumvent language barriers, these are simply the steps and features that I would use to facilitate that sort of interaction.

Also, for the purpose of this "original work" means the first (non-translated) version of a fanfiction. It could also include any other form of fan participation where language plays an important role in understanding content.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Further reading: rodo Why the AO3 needs to be translated

Comments

Here via a comment at lian's

[rodo]

I believe the OTW is working on this.

We/they are. There actually was a first try ages ago that didn't really work out, for various reasons (Our Plural Doesn't Work That Way, for example), and at the moment other features have priority, for example the Challenges feature. lian and I have been lobbying for a multilingual user-interface for ages, I posted about it too.

I would also very much approve of the translation features, despite the fact that so far, I only translated one of my stories and nobody else's (I'm too shy to ask, mostly).

They already have the ability to display all the works in one language, but an author does not have the ability to automatically assign a primary language to their fic.

This confuses me a bit, because while I do use language tags, I also choose the language of my fic from the drop down menu (I think it's a bit problematic that the default setting is "English", however). Should I ever write that bilingual fic, I will have a problem, but so far I could always assign a language. Inclusion in the search interface is planned, AFAIK. The site map for browsing is only a temporary solution.

Re: Here via a comment at lian's

[dagas_isa]

Yeah, I noticed the drop down feature, although I guess for non-English fics, it's not exactly prominent. I noticed quite a few non-English works that don't get sorted as their correct language.

Re: Here via a comment at lian's

[rodo]

Maybe they were uploaded before the drop-down feature was introduced? I vaguely remember that you had to tag your fics before then.

Re: Here via a comment at lian's

[dagas_isa]

Maybe. There are also ones that were just uploaded too. So a little of A and a little B.

Re: Here via a comment at lian's

[dagas_isa]

Bah, sorry for the spamming. >.<

I would also very much approve of the translation features, despite the fact that so far, I only translated one of my stories and nobody else's (I'm too shy to ask, mostly).

This totally. I know there's a ton of Japanese fic for my fandom that I'd love to translate, but actually asking permission seems like it would be more difficult than doing the translations. Like, "What if they decide I suck based on my e-mail and don't want to let me near their work?"

I think the biggest reason why I want the multi-lingual interface is just so that as many barriers as possible are removed from fan-participation. The more barriers removed for fannish participation = more participants = more fic, which is huge if there's already not a lot of fic going around.

Also, I hope you don't mind that I linked to your post up in the main post.

Re: Here via a comment at lian's

[rodo]

I don't mind being linked. If I do, I say so in the post.

I agree with you on barriers. A few days ago, I stumbled upon a German post of someone who wanted to translate a story on an archive but she had no way to ask the author because all the options were archive-only, which was why she was asking someone else to ask for her. Barriers like that are really unnecessary.

People with different nationalities also sometimes emphasize different aspects of canon, which really could enrich some fandoms that are OTP-heavy, for an example.

Re: Here via a comment at lian's

[stealthily]

It'd be cool if you could rate translations, maybe once there's more than oen translation of the work into the same language, so that if somebody did a really poor job and someone else a good one readers would know. But there's always problems with rating systems, and would you be qualified to rate it if you weren't already bilingual?

Re: Here via a comment at lian's

[dagas_isa]

Hmm...I'm not sure if I'd want it as a separate rating system. Maybe as part of a

But there's always problems with rating systems, and would you be qualified to rate it if you weren't already bilingual?

I think it takes a bilingual person to recognize an excellent translation, but I think anyone who speaks the target language can recognize a crappy one because the result will be nigh illegible. It'll just sound wrong.

\0/

[hl]

I would like to see it all.

Principally, the translation interface; it's going to be very very welcome. (It already exists in some form, but it's still not functional, and it took a back-seat to the urgent coding of Collections and Challenges.)

Connecting translations would be awesome! Also, I like the numbered review feature (not so much the stock phrases thing). And a way to filter stories by language. Or they're already on the filter and I didn't noted it?

And a way to mark a story bilingual. But without encouraging people to mark it, say 'Spanish', when they used only the word 'sombrero' on their English written fic (or 'cajones'--particularly because it's so ubiquitously used wrong that it just gets on my nerves; the correct way would be to write 'cojones', unless you really did mean 'drawers').

Re: \0/

[dagas_isa]

The stock phrases (which are heavily influenced by the auto-translate feature of the MMO I play) would probably be the super-deluxe version of that, but the ability to get across not just whether a reader liked a story, but what they liked about it, in a general sense would be helpful.

And the bilingual (multi-lingual) story feature: it would be pretty neat, and necessary if the Ao3 ever starts working on accepting vids where the audio track might be in one language, but the subtitles are in another, and someone has provided a translation in a third in the comments.

But without encouraging people to mark it, say 'Spanish', when they used only the word 'sombrero' on their English written fic

Also, this. I'm wondering if there should be a written standard either going by numbers (at least 25% of your fic must be in Spanish) or by making a qualitative standard someone who only spoke one of the languages in your fic could still generally follow the plot line, or your fic requires a working knowledge of English and Spanish or this fic contains both complete English and Spanish versions).

Re: \0/

[hl]

I don't think anything that might require the Abuse team to read the story is going to fly. Honest, I would prefer the archive kept those cases to a minimum myself.

