The staff of INT decided to run a survey in March 2022, to get a better idea of how we can engage people with the INT community and translation archive. As staff, we wanted to get some feedback from the SCP community so that we can make this a more engaging space for writers, readers and translators.
May 2022 Update: Following on from this survey, we redesigned the INT Hub on EN and encouraged translators to post their works on the English-language site.
The Results
1. Which SCP branches are you active on?
(e.g. use their chat or contribute articles - not the languages you speak)
Note that respondents were able to select multiple branches, so the total sums to more than 100%:
| Response |
# of Responses |
% |
| EN (English) |
568 |
64.5 |
| INT (International Translation Archive) |
236 |
26.8 |
| None |
104 |
11.8 |
| JP (Japanese) |
50 |
5.7 |
| ES (Spanish) |
49 |
5.6 |
| PT (Portuguese) |
38 |
4.3 |
| FR (French) |
35 |
4.0 |
| Unofficial Branch |
35 |
4.0 |
| VN (Vietnamese) |
31 |
3.5 |
| CN (Chinese) |
26 |
3.0 |
| IT (Italian) |
25 |
2.8 |
| DE (German) |
20 |
2.3 |
| ZH-TR (Traditional Chinese) |
16 |
1.8 |
| PL (Polish) |
15 |
1.7 |
| RU (Russian) |
12 |
1.4 |
| KO (Korean) |
11 |
1.2 |
| CS (Czech) |
7 |
0.8 |
| UA (Ukrainian) |
5 |
0.6 |
| TH (Thai) |
3 |
0.3 |
| Total Respondents |
881 |
100 |
As you'd expect from an English Language survey about the International Translation Archive, most respondents were members of EN and/or INT. The fact that many people not already part of the INT community responded is very encouraging, since those are the people we'd like to reach and engage with the most. However, our respondents represent every branch of the SCP wiki, including unofficial branches as well as people who wouldn't consider themselves a member of any branch, so although our survey demographics aren't necessarily representative, they are at least varied!
We were able to break down the results of questions 2, 6, 9 and 10 by branch affiliation (specifically looking at people who answered "EN (English)", and people who only answered "EN (English)"), but it had no effect on the overall results, so the answers to those questions don't seem to vary based on whether or not people are active on EN or not.
2. Which do you think would be the best idea for an INT contest?
| Response |
# of Responses |
% |
| Authors from all branches write & post their articles on INT directly, alone or in teams |
351 |
39.8 |
| Authors write on their own branch for the contest then translate to INT for the actual contest |
300 |
34.1 |
| Each branch selects one of its existing articles and posts it on INT |
198 |
22.5 |
| None of the above |
32 |
3.6 |
| Total Respondents |
881 |
100 |
It seems that people are more interested in an original content contest rather than one between existing articles, which is good to know. Respondents were a little more divided on whether authors should write on their own wikis then translate, or directly on INT, we'll have to think about this more, although if we wanted to we could run a contest in which both options were ways to participate.
3. Your suggestion for a contest or other INT event:
We received a lot of suggestions, and while some were a little too silly or overly specific to be useful to us, many of them were very helpful.
The general consensus was that an INT contest should encourage collaboration and competition between authors from different branches, and also encourage crossovers between locations, canons and Groups of Interest from different branches. We have previous ran an Internation Groups of Interest Contest, and while there were issues we'd want to resolve or avoid in future, it was a very effective way to get people engaging with content from other branches.
Some ideas we're considering based on the suggestions include a team-based International Canons competion, similar to the GoI contest but using canons from other branches instead, a themed competition in which articles are submitted from different branches, and an INT-series SCP contest, in which two (or more) authors from different branches collaborate to create INT label SCPs.
4. What would you be interested in doing if such a contest was held?
Note that respondents were able to select multiple options, so the total sums to more than 100%:
| Response |
# of Responses |
% |
| Writing |
423 |
48.0 |
| Reviewing and correcting entries |
274 |
31.1 |
| Translating entries from INT to your branch (after) |
179 |
20.3 |
| Translating entries from your branch to INT (before) |
169 |
19.2 |
| No Answer |
150 |
17.0 |
| Total Respondents |
881 |
100 |
A lot of respondents wanted to write, again suggesting that a contest for original content would be the most popular. There were plenty of people interested in reviewing and correcting content, and quite a few potential translators, which could allow for contest entries to be written in another language and then translated into English.
