| 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 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183] > | Should “native language” claims be verified? Thread poster: XXXphxxx (X)
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XXXphxxx (X) 
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:45
Portuguese to English
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TOPIC STARTER | Unfortunately it doesn't work like that | Jun 29, 2012 |
DavidMTucker wrote:
Personally (the emotional response because I have no proof), I don't think it matters if the person claims 100 "native" languages. As was stated earlier, they might get a job or two but the end client will quickly know that their skills (language proficiency, translation, etc.) are not up to par and so, they will simply eliminate themselves.
To add to what others have said, the aim is to raise the overall professionalism of the site, which has taken a nosedive of late. Shoddy translators are feeding the bottom-end of the market, which is expanding at an alarming rate. Unfortunately, they don’t eliminate themselves. If you’re paying US$ 0.03/word (many are paying a lot less), you have very low expectations as regards quality. The process is having an inevitable negative impact on rates, the quality of translation and on how the profession is viewed as a whole. I’ve spoken to decent outsourcers who have a very poor opinion of the site: too much chaff, too little wheat. I suppose we care because we’re professionals.
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:45
Portuguese to English
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TOPIC STARTER | Absolutely agree | Jun 29, 2012 |
Olly Pekelharing wrote:
I had a look in the directory after Samuel pointed it out (hadn't even noticed it before). Doesn't anybody else think it weird that kudoz points are taken into account in the ranking AS STANDARD?
Speaking from the point of view of someone who despairs at the KudoZ circus and rarely takes part.
Please feel free to start another thread on this
| | | | | I absolutely agree with David Tucker | Jun 29, 2012 |
I absolutely agree with David Tucker. I don't really think it matters, even if some people have some languages reported as their native for emotional reasons, and it is not relevant at all to how many jobs these people can get. If you start verifying things and reporting people, the site will turn into "a police site", sort of. A more important problem is to deal with the ridiculously low rates offered by some customers and presenting translation jobs as editing jobs. Have a great weekend all.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 14:45
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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| Speculation about KudoZ | Jun 29, 2012 |
Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote: Olly Pekelharing wrote:
I had a look in the directory after Samuel pointed it out (hadn't even noticed it before). Doesn't anybody else think it weird that kudoz points are taken into account in the ranking AS STANDARD? Speaking from the point of view of someone who despairs at the KudoZ circus and rarely takes part.
I suspect KudoZ forms part of the ranking because it encourages participation in the KudoZ system. Also, on average, high points in KudoZ means more people agreed with you on term decisions. It may be a circus om some languages, but not all.
I'm surprised that Olly was not aware of the directory. The directory is the method that most translators get jobs via ProZ.com (not KudoZ, not the jobs system). High ranking in the directory is paramount for getting jobs. I suspect ranking is also affected by how complete your profile is. Using KudoZ in the ranking also seems like an easy yet not too invalid way to give translators a boost in the non-paying member catetory, where there can be thousands upon thousands of translators.
That some people are not aware of the directory yet took active part in the native debate is quite telling, because it begs the question where on ProZ.com they had thought that the native issue is most relevant.
When I want to find translators, I spend most of my time on the directory search result pages (not on the actual profile pages), so I tend to select translators firstly by the various icons on the results pages. Only when I've made a selection of those do I actually visit the profile pages. I wonder if some clients or outsourcers visit all profile pages of all highest ranking translators in the search, without reading any summarising information that is presented on the search results page.
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XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:45
Portuguese to English
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TOPIC STARTER | You don't see the connection? | Jun 29, 2012 |
LilianBoland wrote:
A more important problem is to deal with the ridiculously low rates offered by some customers and presenting translation jobs as editing jobs.
Might I suggest that the "ridiculously low rates" reflect the quality of translations being churned out, not least by those purporting to be native speakers in a particular language when they evidently are not?
| | | | Kirsten Bodart
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:45
Dutch to English
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| Cause and effect | Jun 29, 2012 |
Well, would those $0.03 per word be the cause or the effect of lower standards? My husband always says 'If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.' What do you expect otherwise? On the other hand, monkeys want peanuts, right?
And what is the cause of such rates? In my humble opinion, it can be one of three, and most likely a mix of all of those: 1) clients do not want to pay much money, because they want to cut costs; 2) some nasty outsourcers want to make more money, so they charge the ... See more Well, would those $0.03 per word be the cause or the effect of lower standards? My husband always says 'If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.' What do you expect otherwise? On the other hand, monkeys want peanuts, right?
And what is the cause of such rates? In my humble opinion, it can be one of three, and most likely a mix of all of those: 1) clients do not want to pay much money, because they want to cut costs; 2) some nasty outsourcers want to make more money, so they charge the same (more or less), but pay lower rates to their translators and work with interns who work for free (!) so their profit margin goes up; and 3) unfortunately, there are some people available who can work at those rates in places not in Europe where living costs are not so high. So, there is demand for the supply.
Of course, there are outsourcers, no doubt, who still deliver good translations and therefore do not want to stake their reputation on a translator found on a website ridden with chaff. That's natural. At the same time, there are also translators who do not want to stake their financial situation on an agency they have found in the 'lucky dip' of Proz's pool of outsourcers. That is at least what a non-identified long-standing professional called it once (not here).
