| 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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sylver 
Local time: 13:00
English to French
I would like to give a vote of confidence to Proz in general and to Henri in particular.
Running a website is no easy task, not to mention one with a large community like Proz. This issue could have been introduced better - would have avoided a lot of upset if an email was send before the feature was turned on - but as it stands, I guess it's about fine, since every one can choose to participate or not.
About outsourcers keeping notes: Outsourcers always keeps notes ... See more I would like to give a vote of confidence to Proz in general and to Henri in particular.
Running a website is no easy task, not to mention one with a large community like Proz. This issue could have been introduced better - would have avoided a lot of upset if an email was send before the feature was turned on - but as it stands, I guess it's about fine, since every one can choose to participate or not.
About outsourcers keeping notes: Outsourcers always keeps notes of the people they work with, or at least they should. Not to do so would be most unprofessional, in my opinion. The question is more "where" than "if" they keep these notes.
I have no objection if they use Proz.com servers for that purpose - it doesn't concern us really. Proz is a possibility, but actually outsourcers could just as well use any other ISP/host to store these data, and many of them do already - and a LOT more data too.
If Proz choose to give storage space to outsourcers, it would make sense to gather all those data on the *outsourcer's* profile (owner view, obviously), and turn profiles into some kind of workstation for the benefit of the profile owner.
Better yet, allow some pages of the profiles to be shared with a restricted group of people - meaning 3 levels: Public view, group view and owner view.
* Public view = marketing copy for visitors
* Group/project view = selected informations available only to the members of a predefined group (a poor man's intranet)
* Owner view = profile admin with full access to everything
Giving someone (outsourcer for instance) the right to display things in somebody else's profile is a different issue altogether. In my opinion, the profil owner must have the right to control whatever goes on his profile.
Having the possibility to display clients' feedback is interesting. I am not sure I will use this feature because few of my customers are from Proz anyway. Maybe I will turn it on nevertheless to allow colleagues and Proz outsourcers to drop a note.
The way it stands right now works for me (profile owner remains in control of his profile) and I feel that Proz (and Henri) are actually trying to provide more services and more value to members. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Aha - another layer of the onion peeled away | Jul 2, 2006 |
Henry wrote:
Yes, the feature was developed with top translators in mind.
Henry wrote:
Outsourcers are part of our community.
Thank you, Henry, for these insights into your rationale for implementing the WWA function at Proz.com: you wish to have an additional level of vetting/quality control for the participating translators, as an extra service to the outsourcers who are part of "our" community. Even with the dozens of volunteers who help run this site, ProZ.com obviously doesn't have the resources to test and vet every single translator who claims to be an expert in underwater basket-weaving and have x years of experience, so you want the outsourcers to do it for you. You will collect and consolidate this data, ostensibly to make it easier for outsourcers to find quality (perhaps in the hope of implementing a commission system for job postings in the near future?)...
Well, judging from my experience on eBay, I can only say that I hope you've given this a great deal of thought, because every single feedback will have to be carefully screened and researched (i.e. to prove that work was actually performed, and not just a figment of someone's imagination). Otherwise the potential for manipulation - especially with positive feedback - is just too great.
From the posts I've read, it looks like a major concern is the possibility of receiving unjustified negative feedback, without any control mechanisms. But what if 20 or 30 people who all work for the same agency in Walla Walla, Galway, Bangalore or Beijing decide to get together and have a positive feedback orgy? Or somebody just gets all his/her friends to submit positive feedback? Or sets up multiple accounts simply for the purpose of providing feedback? After all, a ProZ user name and password is all that is required to submit feedback, and are available free of charge... The invitation to submit feedback itself says
If you are not registered with ProZ.com, and you are willing to enter feedback in my profile, you just need to select a username and password to register with ProZ.com. It does not cost anything to do so.
In all cases, the fraudsters would be able to present a much more favorable image of themselves to potential customers than they deserve. Has anybody thought about this? Because I've seen hundreds and hundreds of examples of this on eBay, where none of the feedback given is ever examined by human eyes unless somebody complains...
So in addition to the privacy and other issues raised by my esteemed colleagues, I hope you consider the potential for abuse this ill-conceived function offers, and especially the possibility that ProZ' reputation might suffer as a result - this time with the outsourcers, and not just with the members who obviously feel something has been slipped past them.
