The translation communities: out of lost information world

Online translation communities such as Yeeyan offer a new way for many Chinese people to get information outside China, Hong Bo reviews Yeeyan and takes a close look at the trends of online translation communities in China.

We are in an Internet age. The Internet is bringing us much closer than ever, and we seem to have the information at our fingertips. But, we have to admit that the language is still a big hurdle which keeps language users from fully understanding the different other languages. Luckily, we have many translation communities already out there, like Yeeyan, BlogTranslation, TurinTranslation which bring us the latest web and technology news in other parts of the globe, and China Web 2.0 Review which keeps English-speaking readers in the know about the new looks on Chinese web 2.0 landsacape. They are what connects us well to the exotic culture, and have us keep our fingers at its pulse.

Not long time ago in China, some publishing houses were still the kings doing the translations and  bringing new cultural gems to Chinese people.  I can get some examples out of my memories here: "Walking toward the Future" series from Si Chuan People Press, "the Classic Academics: the Chinese-Translated Series" by Commercial Press, "Facing the World" from Liao Ning People Publishing House, "Culture and life: the Best Academic Collections" by Sian Lian Books. Those books brought newthink and thoughts as winds of change to the Chinese intellectuals and had great repercussions after coming out. 

Thanks to the Internet, we can virtually be in sync with people in other parts of the world, knowing almost simultaneously what others are doing, caring and talking about. More importantly, as many grass-root voluntary translators emerged, they have successfully replaced big houses to push through the language barriers, turning the mass information distribution pyramid upside down, we’re glad we will not rely on publishing guys to get the information we need, Instead, we can directly gain the latest technology, culture and art news from the volunteers around us. Among the numerous translation communities, Yeeyan is standing out because it’s better organized, and has more active translation groups where volunteers work collaboratively to bring us better pieces outside the Chinese blogosphere. A notable recent case is that Yeeyan guys are marshaling their workshops to work on some big books (Inside the Facebook is the case)-what they call translation 2.0.Then it can bring some checks to its volunteers by carving out some specialized niches (including independent publishing)

Back in 2004, Social Brain Foundation (SFB) unsuccessfully launched two collaborative translation projects—Dan Gillmor’s "Free Culture" and "We the Media"-in which voluntary translators worked through wikis in stead of blog-translation (a translator finds a blog post, then he has it translated by himself, not putting it on Yeean where he works on it together with others ). Unfortunately, the projects ended in tatters because they went so slowly that they even didn’t build a small readership.

Unlike SBF, Yeeyan has got a good kick-start and its own readership. More readers are getting involved in its groups. It’s now spreading itself elsewhere. So the growing enthusiasm renders unnecessary the notion that one or two volunteers will lose the energy to keep doing, since new ones will be part of it.

Yeeyan is in some ways a platform where its intrinsic value is bigger than any things

The founders of Yeeyan didn’t feel complacent, they don’t want to stick to Yeeyan as a mere one-way tunnel for information distribution, and they’ve created a Chinese-to-English translation community (Yeeyan English) to attract more native English-speaking readers who have theirs eyes on the web in China.

Still, I’m worried about the fate of Yeeyan:  Can it sustain itself over a long time? The question is rational and reasonable because I think Yeeyan would be likely to destabilize if it goes through what  Solidot (the Chinese clone of Slashdot) has suffered. Solidot ended up selling itself to CNET.com after it was unable to keep itself up and running, the acquisition was no bad for its founders, but it made its members feel uneasy, anyway.  

About Hong Bo(洪波): One of the most influential IT/tech bloggers and observers in China, Hong Bo is focused on the Internet in China. He is currently running PentaSeason Consultancies(五季咨询), a consulting firm dedicated to helping Internet upstarts explore the web 2.0 trends in China. During 2004-2006, he was the managing editor at Donews, the biggest online community for IT and tech professionals. Prior to Donews, he worked as an assistant editor-in-chief at ChinaByte, one of IT portals in China, in 2003. Before ChinaByte, he was a vice-manager at NetChina Technologies from 1998-2002.