This. Is. So. Inspiring. To. Read! Thanks, Sarah, great article!

Regarding difficulties in contributing back I can totally relate to what Nishikawa says as well as to the timezone issues mentioned in the comments. On the other hand, there always seem to be a few people who somehow overcome all of those issues and contribute to a .org project continuously and powerful.

I’ve been wondering if/how communities grouping around a certain language could create “bridges” to the global context for themselves. A bridge, for example, could be a particular project that group would commit contributing to—a core ticket, a plugin or theme for WordCamps, anything other than translations. :)
One person from the group whose English language skills would allow for communicating back and forth with .org would fill the role of an “ambassador”, so to speak, and coordinate feedback between .org and the local group. Everyone else in that group would be free to collaborate in their language.