Stack Overflow en Español has Graduated!
It’s been four years since the Spanish site was proposed in Area 51 and we’ve just proven once more that international sites offer much to the users of those communities and to our network as a whole. I would like to announce that the Stack Overflow en Español community has graduated and will form a part of the network of sites as a full-fledged community for developers and coders around the world!
There have been dissenting voices over the creation of other Stack Overflow communities in the past but our answer has remained the same—we will continue to be fanatically engaged in providing opportunities to the world-wide community of developers in helping them to learn, grow, and level up. Spanish is the second most globally spoken language by native speakers and it is the official language of 20 countries. It is also the second most spoken language in the United States. All of this made the creation of a Stack Overflow community in Spanish a wise move.
The Spanish community has been very patient and has shown much rigor when faced with difficulties and challenges. Among the biggest obstacles we’ve overcome has been the integration of a single “community culture” from among the various countries represented there. Even though the language is the same, at least in theory, there are various cultural nuances that made it a challenge when trying to set a standard. Fortunately, the community has done that and we’ve come to show that what matters is the integrity of the person and their willingness to get along with others for the good of the whole. The language differences are overthrown by the desire to help and share our experiences and knowledge.
The Spanish site has also set a high standard for new and casual users. They have taken our Be Nice policy and have raised the bar. The goal was to create a place where people would feel welcomed and appreciated. We wanted a community where information could be shared without getting slammed by others on the first attempt simply because they’ve never used the site before. I know that currently our membership numbers are low compared to other network sites and that this may just be a fluke or trend that will die when large numbers of people join. However, I don’t believe that’s the case here. The members and the top users have all shown themselves to be respectful and kind towards new visitors and members. They are educating others in doing the same and setting an example for all to follow. I’m very hopeful that this will continue and extremely proud of our community for having achieved this.
I wanted to take just a few minutes to share with you that Stack Overflow continues to grow in its efforts to help developers worldwide. We are providing opportunities that many have not experienced or known about until now. Please join us in celebrating this most important achievement by sharing with those you know about the new and official Stack Overflow en Español!
¡Adelante!
41 Comments
“Spanish is the second most globally spoken language by native speakers and it is the official language of 2o countries.” Don’t you mean 20 countries? The quote throws an variable not defined: “‘o’ is not defined”
As long as the exception is not Stack Overflow, it is not under SO’s responsibility 😉
Yes, please don’t use “o” (or “O” or “ø” or “Ø”) as a zero, it’s an awful convention that should’ve died with the typewriter 20 years ago (along with using “l” or “I” as a one). There’s a zero key, and on the QWERTY keyboard it’s literally right next to the “o” that you typed (on a Dvorak keyboard I’ll admit it’s *marginally* more effort to type… oh the humanity!).
That was weird…the blog entry had “20” not “2o” but rendered it differently when published. I refreshed the entry and the numbers are back as they should. Thanks for the heads-up!
Spoken like a true PR! Never let truth rain on your day. Cultural differences have been no issue at all. The entry bar is so high that my few questions have gotten closed. Yet the same questions by veterans are upvoted. Nepotism is rampant. I’m heading back to the english site, they are harsh but fair.
Come on, ByeBye, “nepotism”? Do you know what that word means?
Localized versions of Stack Overflow are a breeze! Things that would be insta-down-close-voted on the English site are most welcome on Spanish/Portuguese versions. You can’t be serious…
Please, show 1 single example of “bar so high”. Are you sure your question was not a “gimme teh codez” kind? Do you know how to write a proper question? Did you read the Tour and How to Ask guides? Sorry to say, but I bet not.
“Things that would be insta-down-close-voted on the English site are most welcome on Spanish/Portuguese versions.” – This is not truth. I could provide you plenty of examples to the contrary, I will give you one: https://pt.stackoverflow.com/q/151323/132
They would probably be closed on the English site because *they’ve already been answered* on the English site…?
Once again your given example is supporting Rofolfo’s comment. The question is something that could be solved with some research before posting, the user did research and posted his doubts, wich were indeed answered.
There you have an example : https://es.stackoverflow.com/questions/10496/c%c3%b3mo-usar-la-funci%c3%b3n-kbhit-repetidas-veces
The question is quite clear. Has full code which is not too long. It even got two good answers. Yet it was closed as “it is not clear what is asked”. Happens all the time to newbies, same question by a 2k person would not have been closed.
As for nepotism: patronage bestowed or favoritism shown on the basis of family relationship, as in business and politic. You are right, it does not apply in a strict sense. Should have just said “Newbie discrimination and frienship based voting is rampant”. It’s not just my opinion, some people have been asking for “Vote the content, not the person” in meta, but with little success.
I think your example rather than support your opinion, is supporting Rodolfo’s.
I read the question and I find it, in fact, unclear. Nevertheless many people replied.
Oh yes, the question could have been more clear. Indeed some research
could have solved it, same with most questions though. How does that
match with “Things that would be insta-down-close-voted on the English
site are most welcome on Spanish/Portuguese versions.”? That was not so great a welcome… And I can give
you the opposite example, a well received question with ZERO research,
ZERO effort and easier to solve with some research than the closed one: https://es.stackoverflow.com/questions/2130/qu%c3%a9-significan-los-caracteres-de-y-en-javascript
.
