I investigated adding auto translation at launch, however it was 1.) shockingly expensive for a group our size and 2.) a google product. Since the free tools are always getting better and I need to be wise with budget, here we are. It would also create management issues because I have 4 community leads and just moderating the mostly-English posts is quite time consuming for the team. I think if a forum is moderated, it needs to be moderated the same way everywhere evenly for fairness. That doesnt necessarily mean that we;re always going to be English-dominated.
ButI have a lot of long-range plans already in the works. for example Id probably consider something like an eventual split of the forum into 2 sites (SNO and Tardigrade) to be a higher priority than making bikeshedding the current install. Or getting the hackathon off the ground. I wish the world was perfect, I would love to do everything at once. . but in the meantime I do the best I can 