Regards,
HH
[Edited at 2006-07-02 11:13]
| | | | | Thanks, sylver | Jul 2, 2006 |
sylver wrote:
I would like to give a vote of confidence to Proz in general and to Henri in particular.
Thank you very much.
If Proz choose to give storage space to outsourcers, it would make sense to gather all those data on the *outsourcer's* profile (owner view, obviously), and turn profiles into some kind of workstation for the benefit of the profile owner.
Better yet, allow some pages of the profiles to be shared with a restricted group of people - meaning 3 levels: Public view, group view and owner view.
* Public view = marketing copy for visitors
* Group/project view = selected informations available only to the members of a predefined group (a poor man's intranet)
* Owner view = profile admin with full access to everything
Excellent formulation. Logically, what we are doing is exactly that. You have outlined it it in much better way.
Giving someone (outsourcer for instance) the right to display things in somebody else's profile is a different issue altogether. In my opinion, the profil owner must have the right to control whatever goes on his profile.
You're absolutely right. It was a mistake to design it in the way we did initially (my miss), with the profile being the focal point.
Having the possibility to display clients' feedback is interesting. I am not sure I will use this feature because few of my customers are from Proz anyway. Maybe I will turn it on nevertheless to allow colleagues and Proz outsourcers to drop a note.
The way it stands right now works for me (profile owner remains in control of his profile) and I feel that Proz (and Henri) are actually trying to provide more services and more value to members.
Thank you for posting, sylver.
| | | | | To HarryHedgehog | Jul 2, 2006 |
HarryHedgehog wrote: Henry wrote:
Yes, the feature was developed with top translators in mind.
Henry wrote:
Outsourcers are part of our community.
Thank you, Henry, for these insights into your rationale for implementing the WWA function at Proz.com: you wish to have an additional level of vetting/quality control for the participating translators, as an extra service to the outsourcers who are part of "our" community. Even with the dozens of volunteers who help run this site, ProZ.com obviously doesn't have the resources to test and vet everyone single translator who claims to be an expert in underwater basket-weaving and have x years of experience, so you want the outsourcers to do it for you.
An interesting thought, but wrong. Your conclusion stems, I suppose, from a position of distrust and a misunderstanding of our business model. We don't need anyone to "test and vet" translators for us, because we don't offer translation services. (And if that was the motivation, the system would probably look different - I suppose we would be interested in obtaining more practical information, such as productivity, etc.)
You will collect and consolidate this data, ostensibly to make it easier for outsourcers to find quality (perhaps in the hope of implementing a commission system for job postings in the near future?)...
If you have been reading the posts in which I discuss our approach and motivations, and still postulate that something other than what I wrote is our main motivation in this case, I suppose there is nothing I can say to you that will change your mind!
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Henry wrote:
We don't need anyone to "test and vet" translators for us, because we don't offer translation services.
You don't offer translation services per se, but you must agree that the only difference between the ProZ job board and a true "translation marketplace" is the fact that you do not (yet) charge brokerage commissions for the posted jobs. In fact, I suggest that you impose a blanket 2-3% commission for jobs posted on the job board, which would bring $1-1.5 million into the ProZ kitty (according to your own figures). Non-member outsourcers currently get the most benefit from this site with zero contribution. In exchange, perhaps you could reduce membership fees by 5-10%, particularly for your European customers, who currently pay a 25% currency penalty for living on the wrong continent.
Henry wrote:
If you have been reading the posts in which I discuss our approach and motivations, and still postulate that something other than what I wrote is our main motivation in this case, I suppose there is nothing I can say to you that will change your mind!
Well, for starters, you could address the quality assurance issues with the feedback system that I mentioned in my previous post. If you have a concept in place for dealing with such abuse, that would go a long way towards changing my mind.
Yours,
HH
[Edited at 2006-07-02 11:33]
| | | | Mayte Vega
Argentina
Local time: 02:00
English to Spanish
+ ...
sylver wrote:
I would like to give a vote of confidence to Proz in general and to Henri in particular.
Running a website is no easy task, not to mention one with a large community like Proz. This issue could have been introduced better - would have avoided a lot of upset if an email was send before the feature was turned on - but as it stands, I guess it's about fine, since every one can choose to participate or not.
About outsourcers keeping notes: Outsourcers always keeps notes of the people they work with, or at least they should. Not to do so would be most unprofessional, in my opinion. The question is more "where" than "if" they keep these notes.