The glaring reality of the matter is probably that a lot of clients don't care or are not really aware that translations are made by people who have to make a living and they basically faint at the notion that one page might cost some €50 or more.
The tourism industry that has been named here is apparently notorious for this. Naturally, this industry wants to make big money out of its hotel deals (what they got up to in countries like Morocco and Tunesia, you don't want to know) and so they don't want to 'waste' their money on translators. Why? Because when you and I look in their brochures, we want our holiday for €1000, preferably less, flights included.
Any idea why Ikea and other flatpack furtniture shops supply instructions in a vast amount of languages where only the word 'instructions' is translated?
By eliminating some native language tags, you are not going to eradicate this problem, indeed it is not even a start. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Come to think of it... | Jun 29, 2012 |
Of course I was aware there was a directory, I'd just never looked at it before. Now I have, I see that the current system works quite well for me. I'm ranked about 20 out of 809 (search restricted to only NL-EN, top (or only pair), native En), while I don't have a large amount of kudoz points by any means (193, compared with the leader's 2009). I am sure that there are way more than 20 NL-EN translators with more points than me, so this means that all these other translators have 'done the righ... See more Of course I was aware there was a directory, I'd just never looked at it before. Now I have, I see that the current system works quite well for me. I'm ranked about 20 out of 809 (search restricted to only NL-EN, top (or only pair), native En), while I don't have a large amount of kudoz points by any means (193, compared with the leader's 2009). I am sure that there are way more than 20 NL-EN translators with more points than me, so this means that all these other translators have 'done the right thing' and not claimed English as a native language if this is not the case (contrary to other suggestions in this thread as to the trustworthiness of Dutch translators in this respect) - right?. So assuming serious clients are searching with the same settings, then I'm not too hard to find. (Only strange thing is that, though this has been the situation for some time - I haven't been active on proz at all this year - I only started getting regular requests via proz a few months ago.) ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Joining dots | Jun 29, 2012 |
Samuel Murray wrote: Charlie Bavington wrote:
I was ... forced to conclude that when you say verified, you don't mean what I mean (=yellow "N"; "confirmed" in the site's own terms) and that therefore you think verified and confirmed, in the context of this thread, are diferent. If you believe that the site says that a yellow icon means "confirmed", then I have to either disagree or ask that you quote to me ...
You quoted it yourself. I suspect you're placing more emphasis on what you get when you click the icon, but in the other text you quoted, "confirmed" and "sworn" (!) are two of the ways in which proz bestows the yellow badge of truth, justice, and,.... er I mean the yellow "N".
Which, as I said, in the context of this thread, I sincerely believe is being generally accepted as yellow = verified = confirmed.
It is, I'll grant you, not an over-rigorous interpretation. But it is the one I saw and see being made (although I'll definitely grant you that the thread title makes it sound as though they could (should?) be different, although, again, I had the impression the consensus was soon reached that a thorough verification in any sense of every claim would be time-consuming and difficult to achieve, and we had fallen back to just challenging the obvious misrepresentations to "verify", or indeed justify their "N"s).
My comment about the real meaning of the yellow icon ("not a liar on the balance of probabilities") was not meant as a comment about you but as a comment about the yellow icon.
I have the yellow icon. The yellow icon merely indicates, strictu sensu, as you pointed out (and as against its more lax interpretation in this thread, as I understand it), that the profile owner is not a liar on the balance of probabilities. Therefore I am not liar on the balance of probabilities. That, old chum, is the conclusion one is regrettably forced to draw from your analysis. I'm fine with nit-picking (usually), but please don't spend 30 pages nit-picking and then try to back away from the conclusions inevitably reached. Which is that every single contributor to this thread is, according to the strict interpretation of the careful wording, just probably not a liar.
[Edited at 2012-06-29 14:03 GMT]
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| I chickened out | Jun 29, 2012 |
Phil Hand wrote:
I feel like a complete **** doing this to a colleague. Feels like the worst of all possible worlds to me. It can only be an interim solution, because I did not sign up to police the people I think of as my fellows.
I was going to report a claim. And then told myself we needed to see the conclusions to this discussion (given Jared's involvement and the questions that remain) before we start. Not least because as it stands, we can only report yellow "N"s which is clearly a massive loophole, arguably already bieng exploited before we've even started, and this was a grey/black one.
I have to say that I was afraid you'd get a response like "prove it", "prove it some more", "no, still not enough proof, what else you got?" until people lose the will to live. Which brings us neatly back to page 1. Hurrah.
| | | | DavidMTucker (X)
United States
Local time: 05:45
Spanish to English
| I get it now. | Jun 29, 2012 |
Thank you --Charlie B., Samuel M., Phil H., Lillian B., and others for your explanations.
The issue really, then, is the credibility of the site, i.e., overall professionalism, and not so much about what is considered to be a native language. This is good, because as demonstrated by the multitude of posts, there is no consensus on the criteria of what constitutes a "native" language, let alone how it would be verified. So..., what if there was a re-focus to the actual issue, credib... See more Thank you --Charlie B., Samuel M., Phil H., Lillian B., and others for your explanations.
