| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51] > | New at ProZ.com: Outsourcer "willingness to work again" feedback for translators Thread poster: Enrique Cavalitto
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| Probable effect on rates | Jun 27, 2006 |
Terry Thatcher Waltz, Ph.D. wrote:
Might I reasonably expect that ProZ's outsourcers will raise their rates to translators since now there is less effort required of them?
Hoped-for effect:
"Since this translator has excellent feedback from other outsourcers, his higher rate must be justified. Let's go for it"
Most likely effect on job postings:
"X to Y translators sought for 10,000-word technical manual. At least five years of experienced necessary. Only translators with excellent feedback accepted. We'll pay $ 10 for the entire translation".
[Edited at 2006-06-27 15:01]
| | | | | please explain | Jun 27, 2006 |
Riccardo Schiaffino wrote:
"X to Y translators sought for 10,000-word technical manual. At least five years of experienced necessary. Only translators with excellent feedback accepted. We'll pay $ 10 for the entire translation".
[Edited at 2006-06-27 15:01]
Riccardo,
Could you please explain why you think giving translators an option to show testimonies from happy clients will lead to the scenario you described?
I just don't understand how giving translators who do good work an option to show that they do good work will lead to falling rates. I am not saying you're wrong, just asking you to explain the logic of your reasoning.
| | | | | Totally subjective information with no guarantee of accuracy | Jun 27, 2006 |
Henry wrote:
You make some good points about feedback for translators. But you miss entirely the key point: testimonials from satisfied clients are a good thing for good translators.
That is not the key point. It doesn't matter whether testimonials are "good for us" or not.
It might be good for the government to establish a neighborhood committee to keep track publicly of whether I take my trash out on time, whether I cut my lawn regularly and so on. However, I do not wish to have that sort of information held by the government. It is not the government's role to do so.
Now let's imagine that they are tracking not objective criteria ("Did the trash go out on time") but subjective ones ("Was the lawn manicured attractively?" "Does homeowner show good taste in lawn ornaments?"). Who is to say what good taste is? Likewise, who is to dictate what a good translation is -- and ensure that every outsourcer responding is applying that standard in essentially the same way? Again, we will have "he said, she said" going on.
Henry wrote:I wish there were standards for translation quality that were widely recognized and used. In fact, I have tried to lend our support to such efforts. But at the moment there are no such standards in common use. So in the absence of those, my thinking goes, one tool a good translator might use to justify higher-than-average rates is testimonials from satisfied clients. (It is not the only tool -- and we provide many others -- but it is one more.)
...
What you have missed is that this is a feature built for the benefit of the top translators who wish to use it.
Outsourcers will benefit, too. But it is not an us-vs-them scenario.
I'm not saying it's us-vs-them. But the essence of this feature is ProZ collecting subjective information about individuals and displaying it to third parties. IMHO ProZ is not an appropriate repository for this kind of information, and you yourself have essentially admitted above that there is no underpinning of objectivity involved. The site has additionally exhibited a willingness to roll out new features without informing the members or obtaining their approval to those features, so it seems likely given past performance that the possibility exists that the information being collected now may be used in different ways in the future, at the site's discretion, not that of the individual being discussed.
If an individual had any meaningful and feasible recourse, the idea might be more defensible. But there is not, and the site is well aware of it.
A true opt-in system means that no feedback data would be collected or maintained on an individual, not merely that it would not be displayed. Again, this is simple to do via a checkbox Boolean variable on a profile page and an "IF" statement in the script that assigns feedback to the database. The ball is in ProZ's court on this one. It's not a problem with the technology, it's an issue of consent and ProZ's belief that obtaining that consent is not necessary.
Not displaying feedback is all well and good, but why should that feedback even exist if the freelancer is not willing that it should? Agencies are free to keep their own databases on freelancers they've worked with, IN THEIR OFFICES, on their own computer systems. Why not supply them with a spiffy Access database structure to download and populate for that purpose, instead of establishing an information collection initiative that essentially violates individual privacy?
Again, for those who have no issues with this feature, by all means, provide it. But for those who do not wish to participate, please provide a true means of not participating at all -- which means no data is collected or stored on that individual. Surely this is a basic matter of privacy in this digital age.
| | | | Bentext 
Germany
Local time: 06:16
Member (2003)
English to German
+ ...
| Right to informational self-determination | Jun 27, 2006 |
Henry wrote:
Terry,
You make some good points about feedback for translators. But you miss entirely the key point: testimonials from satisfied clients are a good thing for good translators.
Dear Henry,
I definitely agree in all points with Terry. In fact, it seems it's you who has missed the key point of her statement : The question is not if feedback is good for translators, but how is dealt with the right to informational self-determination. Like many of my colleagues, I don't want Proz.com to keep any data about me if I've not explicitly agreed to it. BTW, I wonder how that should comply with all applicable privacy law.
I appreciate that you have removed the Feedback option from my profile and changed it into an opt-in feature ; but I really wonder what will come next when you're talking about "channels other than our profiles to be created later". Thanks in advance for letting us know before you implement any new features.
