RFI - Technical writer and project manager for new Zcash information portal and international translation effort

We (@ZcashGrants) wanted to open for community input the below draft as we polish it into an RFP.

Credit to @souptacular for the text


RFI - Technical writer and project manager for new Zcash information portal and international translation effort

Zcash is a global project, and it is critical that documentation and information about Zcash is accessible to everyone, regardless of their language. This grant entails spearheading an effort to write documentation and informational pages that details the history of Zcash, the various wallet options for end users, how to run your own node, and how someone can get involved on a technical level with Zcash development. You will be responsible for researching and writing the initial site in English over a period of 3 months. After the English version of the site is complete, you will then be leading an effort to review and accept more information to the English version of the site from volunteers as well as coordinate translation efforts for the site from volunteers. Throughout the course of this project you will be receiving advisory assistance from ZCG and various Zcash entities/developers to help you in your efforts.

Below are links relating to ethereum.org and their translation effort for example:

ethereum.org: Home | ethereum.org (notice the language tab in the top right)

ethereum.org translation program information: Translation Program | ethereum.org

ethereum.org crowdin localizations page: Ethereum.org Translations translations in Crowdin

The duration of this grant is 6 months with the potential opportunity for continuation after the grant ends to continue managing the information portal. You will be required to fill out KYC documents with the Zcash Foundation who is responsible for the administration of this grant.

Requirements:

  • Strong understanding of Zcash and blockchain fundamentals.
  • Proficient in writing in English.
  • Good people skills.

Nice to Haves:

  • Previous project management experience.
  • Previous software development experience.
  • Previous technical writing experience.
9 Likes

I’m interested :smiley:

Edit
A few ideas I have:

MVP v0

  • This all should be handled by one person/team building the MVP.
  • MVP for this effort would be a GitHub organization where the open source contents and a website to publish the contents.
  • The project manager(s) will scope the types of the contents that needs to be produced.
  • For the first version, we can use services like wordpress.com to kickstart the project. Writers could collaborate on GitHub but the contents will be published by the admins.

v1

  • For this stage, we should start to welcome more community contribution.
  • As soon as the MVP is live, the translation effort begins. Leveraging the global ambassadors, we could start by inviting volunteer translations (this is also the case with ethereum.org translation). If possible, I would love to work with @cypherpunkZero @rosenthvl team on reserving a few NFTs for the translators as a badge/proof of contribution.
  • We can also start building the website with CI/CD setup pulling the contents and translations from the repository. GitHub is the right platform for this early stage.
  • Crowdin is great for large-scale translations and they’re also supportive of open source projects like ours.

future versions

  • We can look for professional translators for languages with significant traffic or strategically important for Zcash.
  • We can also do bounties for contents that we want to be produced. I envision the project manager(s) of this will stay for the long-term.
  • To accommodate writers not familiar with GitHub, perhaps we should find a way to allow for collaborative editing. However, all article that is published should live on GitHub, ensuring anyone can pick up the effort if/when the original team is off the project.
  • To ensure long-term decentralization, we should distribute the administration authority to several parties that the community trusts. Other than individuals, I would also like to see ECC, ZF, and ZCG invited. Any invited party is free to choose if they want to participate or not.

Just an FYI, I was a translator for ethereum.org v1 around two years ago and I was in contact with their translation coordinator. I’ll try to contact her again to ask about her experience managing the project.

5 Likes

A few questions come to mind:

  • Are you looking for one person to fill the dual role, or is a team that fits the requirements (and ultimately the budget) acceptable?
  • Is provisioning the website part of the ask, or just generating the content?
    • If provisioning the website is part of the ask, are you looking for something “designed” or is something like ReadTheDocs.org or GitBook acceptable?

I would also recommend separating the work into two tracks (especially for project schedule/milestones), one for the docs aimed at users and another for the docs aimed at developers. The developer docs track will move slower because it will need a lot more input and review from the developers (from ECC, ZF, wallet teams, etc.) and they’re usually quite busy developing.

Edit:
I think it would also be helpful for teams to include an outline in the RFP, listing the information expected to be collected/written at a high level. Something along the lines of: the website should include but is not limited to:

  • Zcash history
  • Zcash …
2 Likes

Hi everyone,
Do we know when this will be published? I have some graduate students that are interested in contributing to this effort.

2 Likes

Happy to see you joined the forums Dr. Goldston! Right now the Zcash Community Grants Committee is soliciting feedback from the community, before they proceed to publish the RFP.

Does the translation part need to be included in the RFP?

If its a one person role or team, you should make it clear…

Good questions. We don’t have strict requirements for staff size. A team of 2 makes total sense to me, but so would a single individual with the right skillset.

Provisioning the website would be part of the work. We’ll make that clear in the final version. We’d be totally open to leveraging a documentation framework or other pre-designed theme to make this easy to build and maintain.

I want to make it clear that these RFP’s are open-ended, and folks are welcome to apply for grants covering specific parts of the RFP that are relevant to their skills and experience. We may approve multiple grants to satisfy this single RFP if we think that’s the best way forward.

Good call.

Translation is a community effort to be spearheaded under the “Project Management” umbrella. The applicant does not need to do the translation.

Welcome to the forums, Justin! :wave: We’ll probably have this polished and posted as an RFP in ~2 weeks.

4 Likes