Multi-Language Documentation in Reverse

Note: This is a longer version of my lighting talk and Write the Docs EU 2014.

Delivering content in many languages is great. It’s also quite resource consuming. So, you have to decide what really needs multi-language support and what doesn’t.

My point is, products should be translated, dev docs should not (unless the docs are the product).

According to my experience:

1. English docs are fresh, others are not, because there’s not enough community effort to support them
2. Any developer can read technical stuff in English

In other words, supporting multi-language docs is expensive and unnecessary.

The real challenge is not to create content in other languages after the English orginal, but the opposite—to create content in English after the original in some other language or languages written by the developers.

Solution

Let people do what they can, but nothing over it. Developers can read in English, so let them proofread the content written by a tech writer. When you need new content, let the developers write it in their native language; a professional writer will then rewrite it in proper English.

This is not as simple as “let engineers write the docs,” but for a non-English speaking team this appears to be the optimal route.