Regards,
Stéphane Benhennour
[Edited at 2006-06-27 15:36]
[Edited at 2006-06-27 16:05]
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Kirill Semenov
Ukraine
Local time: 07:16
Member (2004)
English to Russian
+ ...
Terry Thatcher Waltz, Ph.D. wrote:
But the essence of this feature is ProZ collecting subjective information about individuals and displaying it to third parties.
Do you use BB at ProZ? It's collecting subjective info about agencies and displaying it to a third party - to you. Do you mind against it, really? Or it's OK when they show someone's else lawn, but not yours, in any way? Think about it.
| | | | cmwilliams (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 05:16
French to English
+ ...
Terry Thatcher Waltz, Ph.D. wrote:
Again, for those who have no issues with this feature, by all means, provide it. But for those who do not wish to participate, please provide a true means of not participating at all -- which means no data is collected or stored on that individual. Surely this is a basic matter of privacy in this digital age.
I thoroughly agree with all points Terry has raised so far. Yes, feedback from clients may be a good marketing tool for translators and may be "good for us", but I want the opportunity to decide for myself whether I want to go down that route. And I don't want a third party such as Proz collecting information on me, no matter what form it takes.
| | | | | Not said that there will be falling rates: situation unchanged | Jun 27, 2006 |
Konstantin Kisin wrote:
Could you please explain why you think giving translators an option to show testimonies from happy clients will lead to the scenario you described?
I just don't understand how giving translators who do good work an option to show that they do good work will lead to falling rates. I am not saying you're wrong, just asking you to explain the logic of your reasoning.
The scenario that I describe is not one of falling rates: what I meant is that the same outsourcers that (jjust to give one example) fairly recently quoted a project similar to my made-up one, requesting at least 15 years of experience, will offer the same sort of rates, and add to their jjob offer the requirement of "excellent rating". I.e., nothing will change with respect to the current situation as regards rates.
| | | | | low-rate argument is without basis in fact | Jun 27, 2006 |
Riccardo Schiaffino wrote:
The scenario that I describe is not one of falling rates: what I meant is that the same outsourcers that (jjust to give one example) fairly recently quoted a project similar to my made-up one, requesting at least 15 years of experience, will offer the same sort of rates, and add to their jjob offer the requirement of "excellent rating". I.e., nothing will change with respect to the current situation as regards rates.
Well, the example you give is at the very bottom of the market. I suspect both of us simply disregard job postings of that type (as well as most job postings in general) but they don't stop outsourcers who pay my rates (around the $0.15 mark, i.e. towards the other end of the market) finding me through Proz.com.
Some cheapo agency posting a job at 1 cent a word from time to time doesn't make Proz a low-rate environment. I have found plenty of clients here willing to pay well and I feel that being able to point potential clients towards existing satisfied clients is certain to bring me more business. I am not trying to convince you that you should use feedback but this low-rate claim is often made about Proz yet hardly ever is it substantiated (rare wishful-thinking job postings aside).
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Marc P (X)
Local time: 06:16
German to English
+ ...
Terry Thatcher Waltz, Ph.D. wrote:
That is not the key point. It doesn't matter whether testimonials are "good for us" or not.
Henry, I'm disappointed that this point still isn't clear.
Speaking for myself, I have no objection to ProZ.com gathering and publishing testimonials on behalf of other ProZ.com users, if that is what those users wish.
The key issue is that it isn't ProZ.com's prerogative to decide that such a feature is good for all users and to impose it upon them. Such a decision is a serious violation of independent businesses' (=freelance translators') right to manage their customer relations themselves.
There are parts of this site (the forums, CAT tool information, article base, powwows (except for the name), profiles of other users) that I value. There are others (KudoZ, BB, the jobs section) that I have no use for. Up to now, I have been free to ignore the latter, and they don't affect me. If ProZ.com is determined to canvass my customers for testimonials through my profile (an option by which I can suppress such information isn't good enough, sorry), I shall be tempted to remove my profile altogether.
Marc
| | | | Elena Woontner (X)
United States
Local time: 21:16
English to Italian
+ ...
| Agree with Mark | Jun 27, 2006 |
..But I am witnessing goodwill and effort coming from Henry. He understood our issue. The crux of the matter is asking before you act.
If the "feedback" can be made invisible (both good and bad, I don't need my work to be "approved" by a one-time customer after 25 years in the business, and I know excellent translators, that, like Hollywood divas, are "difficult to work with" - what is the feedback in this case?), I don't care if it's there or not.
As long as my right to ... See more ..But I am witnessing goodwill and effort coming from Henry. He understood our issue. The crux of the matter is asking before you act.
If the "feedback" can be made invisible (both good and bad, I don't need my work to be "approved" by a one-time customer after 25 years in the business, and I know excellent translators, that, like Hollywood divas, are "difficult to work with" - what is the feedback in this case?), I don't care if it's there or not.
