In the last TC meeting, we discussed the future of translations. Here are some notes:

Current Situation

• Translations are quite outdated across all languages.
• Currently, we rely on the community for translation efforts.
• There are instances where users encounter outdated information on the website, which can lead to frustration.
• We are planning to migrate the website, and updating/moving translations will add a significant workload when we release the content.

Proposed Solution

The idea is to explore using automated translations by default (machine translations). This would require some effort to build the CI system and ensure that the English version of the documentation is optimized for machine translation (plain English, simplified structure, etc.).

This approach could greatly simplify the migration, as it allows us to focus on i18n support rather than handling both translation and content migration.

Of course, we would still enable the community to tweak and improve translations as needed. This way, we can continue providing high-quality documentation for everyone.

Let’s Discuss

What do you think? (@crandmck, @expressjs/docs-wg, and @expressjs/express-tc)

Additionally, I wonder if we should consider freezing translation efforts for now (such as issues like #1480, #1553) and redirecting that team’s efforts toward planning the future website so we can kick that off in 2025.