| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | ProZ.com job postings: translation versus MTPE Thread poster: Multiverse Solutions s.r.o. (X)
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Kay Denney 
France
Local time: 10:02
French to English
| How do you know? | Jun 29, 2022 |
Lucia Leszinsky wrote: the main source of client contact is the directory, and not the jobs system. Lucia
I have seen this information repeated in the forums here I don't know how many times.
However in all the years I've been here, including several years of membership, when I polished up my profile to attract the right clients, I have never been contacted via the directory.
You'll tell me it's because I don't have enough kudoz to land at the top of any list of translators.
I'll tell you that there are quite a lot of translators in my pair with a dizzying number of kudoz, so I'd have to work at answering questions full time for months to have a hope of outranking anyone. And I've read enough rants here about kudoz cheats and people gaming the system not to want to have to deal with any of that.
Especially when I'm not sure how you can even know how many clients place orders with translators via the directory, since most will simply reach out here then transfer to email communication to place the order.
| | | | | Thanks for posting, Kay | Jun 29, 2022 |
I will address your question in detail privately to avoid drifting from the posted topic (or you may post this question as a new topic too). But just for now, let me say that it's not just ProZ.com saying it, but members themselves: https://www.proz.com/testimonials
Job offers sent via profile mail after directory searches outnumber job postings. That's why not only KudoZ points, but also o... See more I will address your question in detail privately to avoid drifting from the posted topic (or you may post this question as a new topic too). But just for now, let me say that it's not just ProZ.com saying it, but members themselves: https://www.proz.com/testimonials
Job offers sent via profile mail after directory searches outnumber job postings. That's why not only KudoZ points, but also other strategies should be applied to attract clients' attention.
Please let me know if you want me to take a look at your profile and suggest a few adjustments. Thanks again!
Lucia ▲ Collapse
| | | | Multiverse Solutions s.r.o. (X)
Local time: 10:02
Polish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Re-editing the post title? | Jun 29, 2022 |
@Lucia Leszinsky
The crux of the matter is not translation versus MTPE, but
MTPE vendors hijacking translation jobs
Could you edit the title to match this real and factual problem?
PS. Thank you for all explanations.
| | | | jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 04:02
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| Don't implement it | Jun 29, 2022 |
Multiverse Solutions s.r.o. wrote:
The programmer for the ProZ site needs to add ONE line of code to split the first item into:
- Translation
- Editing
- Proofing
- MTPE
Don't make that adjustment. Leave the current system as is.
If what you have proposed is implemented, outsourcers would select MTPE more often than translation to the effect that the option of "translation" will become obsolete.
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Multiverse Solutions s.r.o. (X)
Local time: 10:02
Polish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | That's the point | Jun 30, 2022 |
jyuan_us wrote: Multiverse Solutions s.r.o. wrote:
The programmer for the ProZ site needs to add ONE line of code to split the first item into:
- Translation
- Editing
- Proofing
- MTPE
Don't make that adjustment. Leave the current system as is. If what you have proposed is implemented, outsourcers would select MTPE more often than translation to the effect that the option of "translation" will become obsolete.
Outsourcers should select what they REALLY need - so that you, the translator - did not waste time browsing through "translation, but really MTPE" or, even better, "whatever, but really we only want your CV", or, even better better, "whatever, but we only want to brag" (aka marketing through false information).
And, I would really like to know the strength of the outsourcers base who need real translation specifically in ProZ.
Why? Because I paid (more than once) a lot to be a "pro" contractor, in hope for the flow of millions (see the homepage), but 99.999% of what I do on the ProZ site is reading, replying, reading again.
Kind of strange. No other place gives such results. I reply only to "jobs" that appear "real need", with zero response rate. Literally zero. Sometimes offering unrealistically low prices just to test the offer. Zero results. No contact attempts, either. And it has been the case for years. So I naturally am interested how many other translators waste their life energy on zero-job opportunities.
==
Solution 1
Obvious - remove all funding from the site except memberhsip fee. No advertising, no group shopping, no events, no referrals, no affiliates, no paid outsourcers. Only membership fees. (dreamtime, I know...)
Under this scenario, members would not pay if they get no job or when the contracting mechanism is ineffective. This is the only real driver to make a live professional marketplace.
Once payments come from sources other than the actual offers, the site loses interest in legitimacy of its outsourcers. In fact, inversion comes into play. More outsourcers mean more cashflow, so "we only offer contact opportunities" is a safe business model for everybody, except paying translator members.
Solution 2
Remove only membership fees for translators (except translation agencies, who equally do not care about outcomes of particular jobs). Why not? Job posters earn huge profits, doing literally nothing in comparison with the effort of translators.
