Onboarding East Asia Today

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Setup a translation pipeline to translate Catalyst documents & proposals to various languages in East Asia as accurately as possible.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

Cardano Foundation Ambassadors, Catalyst School & Eastern Town Hall Members, Proposal Assessors (PAs) & Veteran PAs, Challenge Team members, Cardano Stake Pool Operators (SPO), IT & Software Engineering, Blockchain Devs, Plutus/Atala Prism Pioneers, Educators and Accountants

[GENERAL] Requested funds in USD.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Our objective is to build and document a streamlined process for content translation and start the development of localized content. We have already set up a simple translation pipeline [ 1 ] using Git, GitLocalize, and GitHub Actions.

Our initial objective is to get existing Project Catalyst Fund series content translated into their respective local language of the communities represented in Eastern Town Hall.

We will grow from there by translating various existing Cardano and Catalyst material into three to four languages of the current community in the Eastern Town Hall using a semi-automated system, and gaining experience and building community. Documenting what we do and how.

By semi-automated system, we do not mean machine translation. While machine translation is helpful as a starting point, it has difficulty with specialized terms and does not read naturally. Human translations will always have a slight advantage. A semi-automated system refers to an ability to queue a piece of work for translation, which may include feeding it through a machine translation service, having it worked on by someone, reviewed, and then published.

We will start to embrace and extend the excellent localization documentation processes established by the Kubernetes SIG Docs group [ 2 ] to help us. We are adapting the processes to accommodate the varying technical skills and future directions we want to take.

This recurring proposal is submitted to continue the widely accepted and anticipated prototype DAO program of the Eastern Town Hall (ETH), which is Compensated Community Translation. Through the usage of GitHub and GitLocalize, we have seen very enthusiastic participation by 2 (two) communities, Indonesian and Viet Nam. Through the data we have gained, we foresee the continuation of this system and perhaps the widespread use of it, either for social causes or business applications. Some metrics are as following and can be found on our GitLocalize [ 3 ] also :

In Indonesia, these are the following metrics;

1. Duration of the time it took for the Indonesian community to translate all of Fund 7 Challenges are less than 6 (six) hours done by 5 (five) individuals with a variety of translations quality ranging from:
2. Excellent: 0 to 3 errors – 4 occurrences 
3. Good: 4 to 7 errors – 18 occurrences 
4. Acceptable: 8 to 11 errors – 3 occurrences
5. Duration of the time it took for the Indonesian community to translate all of Fund 8 Challenges are less than 7 (seven) hours done by 5 (five) individuals with a variety of translations quality ranging from:
6. Excellent: 0 to 3 errors – 12 occurrences 
7. Good: 4 to 7 errors – 7 occurrences 
8. Acceptable: 8 to 11 errors – 3 occurrences 
9. Participants of this translation pipeline program from the Indonesian community
10. 10 unique individuals

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

Across the majority of the Eastern Hemisphere, English is not routinely spoken on a daily basis. Instead, a web of regional languages is used throughout the social and business etiquettes.

These language barriers reduce participation in Catalyst. It limits the potential growth of Cardano adoption and utility in this region. We have experienced this first hand, and we hear this from our communities, and through the pipeline translation we have already developed, more and more individuals from those communities are starting to understand what drives Cardano and Project Catalyst. From this knowledge, they are able to formulate a proposal, though at times might not yet be acceptable by the community, it is an auspicious result.

This can easily be seen by the number of community development members from Indonesia and the number of proposals submitted from Viet Nam and Japan.

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

Seeing that this is very much a community-driven effort, creating a system that balances community engagement, high-quality translation and speed of translation will require numerous workshops/educational materials. It can be foreseen that numerous iterations and trial and error will be needed.

Another aspect that will pose a challenge is fine tuning the reward/compensation system that accommodates various economic standards throughout the Eastern Hemisphere. This also correlates towards the education level that differs from one nation to another. Some might have a grasp on English as a second language, therefore, rendering this translation pipeline not as alluring as other countries.