Muito legal. Nós da comunidade brasileira estamos felizes com isso.
Wow, congratulations!
I wonder if it can become more active than the Russian site over time.
sounds counter-intuitive to the learning process. questions and answers in one community could help all the communities so it makes more sense to keep it all in one place. if you haven’t learned English then why are you learning computer languages instead? should probably re-prioritize.
Every single time that non-English versions of SO are mentioned, someone tries to reignite this tired old argument. It becomes boring.
1) Your English is not perfect either. Each first letter of your sentences should be capitalized.
2) Same thing with logic. “if you haven’t learned English then why are you learning computer languages instead?” is practically unintelligible. There seems to be a mysterious relationship between English and computer languages that you don’t explain.
3) We should leave this problem to search engines. I mean having them searching in a semantic (thus language-independent way) and then translating pages to whatever language the user prefers. We are probably just 1% there, but this shouldn’t stop us.
1) He never claimed that his English is perfect, nor do you need perfect English for English SO to be useful.
2) Pretty obvious that the relationship is that English and programming languages are both languages.
3) Call me when it’s at 100%. By jumping the shark you’re just fracturing the existing userbase and thus wastefully siphoning off the collective effort that gets put into ammassing programming related solutions.
Come on guys, the DRY principle is programming 101: the language-specific SOs are nothing but a redundancy. If you’re in software dev and don’t know basic English you’re not going far seeing as most manuals, specifications, documentation and even code itself is in English.
Isn’t the fact that “most manuals, specifications, documentation and even code itself is in English” a very good reason to have Stack Exchanges in other languages to help people who don’t speak English? DRY is for code; internationalization requires human intervention.
My argument is that it’s less effort for everyone to learn the single de facto language in the software development profession, rather than for all documentation, specifications and millions of solutions on SO to be translated into 20 languages. Plus, rather than putting all that effort into translating into the individual languages (including maintaining and updating those translations), the effort can be concentrated on a single resource, so to provide more *complete* documentation and more complete set of solutions: rather than the same old questions being asked answered times 20.
Besides, those developers are doing themselves a disfavour by not learning English. That new library on GitHub that you want to use? The docu is not in Spanish. That microcontroller manual you need to check? Never going to be in Spanish. That RFC your implementation needs to follow? Don’t hold your breath. Just think how disadvantaged a person is who cannot read and understand the docu for their language’s stdlib?
So how can Spanish SO help except as a translation service? And that’s a waste for said reasons.
guess UX is not exactly your area of expertise. Because everything you said in this post would cause an angry UX’er mob to go medieval
1) Don’t care
2) So is Klingon, and so is Spanish, can’t even understand what’s your point here
3) If people who doesn’t speak English are so bad, guess you won’t mind if you lose their effort. Plus, users who don’t speak English (or don’t want to, or don’t speak it very well), wouldn’t add anything to your so called “collective effort that gets put into ammassing programming related solutions”. So, not having a Spanish resource will leave out a lot of people, bar none, while having it will add them to the community and maybe even get some users to the English version.
Please correct me if you see any flaws on my logic, because as much as I think about it, can’t see how any of what you say is true (I admit documentation is a good point, but in any case it’s the user loss, it doesn’t affect you in any way whatsoever.
Also: believe it or not, there are thousands and thousands of sites about programming and code in Spanish. SO owners aren’t known for being stupid, they did this move because they noticed they were losing a great opportunity=heaps of money. You can be all cool and dandy with leaving a few million dollars on the table, but I bet SO owners won’t share your opinion
1) Uhm … ok?
2) His point was that when a software developer decides which languages (programming or otherwise) to learn, a wise dev would priorotise English.
3) Yes, your logic is flawed because you failed to consider:
“users who don’t speak English (or don’t want to, or don’t speak it very well), wouldn’t add anything”
If we don’t have language-specific SOs those people would be forced to learn English and thus contribute to the one and only SO, otherwise they will stay “bad” because they can just post on SO Espanol.
Also, Spanish speakers who already contribute to English SO might instead start contributing to Spanish SO. This is a way that effort will be wasted.
About SO owners and money… that’s really not helping your argument. Of course it’s a great opportunity for the owners to expand their userbase and profit, but it hurts the goal of amassing the biggest collection of programming solutions on the web.
OK, my logic is flawed. why don’t we tell things like they really are? You think that because you speak English you’re the center of the universe. And this answer shows that very clearly. Once we start by the truth, it’s way easier (and waaaaaaaay more honest) to discuss and understand things.
Now, I’ll ask you this: Do you really, really, really, REALLY think that there aren’t tens of thousands of programming and coding sites in Spanish? REALLY?!?!?!?!
And about SO owners, not only it helps my argument: IT’S THE ARGUMENT, only that you’re too blind to see it: if there wasn’t a SO Spanish version, all the people who needs to learn or ask any programming or coding question will go to any of the thousands of sites you ignore about their existence. And they’re in Spanish, go figure.
