HIP 42

Allow Spanish Phrase/ Permitir Frase en Castellano/Español

Authors: Lety (Laura Leticia Lopez), nicobilinkis.eth status: Fase 3 Created: 2022/05/30 Gov forum discussion

Abstract / Resumen

PoH registrants, or those who renew their registration, will be allowed to say the phrase that is required to register in Spanish at the time of recording their video. Those who choose to do it in Spanish will not need to record a video in English. All subsequent validation that is required must be in Spanish if it was the language utilized in the video.

Motivation / Motivación

• Proof of Humanity and the Universal Basic Income emphasizes that income should be a right that is universal for all people disregarding their origin or status. This universality concept could be expanded to the other aspects of the platform. Although being a de facto language spoken in large parts of developed societies and persons that have access and resources to afford quality language education, English is not the language with the most native speakers. Users should have an alternative option to English. This would solve the current limitation of not including peoples native languages and it would remove this need.

A total of 580 million people speak Spanish worldwide, 7.6% of the world’s population. Of these, 483 million - three million more than a year ago - are native Spanish speakers, making Spanish the second most spoken mother tongue in the world by number of speakers (Source: www.cervantes.es).

Right now the Spanish PoH community is not only very agile but has a larger number of active humans on their networks than the English community. We believe that giving it the space it deserves is important to expand, even more, the growth of our PoH community. In the week of May 22-29, 2022, while the first vote was held to elect the new Mission Board Members, the Proof of Humanity Spanish Telegram group had 79% of the total activity of the groups, while 19% was occupied by the English group, and the rest by the Italian, German, Catalan and Russian speaking groups. It is also important to mention that of the eight applicants, five are native Spanish speakers.

We consider that community activity is highly important as self-regulation, which implies that there are people within the Spanish-speaking community who are trained and currently making challenge requests to keep the registry curated.

• We also believe it is essential that registrants know exactly what they are saying when they are registering, and in this way prevent pronunciation errors of native Spanish speakers.

• On the other hand, and from a more philosophical aspect, which again focuses on what it means to cover needs, we can also understand that the adoption of the languages of active communities has to do with covering all aspects of the pyramid of human needs proposed in the psychological theory of Abraham Maslow, and also to put into practice what the detractors of this theory claim, which is the theory of Human Scale Development, in which Max-Neef, Elizalde and Hopenhayn proposed a radical change in the way of understanding development, which at that time was assimilated with economic growth, as opposed to this vision, they proposed a development based on a human scale. In the face of this vision, they proposed a development based on people and the improvement of their quality of life. Understanding the complexity of these theories and seeking a balance between them would turn the entire Proof of Humanity community into an overcoming instance, combining the aspects of both theories since they are taken into account from the very foundations of the project (which are the ones we are building every time we make a Hip that allows us to improve and expand the protocol) that allows us to, We hope that this will be replicated, generating active participation and better opportunities for access to the registry without losing sight of its curation, which implies, precisely, a very active participation of the native speakers of each language that is incorporated.

• At the moment the comparison of records using voice biometric data is not used within Proof of Humanity, however, we know that it is possible that it will be applied in the future. Therefore, and in response to the request for security reinforcement requested by people in the community, we investigated the following: the development of the open source algorithms that exist so far still confuse similar voices in the same language (in the case of the algorithms that unlock the cell phones we use every day there is, in fact, a warning explaining that anyone with a voice frequency similar to ours can unlock our device if we use only that security measure). However they are able to recognize similar voice frequencies in different languages without problems: we can test it by speaking to our device in other languages. Private voice recognition algorithms, which are already being used in some banks (such as BBVA with company Veridas. Source: https://veridas.com/autenticacion-con-voz/) as an additional security measure, can isolate unique frequencies to be used for personal identification, and is performed independently of text and language. To summarize the point: in case it is necessary to use this technology in the future, we will surely be able to access or develop, which would be even more interesting, as a community, a recognition algorithm that isolates the frequency of the voice in search of uniqueness without text or language requirements, so it is not an impediment today or in the future that each person uses his native language to make the video that requires registration.

• We also know that there are many followers of the phrase “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, popularized in English by Bert Lance, an American civil servant, during Jimmy Carter’s administration. The underlying belief in that phrase was that when things work “right” they don’t need money or effort to be changed. But that was in the past. Right now, unless your business is a monopoly, an oligopoly or you want your business to live in the past - for a short period of time, for sure - you are not expected to change. So change is something you have to believe in, embrace it and make it happen. What you do well now, you can certainly do better and improve. And this applies to technology in Web3, you expect the process and your experience to work, from start to the end, and you look for much more every day, among those things, recognition of what each community brings to the table. The lower the friction in an interaction, the greater the chances that the experience will be better. This is what Business Transformation of a new decentralized on-chain era is all about, waking up and fixing what is not yet broken.

Implementation / Implementación

The primary document must be modified adding the following paragraph:

“Only native spanish speakers should say the phrase: “Certifico que soy una persona humana real y que no estoy actualmente en este registro”. If other words or extra validation phrases are required, they must be said in Spanish as well. Casual omission of words of the phrase, or accents are not grounds for removals or challenges and rejections. Mispronunciations of the words in that phrase are. Submitters should speak in their normal voice and should not attempt mimicking someone else’s voice. Speaking before or after the required sentence is acceptable.”

Specification / Especificación

Native Spanish speakers who choose to make the video in Spanish may do so by saying the phrase: “Certifico que soy una persona humana real y que no estoy actualmente en este registro”. (It is the direct, non gendered, translation of the current phrase) If other words or extra validation phrases are required or used, they should also be pronounced in Spanish. Humans who are not native Spanish speakers should choose the English language, not Spanish, because it’s not going to be allowed mispronunciation. Clarification: That is the reason why the Spanish phrase is only recommended for native speakers, it will not be anyone’s task to determine whether or not the people are native speakers but that the requested phrase is pronounced without any mispronuntiations.

Rationale / Justificación

This Hip was made to meet the constant request of the Spanish Speakers community that requested on countless occasions that the registration could be in their native language (the first request in the community telegram group dates back to March 2021). The reason why this particular phrase in Spanish was chosen (i.e. choosing “I am a real human person” instead of “I am a real human being”) is because words in Spanish are gendered, which is why it cannot be translated directly since there could be people within the community who do not feel comfortable with a binary expression. We believe that such a phrase would therefore be appropriate.

Special Thanks / Agradecimientos Especiales

In the first place we want to thank all the Proof of Humanity Telegram Community in Spanish, since this idea came from there and we´re just capturing it here. And a Special Thanks to the admins and collaborators that support us every day in this great community! And at last but least to Ludoviko.eth, Mathaius.eth, V4len.eth, @MoniK74, @Onediss and Lufo for their invaluable contribution.