I don't understand what the problem with translations. What is so special about english that it can be lift-and-shifted, but other languages cannot? What specific coordination is required from the translation team?

Translations could be lift-and-shifted the same way English can. The asymmetry is about responsibility after migration, not the migration itself.

A few concrete points:

 * Translations track the English version via revision hashes, so they
   depend on the English source. English is canonical; while the other
   languages are downstream of it.
 * A majority of translations have less than 50% coverage
   (https://doc.php.net/revcheck.php).
 * The whole point of the RFC is to hand documentation responsibility
   to the extension maintainers. That works for English because English
   is the de facto language. It does not work for the other languages.
   We can't reasonably assume an extension maintainer is fluent in
   German, French, Japanese, etc.
 * Structurally, carrying translations over would mean one contrib
   repository per language, mirroring the current doc-en / doc-de /
   doc-fr / doc-ja / etc. So the overhead the RFC is trying to
        reduce would be reproduced in the new location.
 * It is already difficult to keep a single language in sync with
   extension releases. Asking extension maintainers to keep N languages
   in sync. Languages that the extension maintainer can't read or
   understand. Thus a language the extension maintainer can't verify
   the contents of.

--
Regards,

Jordi Kroon

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