5. If you'd be interested in reviewing articles, please leave your preferred contacts (Wikidot/Discord) so we can message you:
We'd like to thank the nearly 200 people who expressed interest in this, we'll be getting in contact with you at some point. We're glad that it seems that there are plenty of people who'd be interested in helping out translators.
6. Do you think more frequent contests would raise your overall interest in the INT community?
| Response |
# of Responses |
% |
| Yes |
717 |
81.4 |
| No |
117 |
13.3 |
| No Answer |
47 |
5.3 |
| Total Respondents |
881 |
100 |
The vast majority of respondents like the idea of an INT contest, so it does seem like something we should be doing. We're going to be considering the various suggestions we've received.
7. What would be your preferred way(s) to engage with the international SCP community?
Note that respondents were able to select multiple branches, so the total sums to more than 100%:
| Response |
# of Responses |
% |
| The SCP-INT Wiki |
555 |
63.0 |
| The official INT Discord server |
307 |
34.8 |
| A dedicated space on your own branch's wiki |
193 |
21.9 |
| A dedicated space on your own branch's server |
118 |
13.4 |
| I don't particularly want to |
111 |
12.6 |
| No Answer |
55 |
6.2 |
| Total Respondents |
881 |
100 |
It seems that people prefer to engage with us on dedicated INT spaces, although it does seem like it's worth us having a presence elsewhere. While most of our casual conversations and staff interaction happens on our Discord, it is worth keeping in mind that most people prefer to engage with the wiki, and we'll need to think of ways to make it more accessible to new readers who may not know where to start.
8. What is your current opinion on the INT Hub page on EN?
We have an INT hub on EN, created to bring selected translations to a wider English-speaking audience, but it's only for articles posted by staff (omitting a number of other translations tagged as "international"), something we haven't done for a few years. We wanted to get opinions on the current state of the page from our respondents.
We received a wide range of responses - some people thought that it could be made more visually interesting, but a lot of others liked the simplicity, so we'll keep that in mind if we do a redesign in future. However, we did receive quite a few comments on it seeming sparse and with uneven coverage. Working out what to do with this page is one of our priorities as INT representatives, but we are considering ways to feature new articles on it, while also encouraging people to check out the main INT wiki and not just remain on EN.
9. Do you think translations should be posted on EN?
| Response |
# of Responses |
% |
| Yes, whenever authors and translators want to |
480 |
54.5 |
| Yes, as part of staff-approved "INT spotlights" |
256 |
29.1 |
| No, translations should only be posted on INT |
89 |
10.1 |
| No Answer |
56 |
6.4 |
| Total Respondents |
881 |
100 |
The practice of posting translations onto EN is older than the existence of INT - this translation from Russian seems to be the first. It's currently covered by the rules on collaborative posting - translations can be posted on EN, but both the author(s) and translator(s) must be credited and give permission.
A lot of people are unaware that this is allowed, and whether or not this policy should be made more restrictive has been something we've debated for a while as INT staff. It's interesting to see that there's division in our respondents as well, but it does seem that most people are fine with the posting of translations on EN, either by individuals or as part of official INT promotion by staff. This is definitely something for us to come back to and keep in mind going forward, especially since translations on EN tend to get a lot more attention than translations posted only on INT!
10. Would you like it if "author posts" explaining specific cultural/social/overall contextual elements were more common on translations?
| Response |
# of Responses |
% |
| Yes |
768 |
87.2 |
| No |
57 |
6.5 |
| No Answer |
56 |
6.4 |
| Total Respondents |
881 |
100 |
This seems almost unanimous, so we'll definitely be encouraging more people to add translators notes to the work they post on INT.
If you'd like to discuss these results further, feel free to comment in the discussion of this page, or join the INT Discord to discuss it with the community further.
Analysis done by 
Jerden, with thanks to 
Dr Lekter for running the survey and for 
slashannemoo for pointing out some initial graphing errors, as well as to everyone that answered, promoted and commented on the survey.
The survey was ran in SurveyHeart, read and reformatted in Microsoft Excel, and graphed using the Seaborn Python package. The answers to multiple choice questions and the python code used for graphing are attached to this page.