Then translators would happily browse through all offers, following the "no risk, no gain" model.
Solution 3
Draw funding only from completed transactions: delivered translation + payment made. Only the outsourcer (buyer) is paying, just like with the real estate market. Why not make an Escrow account to prevent bad no-payment practices.
BTW. This could eliminate an absurd "60 days after invoice" or similar expectations.
==
As it is now, it boils down to:
false information in job offers > false assumptions on part of translators > false vision of the translation marketplace.
We live in a fantasy world without any real data to verify what we (paying members) are promised versus offered versus delivered. Please note that ProZ does not give us actual detailed statistics broken down e.g. into weeks (preferably). How can we measure our efforts?
NOTE to the staff
All this is intended to streamline your and our work. It's not anti-social media you-are-wrong-and-I-am-great. This market evolves rapidly. ProZ has become practically stagnant for years, naturally staying behind the curve. In the time of direct contacts, it is turning into a self-serving community. Is it the actual objective here? If it is, then ok. (But letting know the paying members would be honest.)
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 10:02
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Multiverse Solutions s.r.o. wrote:
Samuel, I am sorry, you need to find these examples on your own.
Well, the reason I asked was clearly because I haven't received (or seen) such examples myself.
After considering this for a while, I think I now understand what you meant: you mean that a job is indicated on this page as "Translation" but not as "MTPE", when in the description of the job (when you click it) it becomes clear that it is indeed MTPE. is that right?
Multiverse Solutions s.r.o. wrote:
When posting a job, an option is provided to check the job type:
- Translation/editing/proofing job
- Potential job
- Interpreting job
The programmer for the ProZ site needs to add ONE line of code to split the first item into:
- Translation
- Editing
- Proofing
- MTPE
This is not going to do anything. The label "Translation/editing/proofing job" really just means "Translation job etc.". The job posting form options for translation, editing, proofreading and related job types (including MTPE) are all very similar, hence bundling them all into a single form. The client has to select the exact service further down anyway.
I agree that marking a job as "translation" when it is MTPE is close to being dishonest... unless the client is in a hurry and doesn't see the "MT post-editing" option or doesn't know that "MT post-editing" is the modern label for what more logically should be called "MT editing".
[Edited at 2022-06-30 15:37 GMT]
| | | | Multiverse Solutions s.r.o. (X)
Local time: 10:02
Polish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | More precise list of job types offered | Jun 30, 2022 |
@Samuel
Yes, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. I guess I should make it clearer right from the start.
"Vendors" try the following here (based mostly on EN-DE):
1. self-marketing under the guise of translation/MTPE/ etc. orders
2. extracting / collecting personal and business data - with no intent of cooperating
3. attracting translators to their website to fill in some forms - as if it was an equivalent to landing a "job"
4. recruiting for ... See more @Samuel
Yes, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. I guess I should make it clearer right from the start.
"Vendors" try the following here (based mostly on EN-DE):
1. self-marketing under the guise of translation/MTPE/ etc. orders
2. extracting / collecting personal and business data - with no intent of cooperating
3. attracting translators to their website to fill in some forms - as if it was an equivalent to landing a "job"
4. recruiting for mass MTPE tasks - promising honey and milk, which soon turns out to be a slave work literally for free (I happened to email extensively three such "agents" from different geographical regions, wow, what a swamp) - which obviously has nothing to do with translation
5. recruiting for other / smaller MTPE projects - which may be legitimate, but still MTPE is not translation and, in fact, in most cases does not require any linguistic or translation skills, so why dilute real high-end professional translation here?
6. legitimate mixed translation / MTPE - a rare phenomenon
7. real translation - yes, it happens
8. subtitling (a different matter, of course).
So the most important issue is not job classification, but allowing non-job (non-paying, false vendors) entries to populate a once decent portal for professional translators. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 10:02
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
Multiverse Solutions s.r.o. wrote:
but still MTPE is not translation and, in fact, in most cases does not require any linguistic or translation skills
Since post-editing is nothing more than editing a computer-generated text, meaning comparing the translation to the original, correcting mistakes, changing terminology and adapting style if necessary, I wonder what it is that makes you think that you don't need linguistic or translation skills for it. It's like saying that you don't need linguistic skills for editing a human translation or proofreading a human generated text. If that would be right, the mailman or any truck driver could do it just as fine. They can't.