I have no objection if they use Proz.com servers for that purpose - it doesn't concern us really. Proz is a possibility, but actually outsourcers could just as well use any other ISP/host to store these data, and many of them do already - and a LOT more data too.
If Proz choose to give storage space to outsourcers, it would make sense to gather all those data on the *outsourcer's* profile (owner view, obviously), and turn profiles into some kind of workstation for the benefit of the profile owner.
Better yet, allow some pages of the profiles to be shared with a restricted group of people - meaning 3 levels: Public view, group view and owner view.
* Public view = marketing copy for visitors
* Group/project view = selected informations available only to the members of a predefined group (a poor man's intranet)
* Owner view = profile admin with full access to everything
Giving someone (outsourcer for instance) the right to display things in somebody else's profile is a different issue altogether. In my opinion, the profil owner must have the right to control whatever goes on his profile.
Having the possibility to display clients' feedback is interesting. I am not sure I will use this feature because few of my customers are from Proz anyway. Maybe I will turn it on nevertheless to allow colleagues and Proz outsourcers to drop a note.
The way it stands right now works for me (profile owner remains in control of his profile) and I feel that Proz (and Henri) are actually trying to provide more services and more value to members.
Thank you!
You spoke my words and feelings!!
Best regards to all!!
Mayte
| | | | Michele Fauble
United States
Local time: 22:00
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
| Thank you, Henry | Jul 2, 2006 |
Henry wrote:
It was a mistake to design it in the way we did initially (my miss), with the profile being the focal point.
With this change you have addressed one of my main concerns. (My other main concern is the issue of unmerited negative feedback.)
A question - will I be able to opt in to receive and display feedback and still not have the feedback on my profile?
[Edited at 2006-07-02 18:33]
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Michele Fauble wrote: Henry wrote:
It was a mistake to design it in the way we did initially (my miss), with the profile being the focal point.
With this change you have addressed one of my main concerns. (My other main concern is the issue of unmerited negative feedback.) A question - will I be able to opt in to receive and display feedback and still not have the feedback on my profile?
Yes, that is one of the options we will offer. I will recommend this option to those who have not yet made up their mind about whether or not WWA will be useful to them.
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Eva T
English to Albanian
+ ...
I wrote some 37 pages ago and I did not follow it anymore. I am not crazy enough to dig and read through all these pages, but I will say my opinion of it.
Recently, myself and my partner started our own interpretation company. So far we only handle a few Balkan languages. As a company, we had our first bad experience last week. We hired a local interpreter (who was recommended to us by another interpreter) and the client told us that they were so unhappy with her. If we had a Board ... See more I wrote some 37 pages ago and I did not follow it anymore. I am not crazy enough to dig and read through all these pages, but I will say my opinion of it.
Recently, myself and my partner started our own interpretation company. So far we only handle a few Balkan languages. As a company, we had our first bad experience last week. We hired a local interpreter (who was recommended to us by another interpreter) and the client told us that they were so unhappy with her. If we had a Board on translators/interpreters, we probably would not have to go through what we did (the client threatened to sue us (!!!!), forget the payment we did not get and the time involved on this situation).
However, I do not want to get bombarded with emails from hundreds of translators/interpreters who would want their WWA feedback within the same time. I would suggest ProZ to act as a regulator, meaning, for example, only 10 -15 (or so) requests per week (via Proz) sent to a certain company. For now our company is still small and new in the business, but we hope to grow and I see this as a potential problem.
Thnx,
Eva
p.s. On a total different subject, can I register my company with Proz, even though I have a personal profile? If I can, would it be possible to not have a connection between my personal profile as a translator and my interpretation company?
[Edited at 2006-07-02 22:07] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Thanks for hanging in there, folks... | Jul 3, 2006 |
Thanks for hanging in and being patient in this thread. I know that for many of you, my "series" of posts did not offer a lot of new information. For others, who do not know us or me as well, I hope that the "series" has so far provided some insight into our goals at ProZ.com and how we approach the challenge of offering choice to diverse segments in an interconnected community.
With that, I'll get on to some specifics for WWA.
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Hi Henry,
I understand the situation and your need to find a compromise between the four groups.
I am very sceptical as regards the usefulness and reliability of any translator feedback feature, but with you one never knows... you created a great site and you may well create a great feedback feature. So, I am still a fierce out-outer, but also I wait and see.
Kind regards,
Cristobal
| | | | | eagerly waiting, ... | Jul 3, 2006 |
Maybe the root of the present problem is that the term "outsourcer" is a sort of euphemism.