The less policing necessary, and the more self-definition is encouraged, the better. It's still a problem of design to get a feature that gives the ability to mark the fic for any languages that would be applicable (in the case the fic is more than bilingual, which is possible, too), but discourages misuse so it's still useful for people that wants to read fics not written in English. It's not an easy design problem, but I may be biased because I am one of the people trying to come up with a solution. /0\

Re: \0/

[kaz]

Not sure I'd agree with a strict percentage - I have had fic ideas where the narrative was in English and the dialogue in German. I tend to write narrative-heavy so that probably wouldn't hit 25% but it would still be incomprehensible to someone who didn't know both languages.

Also, love the idea of a bilingual option because the main reason I never seriously considered writing those fics is because I figured no one would ever read them!

Re: \0/

[dagas_isa]

Yeah, that tends to be the problem with strictly quantitative measures, there's way where it wouldn't hit a certain percentage but would still heavily involve needing to understand another language.

Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of people who would read bilingual fic, even if they have to run parts of it through google translate to get it.

Re: \0/

[cesy]

Are you familiar with the languages page? That allows you to see all stories in a particular language, though the formatting is currently messed up - I've logged a bug to fix it.

I'm hoping the planned changes to search and browse will make it easier to filter for fic in different languages.

Re: \0/

[hl]

No, yeah, I'm aware of that one. I meant along with the other filters.

Re: \0/

[cesy]

Yeah, that's harder to code because language is stored in a different way from the other tags, so it was postponed since the whole filters thing is going to get redone anyway for advanced search and browse.

Did we ever get anywhere with the storing-languages-as-tags discussion? I remember lots of debate but I don't remember the conclusion. That would make some things easier, though it would also raise new issues.

Re: \0/

[hl]

I don't quite remember! I have the vague feeling we had reached some sort of consensus (in fact, it was around the time I got involved in tag wrangling to have a better idea on how that that worked), but I can't find the e-mail conversation now.

[noracharles]

I love you :-)

[dagas_isa]

Thank you. ♥

[ssquirrel_fic]

Here via metafandom ~

I'd not really thought about it before, but it'd be awesome to have more interaction between fans speaking different languages in this way. I find on archives like FFN I'm putting the fic through google translate, then using google translate to form some sort of comment. All in all, massive amounts of mistranslation. XD

It'd be great if people were using the AO3 as a hub for archiving non-English fic. Because fandoms so often undergo name changes when translated I find it difficult just to find the fic in the first place at the moment, through google or LJ or whatever.

[dagas_isa]

Yeah, I've been doing that for my main fandom (because with one exception, all the smut fic not written by me is in Japanese) and wincing at the translation fail.

I would love for Ao3 to be more than just another (almost-all) English archive, and for the ability to cross link fandoms despite the names, and generally see more of what's out there.

[lady_ganesh]

I love the international participation I get from fandom now, and I would be so thrilled to get more through a good translation interface/reach out to international fandom. I have had the pleasure of having one story translated fairly recently, and it's always such a thrill to think that someone thinks your story's worth taking the time with.

[dagas_isa]

Absolutely, one of the coolest things about fandom is how international it can be. I run a meta-blog for my fandom on Wordpress, and it's amazing how many commenters don't speak English as their first language and how many non-English pages seem to link to it.

And I just keep thinking, how much more participation could there be if knowing English didn't feel like such a requirement for reaching everyone.

[cesy]

# The ability to denote that a work is a translation and not an original work. Conversely, the ability to denote that an original work has translated versions available.
# The ability to link multiple translations and an original work as being different language versions of the same work. Furthermore, the ability to have multiple-translations of the same work in the same language.
# Author notification when a translation of their work has been uploaded.

I just coded these! *does a little dance*
So once it's all been tested and approved and everything, these features should be available in the next release. :)

[dagas_isa]

Awesome. ^^ Thank you!

[rodo]

Shiny! So far, I used the "inspired by" feature, but that's not really the same and it's at the bottom of the fic ... It's anything but ideal for translations.

[cesy]

So would you want links to translations of your work moved up the top as well?

[rodo]

I think it would make sense, yes. I don't generally scroll down to look that up. I suppose it makes sense for "Inspired by" works, where you can read the original work after you read the inspired work, but that's not the case with translations. You generally pick one version and read that. If you don't know that there's a version available that would be easier to read and you find that out after you read the hard-to-understand version, it doesn't do you much good.

[cesy]

Okay, I've made it show at both the top and the bottom, so we should be totally covered :)

Would any of the translations team or international committee or users like to join the testing team for this feature, to make sure it does everything you want?

[rodo]

I already have access to the test archive (I think - there was the first attempt of the translation interface), but I never quite figured out how the testing process works.

[cesy]

Eylul/autumna would be the best person to explain, I think, as she's head of testing. Or if you want to drop into the Public Discussion room in Campfire, I can talk you through the basics.

[stealthily]

This would be great for reaching out to the fandoms that OTW has always had trouble communicating with, such as animanga, manwha, dorama and Asian Pop. And it would greatly increase the amount of fic available to everyone. Maybe there could be little clickable flags next to a fic title to indicate what other languages it is available in?

[dagas_isa]

Yeah,I've noticed the lack of participation from non-western fandoms. And the clickable flags sound like a neat idea.