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Multiverse Solutions s.r.o. (X)
Local time: 10:02
Polish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Teenagers are better at editing (faster and cheaper) | Jun 30, 2022 |
@Lieven Malaise
Mailman or truck driver are not required. An average secondary-level kid with freedom of expression will do. Seriously. And a lot of work is done by friends / children of those at the steering wheel (excuse the comparison).
Nobody cares. Just read fresh news from respected distributors of daily messages and try to find linguistic purity. Ok, that would be difficult. Make it correctness.
With repopulation being effected in all possible geogr... See more @Lieven Malaise
Mailman or truck driver are not required. An average secondary-level kid with freedom of expression will do. Seriously. And a lot of work is done by friends / children of those at the steering wheel (excuse the comparison).
Nobody cares. Just read fresh news from respected distributors of daily messages and try to find linguistic purity. Ok, that would be difficult. Make it correctness.
With repopulation being effected in all possible geographical directions, the originality (grammatical and lexical correctness) is gone. Renowned German companies produce manuals in broken German or English, just because their engineers happened to come to Germany from Middle East or Near-Far East months ago, so they naturally are unaware of German or English. Yes, they are professional as engineers, but their written documents should be edited in-house by their mother company. No way, nobody cares.
Or... you may be lucky to find a video from a "translation" session in a famous CAT package. You will see a teenage-looking girl sipping something from a cup and (in the meantime) clicking hints diplayed by the said CAT software. For a long dozen minutes or so not a single bodily movement indicating sincere interest in typing anything from the keyboard. Quite educating.
No wonder that prices for translation have dropped from $ 0.20 to 0.03 per word over 5 years (in common pairs). Anybody can do this work - cheap is the keyword. Until a problem arises, then we'll manage. That is the current translation standard for many many high-end clients. They will use different phraseology, but the essence is the same.
Those most outspoken simply display CAT logos on their websites so that you know that your translation offer must be dirt cheap.
Which is why at last-aid places like ProZ, it would be nice to see that somebody cares. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 10:02
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
| Other reality. | Jun 30, 2022 |
Multiverse Solutions s.r.o. wrote:
@Lieven Malaise
Mailman or truck driver are not required. An average secondary-level kid with freedom of expression will do. Seriously. And a lot of work is done by friends / children of those at the steering wheel (excuse the comparison).
Nobody cares. Just read fresh news from respected distributors of daily messages and try to find linguistic purity. Ok, that would be difficult. Make it correctness.
With repopulation being effected in all possible geographical directions, the originality (grammatical and lexical correctness) is gone. Renowned German companies produce manuals in broken German or English, just because their engineers happened to come to Germany from Middle East or Near-Far East months ago, so they naturally are unaware of German or English. Yes, they are professional as engineers, but their written documents should be edited in-house by their mother company. No way, nobody cares.
Or... you may be lucky to find a video from a "translation" session in a famous CAT package. You will see a teenage-looking girl sipping something from a cup and (in the meantime) clicking hints diplayed by the said CAT software. For a long dozen minutes or so not a single bodily movement indicating sincere interest in typing anything from the keyboard. Quite educating.
No wonder that prices for translation have dropped from $ 0.20 to 0.03 per word over 5 years (in common pairs). Anybody can do this work - cheap is the keyword. Until a problem arises, then we'll manage. That is the current translation standard for many many high-end clients. They will use different phraseology, but the essence is the same.
Those most outspoken simply display CAT logos on their websites so that you know that your translation offer must be dirt cheap.
Which is why at last-aid places like ProZ, it would be nice to see that somebody cares.
I'm not saying the things described by you don't happen, but I work in a professional environment with professional clients. Meaning that any post-editing work I do is revised by a second translator, and meaning that I myself act as a reviser for post-edited content (that being said: I still do mostly translation work, which represents about 70-80% of the work I do).
Sometimes I wonder if people don't expect too much of and/or depend too much on this website. There are professional clients out there, and quite a lot of them. Just perhaps not on Proz (not 1 of my clients posts jobs on Proz, and why should they).
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 10:02
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
Multiverse Solutions s.r.o. wrote:
Mailman or truck driver are not required. An average secondary-level kid with freedom of expression will do. Seriously. And a lot of work is done by friends / children of those at the steering wheel (excuse the comparison).
I'm sorry, but this is complete nonsense. Anybody who cares for a minimum of quality will not hire or use the services of "secondary-level kids". They are simply incompetent for the work you describe.
| | | | Multiverse Solutions s.r.o. (X)
Local time: 10:02
Polish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Yes it is nonsense, quite prevalent | Jun 30, 2022 |
@Lieven Malaise
Our (translators') expectations or wishes are a far cry from what is really going on.