It is a heterogeneous group made up of translation agencies (with certain subgroups), companies offering to corporations different value-added services that include translations (e.g., website design, publishing), freelance translators (like myself) who occasionally need the help of colleagues, and the much neglected group of "translation consumers", i.e. direct clients.
Each type of o... See more Maybe the root of the present problem is that the term "outsourcer" is a sort of euphemism.
It is a heterogeneous group made up of translation agencies (with certain subgroups), companies offering to corporations different value-added services that include translations (e.g., website design, publishing), freelance translators (like myself) who occasionally need the help of colleagues, and the much neglected group of "translation consumers", i.e. direct clients.
Each type of outsourcer has a different business model, expectations and needs, and all this has a bearing on its relations with peers and with the rest of the community.
Some splitting and differentiation of "outsourcers" in ProZ may help in the design and implementation of future features.
Just an idle Monday-morning thought .....
Eagerly waiting Henry´s last posts !
Pablo ▲ Collapse
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| Excellent point, Pablo | Jul 3, 2006 |
Pablo Grosschmid wrote:
Maybe the root of the present problem is that the term "outsourcer" is a sort of euphemism.
It is a heterogeneous group made up of translation agencies (with certain subgroups), companies offering to corporations different value-added services that include translations (e.g., website design, publishing), freelance translators (like myself) who occasionally need the help of colleagues, and the much neglected group of "translation consumers", i.e. direct clients.
Each type of outsourcer has a different business model, expectations and needs, and all this has a bearing on its relations with peers and with the rest of the community.
Some splitting and differentiation of "outsourcers" in ProZ may help in the design and implementation of future features.
Great point, Pablo.
As I mentioned a few pages ago, I'll finish this series today.
| | | | | Last-minute suggestion | Jul 3, 2006 |
If I have understood Henry's intentions clearly, the objective of having an "outsourcer willingness to work again" feedback option was, more or less, to filter "real prozians" (that is, "real professionals" doing serious/honest work in the translation/interpretation, etc. field) from "non-real prozians" (profession "intruders").
It sounds to me like a reasonable idea, especially considering the increasing number of registered users (paying/non-paying) of Proz.com.
So, w... See more If I have understood Henry's intentions clearly, the objective of having an "outsourcer willingness to work again" feedback option was, more or less, to filter "real prozians" (that is, "real professionals" doing serious/honest work in the translation/interpretation, etc. field) from "non-real prozians" (profession "intruders").
It sounds to me like a reasonable idea, especially considering the increasing number of registered users (paying/non-paying) of Proz.com.
So, why not create a "less intimidating-sounding" (and fully optional) profile option? Something like "professional references"?
For example, let's suppose that in their profile prozians were allowed to supply at least one "professional reference", which could then be verified by Proz.com, just like prozians are ID verified.
If a prozian wanted to add more references to this "Professional references" option, she/he would be free to add them and have each of them verified by Proz.com.
So, in the profile you would see something like "Number of verified professional references: 1" (or whatever number).
Of course, this would contribute to create more "serious-looking" profiles, but it would still not solve the problem (unless it were mandatory) of "filtering intruders" (and I am assuming that prozians are mostly concerned about non-professionals adding competition to the job bids offered by Proz.com).
Just another idea for this Guinness record session/thread of brainstorming... ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Thanks, Ivette | Jul 3, 2006 |
Ivette Camargo López wrote:
If I have understood Henry's intentions clearly, the objective of having an "outsourcer willingness to work again" feedback option was, more or less, to filter "real prozians" (that is, "real professionals" doing serious/honest work in the translation/interpretation, etc. field) from "non-real prozians" (profession "intruders").
No, that is not the intent. You have to bear in mind that lots of good translators won't use this, out of reasons of preference, confidentiality, etc. This is not to filter the good from the bad, but to provide a powerful marketing tool to those who wish to use it.
So, why not create a "less intimidating-sounding" (and fully optional) profile option? Something like "professional references"?
For example, let's suppose that in their profile prozians were allowed to supply at least one "professional reference", which could then be verified by Proz.com, just like prozians are ID verified.
If a prozian wanted to add more references to this "Professional references" option, she/he would be free to add them and have each of them verified by Proz.com.
So, in the profile you would see something like "Number of verified professional references: 1" (or whatever number).
Thank you. That is one of the services we have considered, but I think of that as something distinct.
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