As long as my right to keep the data I don't want to make public invisible, I am OK with it.
Next time, tell us in advance, Henry, OK? In one of the newsletters, maybe.
Thanks for listening.
Elena Woontner ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Re-read what I wrote, I think I put it in | Jun 27, 2006 |
Kirill Semenov wrote: Terry Thatcher Waltz, Ph.D. wrote:
But the essence of this feature is ProZ collecting subjective information about individuals and displaying it to third parties. Do you use BB at ProZ? It's collecting subjective info about agencies and displaying it to a third party - to you. Do you mind against it, really? Or it's OK when they show someone's else lawn, but not yours, in any way? Think about it.
As I said in my last post, I support modifying the BB to include only purely objective information. Also, as I have said, outsourcers are companies, for the most part. I have no objection (indeed, would support) the removal of non-company outsourcers (freelancers who also outsource) from the BB, or the establishment of a separate BB for them. But at the end of the day if you operate as an outsourcer, you are essentially a company as you are re-selling the work of others. I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, so I can't comment on the precise legal points related to this.
It's not OK when "they show someone else's lawn" not mine, if the "someone else" did not agree to have their lawn shown. Operating a company de facto means you have become a public entity. Registering on a Web site as an individual does not.
| | | | Kirill Semenov
Ukraine
Local time: 07:16
Member (2004)
English to Russian
+ ...
| It's a free country | Jun 27, 2006 |
Terry Thatcher Waltz, Ph.D. wrote:
It's not OK when "they show someone else's lawn" not mine, if the "someone else" did not agree to have their lawn shown.
Common, Terry, it's not me who should enlighten an American about the freedom of mass media.
You cannot prohibit showing the lawn before your house in the news, especially if you like to watch others' lawns on your TV. I mean you can try, it's your right, but it's not really fair.
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MichaelRS (X)
Local time: 06:16
Terry has a good point further above with regard to the Blue Board vs. translator evaluations. I realize that it's supposed to be "the likelihood of working for them again", but it boils down to whether you were paid on time or not. That's an objective measure that is easy to prove or disprove.
On the other hand, ProZ is definitely NOT going to be putting in the effort to grade the quality of translations. It would be impossible.
I had an issue a year or so ago with ... See more Terry has a good point further above with regard to the Blue Board vs. translator evaluations. I realize that it's supposed to be "the likelihood of working for them again", but it boils down to whether you were paid on time or not. That's an objective measure that is easy to prove or disprove.
On the other hand, ProZ is definitely NOT going to be putting in the effort to grade the quality of translations. It would be impossible.
I had an issue a year or so ago with a German client (NOT on ProZ as far as I know, LOL) who was absolutely sure that his school English was better than a native speaker's English, despite being told by two other independent native English speakers that he was basically full of it. Most translators have run into that.
Second point: I haven't read all of the comments, but I don't see much discussion of the ease of manipulation of this feature.
It is very easy to go through a proxy server (so that you have a different IP number) and register as an "agency". In fact, as many times as you wish.
I have no clients that I know of who are ProZ members, and I am certainly not going to bug clients to register or post here (also a good marketing tool, I guess, to get more agencies to register on the site), so my evaluation will be "0". It would be very easy, though, to pump that up via manipulation.
[Edited at 2006-06-27 17:16] ▲ Collapse
| | | | MichaelRS (X)
Local time: 06:16
Kirill Semenov wrote:
Common, Terry, it's not me who should enlighten an American about the freedom of mass media.
You cannot prohibit showing the lawn before your house in the news, especially if you like to watch others' lawns on your TV. I mean you can try, it's your right, but it's not really fair.
Well ... there are problems with a false depiction of someone's lawn, especially with not-so-nice intent and especially if it's not a public figure.
But we don't want to branch off into horticulture
| | | | | Lawn are publicly accessible when driving on public streets | Jun 27, 2006 |
Kirill Semenov wrote: Terry Thatcher Waltz, Ph.D. wrote:
It's not OK when "they show someone else's lawn" not mine, if the "someone else" did not agree to have their lawn shown. Common, Terry, it's not me who should enlighten an American about the freedom of mass media. You cannot prohibit showing the lawn before your house in the news, especially if you like to watch others' lawns on your TV. I mean you can try, it's your right, but it's not really fair.
The difference is that anyone may look at a lawn while driving peaceably down a public street. The data being collected by ProZ in this feature is not normally accessible through any public means. A news crew would require the property owner's permission to enter the house, and this is the digital equivalent of entering the house, so to speak.
There is more and more attention being paid in the US these days about privacy concerns, including several very embarassing and high-profile cases where information systems which seemed impenetrable were breached by both high-tech and low-tech means. If a company that is tasked with guarding sensitive information and invests millions each year into so doing cannot successfully ensure the security of that information, how can we reasonably expect a Web site to do so? That is why many people might choose not to participate in such a system, nor to allow subjective, non-public data about them to be stored in such a system.
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