This might have an effect on creating a universal conclusion on the efforts of this proposal. The acceptance or disregard of this translation pipeline in itself is data from which we can gain knowledge.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

To further grow the this Compensated Community Translations, these are our action plans to be executed by appointing all members of the team whose communities are deeply engaged in the ETH pre-DAO program :

1. Actively maintaining the translation material for GitHub and GitLocalize
2. Managing and maintaining day-to-day discussion on the method to use the system in various social media. Those social media are; Discord and Telegram
3. Managing communication and uploading periodic content in various social media. Those social media are; Instagram and Twitter
4. Maintaining and updating content from the Compensated Community Translation onto the ETH website
5. Marketing the Compensated Community Translation to a wider community, in and outside of Cardano
6. Expanding the ETH Compensated Community Translation by collaborating with communities/business entities that would benefit from having this type of service

These actions will translate into the following timeline :

1. Month one:
2. Issuing NFTs for skills, language, and attribution/contribution tracking
3. Expanded formats for translations to include video subtitles
4. Added one to two more Eastern hemisphere languages to our core set
5. Translate 4 (four) topics from docs.cardano.org
6. Managing and/or maintaining and or updating all social media, website, forums
7. Execute marketing of the ETH Compensated Community Translation
8. Start pitching to various communities/businesses of these translation services
9. Month two:
10. Translate 4 (four) topics from docs.cardano.org
11. Expanded formats for translations to include video subtitles
12. Managing and/or maintaining and or updating all social media, website, forums
13. Execute marketing of the ETH Compensated Community Translation
14. Continue pitching to various communities/business of these translation services
15. Month three:
16. Translate 4 (four) topics from docs.cardano.org and all Fund 10 Challenges
17. Expanded formats for translations to include video subtitles
18. Managing and/or maintaining and or updating all social media, website, forums
19. Execute marketing of the ETH Compensated Community Translation
20. Continue pitching to various communities/businesses of these translation services
21. Month twelve:
22. All Catalyst Proposals and Funded Projects are translated and published within days of being produced
23. We have expanded our core language set to include the ten languages from the Eastern hemisphere
24. The translation project is self-sustaining because projects/teams/businesses want to reach our audience in their native language
25. The Cardano ecosystem coalesce around similar standards for document management and their translation

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

The following is our budget breakdown that of our action plans spanning 3 months :

1. Workflow automation : $2,700
2. Setting up the initial Markdown files to be automated
3. Continuously integrating the GitHub and GitLocalize files
4. Maintaining translation flow in GitHub and GitLocalize
5. Uploading all translations to the intended platforms
6. Hosting workshops to community enablers : $720
7. To teach and remind of the various tools used in the Eastern Town Hall such as; GitHub, GitLocalize (2 hours @2 per month/$60 per hour)
8. Marketing and communication : $1,650
9. Informing the respective community of this service through Eastern Town Hall marketing channels and materials
10. Informing beyond the Cardano communities/business of this service through direct marketing
11. Website maintenance : $1,500
12. Maintaining and updating the easterntownhall.com website to accommodate the following communities; Indonesian, Vietnamese, New Zealand/East Africa/English, Singapore/Korean/Philippines/Thailand and Japanese
13. Project Management : $1,750
14. Coordinating with partners (creating bridges, realizing synergies)
15. Controlling timeline (meeting KPI’s, submitting proposals, etc.)
16. Controlling the project costs
17. Project documentation and housekeeping : $1,000
18. GitHub admin across all communities
19. Community engagement : $4,680
20. Translation compensation : $3,680
21. NFT various tier creation compensation : $1,000
22. Software services & servers : $3,000

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

The team represents the initial Eastern Town Hall (ETH) Trusted Seed and incoming new members.

There are no roles, no leaders. Rather people establish themselves over time, through participation. We overlap and collaborate with Catalyst Swarm [ 4 ] and Catalyst School [ 5 ] and other community groups across Asia.

