I think translating the documentation is a wrong move.
(1) The translated documentation will need to be maintained, and the subset of Hugo users that speak a certain language and are willing to contribute is probably incredibly tiny.
(2) I doubt how helpful translated docs are when the forum is still English. If you cannot read English well enough, how would such a person benefit from the forum?
(3) There are a lot of nuances of translating a technical English documentation to another language, especially when people of that other language then in their head have to convert the translated documentation back to English when asking for help. I think that gives a lot of miscommunication on the forum with time and energy wasted talking past each other.
(4) Webdevelopers, Hugo’s target audience, already live in a world where English is the main language. While a translated Hugo documentation might help those not sufficient enough in English, they still have a lot of tools in their workflow with English-only docs (so still are required to go through English).
(5) One argument for translating the documentation is that it will help people “understand” Hugo better. I think understanding doesn’t necessarily depend on the language in which it’s written but rather how it’s written. If Hugo docs are all written with accessible English – like you’d hear on television – then the understanding might be better than if we try to translate complex, academic-like English into another language.
(6) Translating Hugo documentation can, ironically enough, be less inclusive. What if Bep decides to write an in-depth tutorial on Hugo in Norwegian? The quality of the English docs will be less compared to that Norwegian content, and then we’d need to find another Norwegian Hugo user that can translate that content into the English docs.
Or what if Rdwatters would be German and made all of his docs contributions in German? That would not even reach 5% of the usefulness of his current work. My point: the Hugo project will benefit the most if everyone contributes in English. And since other people can easily verify and check English articles (more possible eyeballs), that content is also easier to improve on even when the initial version was written by a non-native English speaker.
Just to clarify; English is not my primary nor secondary language and so am not biased that way. But speaking from a pragmatic standpoint, keeping the docs English only seems the most helpful to me.