However, SO owners, being as smart as they’re, said “hey, instead of leaving the money on the table, let’s get it for ourselves. “Now we can have targeted ads, country specific job searches and more! And lots of money with 0 effort! Yummy!”
Now, do you understand how THIS IS THE WHOLE ARGUMENT? It’s not really that difficult, any person who can program could easily understand a basic business setup . Just a tip: this post is tagged with the taxonomies: “Announcements, Community, Company, Internationalization”. Take a look to the last 2: one is about business, the other is a basic UX concept that drives even more business (money) if appropriately done. And this is what it ALL is about: business. Your views about the universe are unimportant to those concepts, sorry to tell you.
You’re being so dramatic it’s hard not to laugh.
Suppose the majority of the important developments in computers, software and engineering in general in the 2nd half of the 20th century was done by Hispanic countries, so that in 2017 the de facto language in software development was Spanish: code, documentation, protocols, etc. all in Spanish. Probably in that fictional universe Spanish was also the de facto language of business. If I chose to pursue a career in software dev I’d happily learn Spanish, because it’s just such an advantage.
Of course that didn’t happen (I don’t know what you guys were doing in that time instead). Besides, don’t you guys learn English as a subject is school every year since a young age? No excuse not to know at a level enough to read English, especially for engineers.
And your “whole argument” is that the only reason Espanol SO was created is for SO owners to get money? That’s in their interest, sure, but not in yours. It’s also in the interest of lazy Spanish speakers who don’t want to learn English and slept through all their English lessons at school. It’s not in the interest of English SO and the internet as a whole, which will be spammed with more redundant, duplicate information.
you’re so clueless it would be funny if it wasn’t so…. let’s leave it at clueless.
Good luck in your 1 block world :thumbsup:
Ah, the things people say when all their arguments were defeated 🙂
Even if Google translate were flawless, you still write (or at least should) your code in English.
knowing 100-200 words used in code isn’t the same as learning a language with thousands of words, its grammar and rules. There’s quite a difference
First of all, writing code you are going to utilize a lot more than 100-200 English words. Secondly, it’s a misconception that you have to learn the grammar of a language in order to speak it. In fact I would argue that learning grammar is counterproductive.
I code in PHP and JS and barely use more than 50 or 60. But even more important: those words are abstractions that represent an order to a computer, so English speakers have to learn them as well. Tell an Oxford professor that never coded a line “hey, don’t worry, you can code because it’s in English” and see what happens. Bottom line is those FEW words have to be learned by me in Argentina and by John Smith in Washington.
As for grammar, it’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it. I speak 4 languages (English is not my best as you may notice), and have some knowledge of words in German. Yet I don’t get ANYTHING from an article in German, because I don’t know ANYTHING about German language rules. Same will happen to anyone not knowing English.
Anyways, as I said in another answer: SO made this for money. Spanish speaking users will be happy. It’s a win-win for everybody, exception made of a tiny 1%. But well, you can’t make everybody happy all the time.
(Tip: there’s a reason why Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Uber, Facebook, INstagram, [nsert any successful name here] have versions in Spanish and other languages as well. I’ll leave this for you as homework to see if you can find it out by yourself)
It’s not an opinion, it’s a fact. Thousands of people learn languages everyday with only a little grammar or none. And children always learn languages with zero grammar. You can tell the difference, people who learn with grammar speak really slow and with a heavy accent.
I’ve said this before too. It’s not a win win. It’s counterproductive.
Are you concerned that English-only speakers (e.g. me and probably you) won’t get the benefit of the knowledge of the Spanish speakers? Why do they owe you their efforts? I’m guessing you wouldn’t be willing to learn Spanish so you could contribute to a Spanish-only speakers’ site.
No what he means is that if you don’t make the effort of learning English, you are shooting yourself in the foot. There is so much more programming information and resources in English. English is easy, programming is hard. Plus you get the added benefit of knowing how to speak English. I speak three languages fluently, including Spanish.
The majority of developers in my company doesn’t know or know only the basics of english language, and most of them are very good developers, some of them having more than 10 years in IT area.
There are already programming forums in other languages — It is a fact. The question is: whether (in light of that) creating localized versions such as es.stackoverflow.com “makes the internet better” (there were and still are programming forums in English — it is safe to say that creating Stack Overflow in English is making the internet better https://meta.stackoverflow.com/a/254773 )
so you’re saying the priority for an IT guy is to learn English first, and then (and only then) learn programming? This is curious to say the least. Guess hundreds of thousands of programmers who don’t speak English (some of them incredibly talented) are doing it all wrong
This is a great step. Kudos StackOverflow.
We, at https://hackr.io, have also found out that online programming courses/tutorials submitted in Español fare really well in terms of programming community engagement. Hope the same for SO!
Congrats! Now you should follow the steps of http://www.uxpanol.com and create an UX community in Spanish as well! (disclaimer: I’m Uxpañol webmaster)
Congrats! Great to see, hopefully it will help our Spanish speaking brethren as much as helps us English speakers
FYI – one thing I noticed – the celebrations.jpg is 26.2MB…might want to make this smaller?
Bien Juan! Encantados de haber sido los partners del evento de bienvenida a la página en español! http://www.Ironhack.com!