Q: In the network analysis of these communities, how do you collect data, and how do you measure and define the links in the node?
JK: Sometimes we remove sites that do a lot of internal linking, but we do find additional clusters.
Q: For Zhang Lei – what are some of the challenges that the translation communities are facing, e.g. copyright issues from the West, or other issues from the East?
LZ: There are many challenges we face; perhaps the first is whether or not we will survive. We have formal collaboration with content owners to get their consent in translating, but obviously not all of them will comply for that or have time to answer those queries. But we think what we are doing is in line with their intentions in a way that doesn’t conflict with their business interests. We do comply with requests to take down content on a discretionary basis.
We do receive pressure from regulators because our servers are in China. Our web site got blocked down several times–but we still see greater freedom, and we think that we are doing something constructive for China.
Q: For ZL – how would you like to grow yourself in the future, in terms of your user base, your translator bases? How can others be more involved?
LZ: I can get into more product design details, but we attract new users who come to read the content and find the site through the links on the translated site.
Q: I appreciate the effort to translate to Chinese, but what about adding more Chinese-language content that is now underrepresented in the web space? What about minorities in China?
LZ: Yes, thanks, it’s another strategy for a startup to grow. Obviously, the largest percentage of speakers use Mandarin, so that area we have to tackle first to allow this community to bootstrap.
Q: There’s also the Mongolian China, the Tibetan China, and the 55 other minorities in China. Can these minorities and other rural youth in scattered populations also be considered?
LZ: Yes, I think that’s a great idea. The founders of the community have to be the core member of the community; now we can try to see how we can extend that and see if others can share the idea.