Majority of our work is for translation agencies. The average monthly workload per our translator is about 80-90 th. words across 40-70 orders from a broad range of clients, few of whom are kind of regular ones. Therefore, we have a very informative overview of the general situation.
In principle, agencies do not specialise in high-end or professional clie... See more @Lieven Malaise
Our (translators') expectations or wishes are a far cry from what is really going on.
Majority of our work is for translation agencies. The average monthly workload per our translator is about 80-90 th. words across 40-70 orders from a broad range of clients, few of whom are kind of regular ones. Therefore, we have a very informative overview of the general situation.
In principle, agencies do not specialise in high-end or professional clients. They take whatever comes through their doors. And yes, truck drivers are definitely overqualified for most of MTPE jobs in the real world. And for some translations.
There are two interesting habits in that separate reality.
1. Agencies will not discuss the job with the client. If obvious stupidities are provided by the client, and we are suggesting changes to avoid making a laughingstock of the client or exposing them to legal battles, we are repeatedly told "let it be". Now, pay attention: clients threaten the agencies: 'If it is a problem for you, we'll find a cheaper agency.' You would be amazed if I were allowed to list the names of such clients. Nobody cares.
2. We usually offer two options: standard translation / translation + adapting the documents (if it is appropriate) to increase legibility, reduce paperload, and render professional, nice look. The latter option adds just a fraction of the base price. And it is selected once in a lifetime. Nobody cares.
3. Agencies do not care a bit about you or me. (Clients are even more extreme.) With one click, they will outsource anything to the lowest-rate bidder whom they have never seen or known from the actual work. They do nothing (except mailing files) to help us in the work. I have never been asked by any agency: "What can we do to increase your earnings?" But they happily ask: "What about discount?" Nobody cares.
Somebody should start caring. Or we will all be eliminated from the market full of machine work.
That is why it is crucial to separate automated pseudo-work (MTPE) from real human translation. ▲ Collapse
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Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 10:02
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
| It's clear ... | Jun 30, 2022 |
It's clear that you don't really know what MTPE jobs are about and how they should be addressed and are addressed by serious agencies and translators. Otherwise you would know that it takes a skilled translator to deliver MTPE quality and you wouldn't think anybody can deliver it, skilled or not.
I'll leave it at that, because this seems to be a dialogue of the deaf.
| | | | Multiverse Solutions s.r.o. (X)
Local time: 10:02
Polish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Discussion neutralised, no need to change anything | Jul 1, 2022 |
The last post from Lieven Malaise shows the real impact of censoring the original title of the post on the thinking of the users.
The original title (translation + MTPE) was indicating the (possible) need to split "job" offers into separate sites or site sections. In view of the number of pure MTPE tasks, it seems natural. The reason for the title was that vendors use the "translation" word in their titles to attract responding parties where their only actual intent is MTPE. I call ... See more The last post from Lieven Malaise shows the real impact of censoring the original title of the post on the thinking of the users.
The original title (translation + MTPE) was indicating the (possible) need to split "job" offers into separate sites or site sections. In view of the number of pure MTPE tasks, it seems natural. The reason for the title was that vendors use the "translation" word in their titles to attract responding parties where their only actual intent is MTPE. I call it hijacking the market - which disrupts work of both specialised fields and brings in false information.
Now we have this thread under the title produced by the staff (translation versus MTPE). The thread poster was never contacted, the staff decided that they know better what the poster thought. They has also decided that they know better what issue the poster intended to focus on. We call it censorship. We do not like it when anybody knows better than we what we want to say.
The effect of this slight rephrasing is that the current title ("versus") encourages users to engage in futile discussions ("which one is better") instead of addressing specific trends in the translation market and malpractice on the part of the so-called vendors.
Please note that our original title (+) emphasised the need to include and equally care about both areas, but the censored version definitely let us know that conflict (versus) is more welcome.
It appears that the final result is mission accomplished: discussion deflected, no need to change anything.
For snowflake readers: we respect everybody's effort, work, perception and participation. We would appreciate similar respect, especially when you do not see or understand or want to resolve the problem. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 10:02
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
Multiverse Solutions s.r.o. wrote:
The last post from Lieven Malaise shows the real impact of censoring the original title of the post on the thinking of the users.
Honestly I wasn't interested in the problem you described initially. I think it's futile and most certainly no big deal. I'm sure it becomes clear pretty fast what a job offer really is. I can understand it's a bit annoying but to me it's definitely not worth making the fuzz about it like you do.
So no, I'm not a victim of the Proz 'censorship' who got deflected from the main subject. I was only triggered by one particular point you were trying to make about MTPE.
But, please, do carry on with your rant.
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