The issue really, then, is the credibility of the site, i.e., overall professionalism, and not so much about what is considered to be a native language. This is good, because as demonstrated by the multitude of posts, there is no consensus on the criteria of what constitutes a "native" language, let alone how it would be verified. So..., what if there was a re-focus to the actual issue, credibility of the site --overall professionalism?
IMHO, the first step is to accept that this is an open enrollment site and that anyone can join, meaning the levels of "professionalism," or the lack thereof will vary considerably.
The second step, again IMHO, is to look at the areas that we have under our own personal control --our CV, forum postings, etc., which are great ways to promote our own individual professionalism.
Third, on a site of this type (open enrollment) there will probably never be a 100% consensus on how to handle any given situation, so eliminating or reducing down as many potential controversial areas as possible will help to set/maintain minimum levels of credibility/professionalism.
And finally, with the controversial issue at hand --claiming of multiple native languages, can this be eliminated? Could it be replaced with something like "Working Languages?
Thank you for letting my insert my views into this interesting debate.
David Martin Tucker (Spanish Interpreter)
http://www.spanishdavid.com
https://www.facebook.com/SpanishDavid
http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmartintucker
http://www.twitter.com @DavidMTucker ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 14:45
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Approaching 3R, but... | Jun 29, 2012 |
Charlie Bavington wrote:
I have the yellow icon. The yellow icon merely indicates, strictu sensu, as you pointed out (and as against its more lax interpretation in this thread, as I understand it), that the profile owner is not a liar on the balance of probabilities. Therefore I am not liar on the balance of probabilities.
By this logic it would be impossible to say anything negative about anything without also saying that negative thing about everyone somehow associated with it. You did not choose the yellow icon, but even if you did, I think you would have chosen it not for its literal meaning but for its intended meaning or for its generally understood meaning. And if, after you chose it, the literal meaning of it were to change, would that mean that your intention (or you yourself) automatically change with it?
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 13:45
Member (2007)
English
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| Hey, how about that! | Jun 29, 2012 |
psicutrinius wrote:
I just checked. You have (had, about 3 minutes ago) a blue-on-yellow N for English
I hadn't even got around to notifying staff about this problem, and it's already fixed! A big "THANK YOU" to whoever is responsible for my nice little "N". I'll look after it better this time.
To get back on topic, I just want to lend my voice to those who are saying we are not bitching about people getting jobs unfairly. That will always happen - there's nothing fair about business.
My personal feeling is that I joined the top online network of professional translators, and have been proud of being a member here. Now, the credibility of the network is being challenged by an increasing minority of users and members who are lying about their circumstances. These lies are damaging the credibility of the entire site and, by association, the credibility of each and every member who uses it as their showcase. It isn't just native language that's concerned - people are lying about credentials, specialisations, experience, everything - but native language is such a basic part of a translator's offer, and one that is so very easy to spot. It shames me to think that my clients are seeing me associate with these so-called "English native speakers".
I know we all puff up our CVs and profiles a little. I'm sure we've all taken on jobs with our fingers crossed, hoping we can actually carry it off as promised. But that's exaggeration; embellishment; embroidery. And there are some here who declare a second native language when it's a borderline decision. Maybe they are exaggerating, but they aren't the ones damaging the credibility of the site.
What we are discussing here is those who quite simply and blatantly lie - who declare a language to be native when their writing makes very little sense. To my mind that's totally unacceptable, even (or perhaps, particularly) in business.
One last point: I read somewhere in this thread that staff are proposing a "chat" to check native language. Can I just make a note here that I think it must be a written discussion of some kind. Some people seem to be native-equivalent when speaking, but simply don't have the finer points of grammar and style to be a native writer. A chat may be OK for interpreters but writing is what counts for translators. Somebody somewhere suggested giving people a few minutes to write a few sentences on a general subject. To my mind, that would be a very good test: no time to prepare, no spellcheckers, etc., just write off the top of your head. Of course there'd by typos, but a plethora of typos doesn't stop you being a native of the language. I believe I could tell the difference.
Sheila
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Rob Grayson
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:45
French to English
Sheila Wilson wrote:
I know we all puff up our CVs and profiles a little.
Do we?
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 13:45
Member (2007)
English
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Rob Grayson wrote: Sheila Wilson wrote:
I know we all puff up our CVs and profiles a little. Do we?
Meant to exclude you from that statement. But I only meant a very little. It's called "marketing" if you want to put a positive spin on it.
Sheila
| | | | Rob Grayson
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:45
French to English
| Marketing versus exaggeration | Jun 29, 2012 |
Sheila Wilson wrote: Rob Grayson wrote: Sheila Wilson wrote:
I know we all puff up our CVs and profiles a little. Do we? Meant to exclude you from that statement. But I only meant a very little. It's called "marketing" if you want to put a positive spin on it.
You seem to imply that marketing can only ever be dishonest, or, at the very least, that it must always involve exaggeration. I'm sure I'm not the only one who utterly eschews such an approach.
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