Proz responds to ridiculous translation offers from agencies

Changes to be made to the ProZ.com job posting system

"Huge movement, the biggest yet seen in this profession.. thousands of people supporting the petition.."

A petition concerning the ProZ.com job posting system ("A Translators' Petition Concerning ProZ.com's Job Policies" was hosted online at iPetitions.com) in February 2010. The stated purpose of the petition was to urge ProZ.com to revise its job-posting policies. In the space of less than four days, 844 translators and interpreters signed the petition.

In response to the petition, ProZ.com staff announced that changes would be made to the job posting system:

"1. The pricing field will be removed from the job posting form.
This change is consistent with the fact that the individual translator is in the best position to determine what he or she needs to charge to deliver the quality required on a particular job.


2. When consistent with member preference, posters will be given an opportunity to specify a budget range (after having posted).
An option to enter budget information will appear, with a suitable explanation, when among those who meet the specified criteria there are one or more members who prefer to take budget information into consideration when deciding whether or not to quote.


3. Even when a client budget range has been specified, it will not be published by default.
Client budget ranges will be accessible only to members who (1) have expressed a preference to consider client budgets, and (2) meet the specified job criteria. (This eliminates the possibility for the job posting system to be used to "popularize" low rates.)


4. More information -- supplied by the community -- will be made available concerning the price of professional translation.
In the void left by the decreased publication of poster positions on rates, guides entitled "Determining what service you need and what it will cost" and "Determining your rates and fees as a translator", will be introduced. These guides, linked to from the job posting and job quoting forms, are already being built by the ProZ.com community in the ProZ.com wiki. (Please consider contributing.)
Together with the guides, real-time data on rates charged by ProZ.com members will be made available for reference by job posters and those quoting. (This will be the topic of further notices in this site area.)


5. A means will be provided, and job posters will be encouraged, to enter more detailed information in job postings.
To quote accurately, jobs have to be posted in sufficient detail. Encouraging job posters to enter as much detail as possible becomes more important with these changes.


6. A means will be provided to enter more detailed rates information in profiles.
Profile owners will be given a means of entering more detailed rates information, such as premiums for rush jobs, etc.


7. The prominence of the job posting system will be reduced overall, with higher priority given to the directory.
The directory has proven to be a much better source of new clients for professional translators.


8. An addition will be made to the ProZ.com professional guidelines on the topic of rates.
Proposed addition: "Professionals: ... set their rates at levels that allow them to deliver, on an ongoing basis, the quality levels that their clients require"


9. Efforts will be made to stimulate industry-wide cooperation to support the livelihood of professional translators.
Several ideas for how to approach this have been considered, but at a minimum, links to groups that are active in this area will be maintained. Please share information related to any groups or individuals that you know that are active in this area.
Of particular interest would be those active in the following areas:

• differentiation on the basis of quality
• establishing a more direct correlation between quality and price
• techniques for boosting productivity
• marketing / negotiation / business skills for translators

Note that although these have been areas of focus in ProZ.com events and trainings for some time, there is ongoing demand for training on these topics in various areas and languages. If you have developed programs in these areas, and would like to deliver trainings or sessions on these topics, please make a proposal via support ticket.


10. A host of other steps, both technical and social, will be undertaken. Updates will be posted here.

Note: The above changes will be implemented as soon as development can be carried out. More detail on each of these points, and notice of additional measures, will be posted on an ongoing basis. To be notified when changes are made to this page, subscribe below.


The Proz Founder and CEO, Henry Dotterer, has responded to the petition. You can watch the response here.

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For all your English to Arabic and vice versa translations that will help you expand your business into the Middle East visit Arabic Language Experts at http://www.arabic.com.au/

Nothing But Good News

Jessica Lambertson from Government Executive (USA) on how the US Administration is spending money on translations:

- Federal spending on language contracts skyrocketed from nearly $14.9 million in 1990 to more than $1 billion in 2009.

- The Army, for instance, went from spending $260 million on language contracts in 2007 to $834 million in 2008.

- The Homeland Security Department's Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau, Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration have increased spending on such services significantly since 2007. ICE's spending on language contracts grew $5.6 million from 2007 to 2008, for instance, rising from $19.5 million to $25.1 million.

