If the Sequences will be translated by volunteers, they are the ones that should do the cost-benefit analysis. In my opinion, translating everything would be an overkill, but translating selected articles could be useful. Perhaps the most rational approach would be to translate something, then measure the impact, and then decide whether to continue or not. The answer may be different for different languages.
anyone remotely rational will probably have already prioritized learning English
English is very useful, there is no doubt about it.
However, I know a few people who don’t speak English, for various reasons. Some of them claim to be not gifted for languages; they tried learning, and they failed. Just because languages are easy for me, they are not easy for everyone. Others have learned different languages, which at the moment seemed like a good choice, and now they hesitate about learning yet another language. There are some people who were reading LW when they were 13 years old; I can imagine a 13 years old person that hadn’t mastered English yet, especially if they have bad teachers. I like the idea of providing some useful texts for these people. (Just like I like that some people are translating HP:MoR to other languages.)
Learning English is a rational choice, but people should not be required to learn English before they can learn how to be rational. Just like they don’t have to learn English before they can use Wikipedia.
If there is a rule that the discussion under the translated article should be in the same language, then we can translate a few articles and look at the discussion below them. If there is no discussion, or just the same 2-3 people talking, then it does not make sense to continue. If there are 10 or 20 people talking, then… well, it depends on translator’s cost-benefit analysis.
(There are usually more people reading than talking on web. I heard about the 1:10 rule—of 10 people reading the site, 1 will register to write comments; of 10 people writing comments, 1 will write an article.)
Then there is a question about type of the impact: are all those LW readers improving their lives, or just procrastinating? This I don’t know. (I propose a “null hypothesis” that the ratio of readers who really benefit from reading LW will be approximately the same in all languages.)
If there is no discussion, or just the same 2-3 people talking, then it does not make sense to continue.
The new readers attracted by the translated texts should have some time to find the site; if you translate one article on LW into Swahili, there will almost surely no discussion, even if there was a big number of potential Swahili speaking LWers: those who already read the English version have probably commented on the original article and have no reason to comment on the translation; for those who would become regular users of the Swahili version a single translated article isn’t enough.
If the Sequences will be translated by volunteers, they are the ones that should do the cost-benefit analysis. In my opinion, translating everything would be an overkill, but translating selected articles could be useful. Perhaps the most rational approach would be to translate something, then measure the impact, and then decide whether to continue or not. The answer may be different for different languages.
English is very useful, there is no doubt about it.
However, I know a few people who don’t speak English, for various reasons. Some of them claim to be not gifted for languages; they tried learning, and they failed. Just because languages are easy for me, they are not easy for everyone. Others have learned different languages, which at the moment seemed like a good choice, and now they hesitate about learning yet another language. There are some people who were reading LW when they were 13 years old; I can imagine a 13 years old person that hadn’t mastered English yet, especially if they have bad teachers. I like the idea of providing some useful texts for these people. (Just like I like that some people are translating HP:MoR to other languages.)
Learning English is a rational choice, but people should not be required to learn English before they can learn how to be rational. Just like they don’t have to learn English before they can use Wikipedia.
How would one measure the impact? I thought this was still a question mark for the English version.
If there is a rule that the discussion under the translated article should be in the same language, then we can translate a few articles and look at the discussion below them. If there is no discussion, or just the same 2-3 people talking, then it does not make sense to continue. If there are 10 or 20 people talking, then… well, it depends on translator’s cost-benefit analysis.
(There are usually more people reading than talking on web. I heard about the 1:10 rule—of 10 people reading the site, 1 will register to write comments; of 10 people writing comments, 1 will write an article.)
Then there is a question about type of the impact: are all those LW readers improving their lives, or just procrastinating? This I don’t know. (I propose a “null hypothesis” that the ratio of readers who really benefit from reading LW will be approximately the same in all languages.)
The new readers attracted by the translated texts should have some time to find the site; if you translate one article on LW into Swahili, there will almost surely no discussion, even if there was a big number of potential Swahili speaking LWers: those who already read the English version have probably commented on the original article and have no reason to comment on the translation; for those who would become regular users of the Swahili version a single translated article isn’t enough.
Bearing the consequences isn’t necessarily related to ability to make correct decisions.