This collaborative effort brings a wealth of cultural and technical experience to Cardano. We are all very active in Catalyst, and community groups across our ecosystem. We are a diverse bunch united by the promise of Cardano : (in alphabetic order)

1. Core Team
2. Andreas Sosilo @andreassosilo - Indonesia: Software Developer, Cardano Foundation Ambassador for Indonesia, Cardano Indonesia Community Manager, Eastern Hemisphere Town Hall Team
3. Angela @AWG - Haskell Plutus Lecturer, Eastern Town Hall Team Member, Gimbalabs PPBL Team Member, CA, VCA, Plutus Pioneer, Atala Prism Pioneer, Challenge Team Member, Boostcamp Alumni.
4. Jack @PardusEidolon Financial markets software engineering, Haskell Developer, Music & Video Production, Eastern Townhall Co-Organiser
5. Linh @elpidanang - Australia: Digital Forensic and Cyber Security academic staff since 2004. Fund 7 and 8 Challenge Team member, Co-host for ETH. 
6. Mie Tran @mie.tran.0407 - Vietnam: English and International Business major by trained, experienced in working cross-continent corporations. Funded proposer, a Challenge Team member, Co-host for ETH.
7. Robert O'Brien @wolstaeb - New Zealand: Financial systems Software Engineer, Community Co-Organizer and Entrepreneur
8. Tien @tienna - Vietnam: Computer programmer, Cardano SPO (VILAI), Cardano community activist since 2018, funded proposer, a Challenge Team member and Co-host for ETH. 
9. Yuta Yuta @yutazz - Japan: Cardano Ambassador, Community Co-Organizer, Catalyst Fund 2 & 7 Recipient, Certified Public Accountant
10. Yan Tirta @yantirta - Indonesia: Cardano Indonesia Organizer, Community Advisor, Veteran Community Advisor, Eastern Catalyst School member, Catalyst Challenge Team member, Entrepreneur
11. Andy Sibuea @zicozibu - Indonesia: IT & Blockchain Educator, Eastern Catalyst School member
12. Consultant Team
13. Felix Weber @felixweber - France: Cardano Ambassador, Founder of Catalyst Swarm/School, Co-Founder of numerous other Cardano Communities
14. Stephen Whitenstall @swhitenstall - England: QA DAO Founder, Catalyst Swarm member, Challenge Team member and process documentation of Catalyst Circle and numerous other Cardano Communities

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

Yes, we will submit proposal in the next Catalyst Fund to operate our Town Hall, as this Town Hall operates to build communities in each countries of Eastern Hemisphere zone in the long run.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

Since we are using Git and GitHub for the Eastern Town Hall planning, organization, documentation, metrics are derived from GitHub activity and engagement.

Key Metric: Project Velocity [ 6 ], defined as a combination of base activity metric of commits and pull-requests taken from GitHub

Activity Metrics: captured as project activity in GitHub and cadence documents added and the speed of translation

Community Metrics: engagement behaviors broken down into four categories [ 7 ] for the Eastern Town Hall website to measure how our work is being spread and used in the Cardano ecosystem

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

• In the near term, funded project reports will be integrated and translated. We have also translated and maintained those translations of key Cardano and Catalyst documents and guides.

• Mid-term, we would like to expand the languages translated, and we are actively working with other groups across the Cardano Ecosystem to do this work.

• Longer-term success means we've established a whole decentralized workflow for translation and interpretation of any document, video, podcast etc., using the Cardano Network as the coordinating backbone. One of the simplest ways to onboard and earn ADA in the Cardano ecosystem system is to help translate, transcribe or interpret the material.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

This indeed is a proposal continuation of the continuously funded Eastern Town Hall proposal spanning from Fund 6, 7, 8 and now 9.

Previous proposal: https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/399478

Additional information

By close communication, coordination and collaboration with the Catalyst Swarm, The Catalyst School, the Ambassadors Guild and the Bridge Builders, we build a Network of Community initiatives able to provide an A to Z onboarding process which allows newcomers to appreciate a fast and safe onboarding process.

We have also set up an Eastern Town Hall Stake Pool (C3ETH) and are part of the Ryuuki Fund and Network.

References

[1] Eastern Town Hall GitHub and Translation pipeline : https://github.com/C3ETH/c3eth.github.io/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3ATranslation%3AContent

[2] Kubernetes SIG Docs group : https://kubernetes.io/docs/contribute/localization/#minimum-required-content  

[3] Eastern Town Hall GitLocalize Translation pipeline : https://gitlocalize.com/repo/6430

[4] Catalyst Swarm : http://catalystswarm.com

[5] Catalyst School : https://linktr.ee/CatalystSchool

[6] Project Velocity : https://chaoss.community/metric-project-velocity 

[7] Orbit : https://github.com/orbit-love/orbit-model