- spending on language service contracts will continue to grow during the Obama administration. Despite the ballooning deficit and spending crunch, President Obama's programs for foreign trade, diplomacy and domestic multiculturalism urge the federal government to continue to use translation and interpretation services, the research group noted.

For all your English to Arabic and vice versa translations that will help you expand your business into the Middle East visit Arabic Language Experts at http://www.arabic.com.au/.

Globalese?

Or is John Dixon from Applied Languages writing his career as a translation project manager off?

Apparently, after Elvish, Esperanto, Na'avi, Spanglish, Chinglish and G-d alone knows what else, John is suggesting governments pay a bit more attention to imposing a common world language, tentatively called Globalese.

"Think how much money companies would save in the long run. In the US alone the translation business is estimated to be approximately $10billion per annum and growing."

Think how much less you would be making, John!

For all your English to Arabic and vice versa translations that will help you expand your business into the Middle East visit Arabic Language Experts at http://www.arabic.com.au/.

Translators Boon to Economy

Add three things together:

Economic Migration (outsourcing/multinationals/professional) + the Internet population + social media marketing that reaches incredibly wide audiences.

The result is that you have a highly multilingual market that you need to address IN THEIR LANGUAGE, because even people who speak English well prefer to buy in their own language.

The solution?

Translation.

The fact that language service provider are a boon to the global economy are perhaps not immediately apparent. But if a company, whether large or small, is to get involved with it’s public in a meaningful way it needs to approach them in a manner that their clients understand and like. It needs to buzz in tongues, so to speak.

Companies express their cultural sensitivity by providing their diverse customers with materials in their own languages. For a company not to offer this kind of information would be short-sighted and would not make good business sense.

The role of the translator in the global economy is almost indispensable. The need for businesses to communicate with their clients base that there will always be a requirement for a translator. Not an Internet based software, mind you. Nothing offends more than a garbled information text on a reputable website - it simply renders the owner of the site untrustworthy (if they stuffed my language, they probably stuff lots of other things, too). Putting information out in a foreign language is meant to make things clearer, not more confusing.

Simply translating material is not sufficient; a qualified, professional and experienced translator would need to know what kind of message the company wants to convey to their new client base, and set the tone for the promotion or corporate identity. Certain symbols or ideas that are common coinage in one country may be highly offensive in another. Cultural sensitivity is extremely important.

The role of a translation services provider is not simply to transpose a set of texts or materials from one language to the next, but also to engage with the culture of the target language.

So use a human being. A qualified one. Because that is an investment in your business, not a cost to cut down.

For all your English to Arabic and vice versa translations that will help you expand your business into the Middle East visit Arabic Language Experts at http://www.arabic.com.au/.

It's bad, but not very - but is it good?

The Common Sense Advisory again - they promise registered users access to reports and then the link keeps taking you back to the darn registration page even though you are logged in.. Very frustrating. I hope their research is more solid than their site.

Anyway, here we have some more stats (remember, I said you can do anything with numbers).

They surveyed 277 freelancers "from around the world" (which countries?) to find out that

• 49.8% of them said Q4 of 2008 was satisfactory, 27.8% said it was good and 22.4% said it was bad. Without country, language and specialization data these percentages are telling me bugger all. What is "satisfactory"? You made more money, but not as much as you wanted? You made less, but not as little as you feared?
• 67.5% of those surveyed said rates stayed the same, 18.8% said the rates dropped and 13.7% raised them. Again, a whole lot of questions. How low were the fares of those who raised them? Were those who dropped them overpriced in the first place? By how much did they raise them or drop them?
• Large numbers of interpreters and translators reported requests from agencies to decrease their rates, but the overwhelming majority (76.9%) said that they did not intend to charge any less in the next three months. Hmmm.. I didn't get any, and heard about it from only two colleagues as anecdotes they heard. Wouldn't that have made vibes on major translation websites such as proz, etc.?
• Many freelancers explained that when they saw decreases in demand in a given industry or setting, they witnessed spikes in other areas. Which areas? Which countries?

Any answers?

For all your English to Arabic and vice versa translations that will help you expand your business into the Middle East visit Arabic Language Experts at http://www.arabic.com.au/.