In working on the web site I realise how western-centred most of my web projects have been.
I’ve come to rely on fonts and jQuery hosted by google: received wisdom is that web sites are faster if these are downloaded from there, and the large number of fonts available on Google Fonts is a great boon for many designers. I could say that it is a nuisance to be looking for alternatives because China usually blocks these. But, as I write this, there is shock at the actions of the Trump regime in abducting Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela, and proposing to put him on trial in the USA and louder threats that they want to make Greenland a part of the US. People are talking more openly about the USA ceasing to be a reliable ally. China’s position on Google might be about to force me away from using them: might this actually be a good thing?
I’ve also had to think about how people sign up. For western-only web sites, traffic and attempted sign-ups from China usually represent security threats. I don’t have a way to tell where the line is between opportunistic hackers and what grades into cyber warfare. It would be naive of my to suggest that westerners are not doing similar things: I wonder how many Chinese web developers look with similar scepticism on traffic from Western IP addresses?
I am also butting up against the question of language. We’re relying on automated translations. I realise I have no sense of how good these are, or how many nuances are going missing. Might this project run aground on missed communications from inaccurate translations?
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