| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | October "Feature in Focus": the outsourcer Blue Board 投稿者: Henry Dotterer
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Brandis (X)
Local time: 18:51
英語 から ドイツ語
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| I feel the current BB is a somewhat balanced system | Nov 1, 2004 |
Hi It was mean actually for Gruenwald. As I see the ratings, and the plus points gathered through a range of translators, who have worked for an agency infact balances the image. Now remains the role of Translators playing agencies or the other way around and their deviating translation quality, that would be next to impossible to find a perfect mirror-effect as balancing agent, as it depends really on the individual translator and or the kind of agreement he/she has with the agency, above all t... See more Hi It was mean actually for Gruenwald. As I see the ratings, and the plus points gathered through a range of translators, who have worked for an agency infact balances the image. Now remains the role of Translators playing agencies or the other way around and their deviating translation quality, that would be next to impossible to find a perfect mirror-effect as balancing agent, as it depends really on the individual translator and or the kind of agreement he/she has with the agency, above all the acceptance of the timeframe,price and further th conditions, pertaining to time frame. There is a whole industry working on developing further translation tools, just with a view either to streamline the translation process or even standardize the quality. I find when two translators come together with the same language combination, despite agreeing upon individual terminology they would use, both would infact translate in a different manner. That´s what I find so artistic about it.There are really talents who translate without any tools, but industry wants less of them, with a totally different goal in the back of it´s mind.
I find yolanda´s thought to groupsort in some manner interesting, it could be helpful
Brandis
[Edited at 2004-11-01 18:25] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Suggestion on the format as a whole | Nov 2, 2004 |
First, this new “Focus” feature is a great idea, and I’d like to thank to and congratulate the staff for this.
I feel, however, that BB would benefit a lot if a format that guided the translator to a more defined, structured, and indisputably factual sort of entry-making could be introduced. Although it is fine to read and write comments such as “Excellent agency, prompt payment, very nice PM’s” OR “Beware! Non-payers, no response to reminders” and the like, a more s... See more First, this new “Focus” feature is a great idea, and I’d like to thank to and congratulate the staff for this.
I feel, however, that BB would benefit a lot if a format that guided the translator to a more defined, structured, and indisputably factual sort of entry-making could be introduced. Although it is fine to read and write comments such as “Excellent agency, prompt payment, very nice PM’s” OR “Beware! Non-payers, no response to reminders” and the like, a more structured format could further precision and reliability.
What I mean is re-organizing the BB with very concrete questions about the particular provider-outsourcer interaction in question (multiple-choice type questions to be answered by checking boxes and/or “Yes or No” type ones - all required). In my opinion, such a format would 1. render BB strictly factual, thus more functional and reliable; 2. provide the viewer with more meaningful and concrete data instead of remarks which may sometimes be made with the state of mind of a given moment; and 3. leave less room both for outsourcer complaints and for the criticism that there is no equivalent for translators.
To elaborate the 2 above: in its present format the BB tells us whether the agency pays or not, that’s for sure; but some other important data is left to the discretion of the translator: average rates of the agency, size of the project in question (it may not mean much if the agency paid €50 before due date), feedback to and cooperativeness towards the translator, etc. Most important of all –to me, at least- is the information about how many times or for how long the translator worked with this agency. (Not all translators indicate this in their remarks, and I believe a point of 5 entered upon just one small project may not always be significant.)
Examples (without excluding the current 1-5 point system to indicate willingness to work again):
-Size of the project:
x Small (e.g. < 5,000 words)
x Medium (betw. 5,000-10,000)
x Large (> 10,000)
(The figures are just examples of course, definiton of small, medium, large may be different.)
OR
-Number of projects:
x Just 1
x Between 1-5
x More than 5
(Or alternatively, a question about for how long the translator collaborated with the outsourcer.)
-Promptness of payment:
x Before / on due date
x Late, but made
x Still pending
(Maybe additional space can be provided to indicate how late the payment was made / since when it’s pending.)
Others may be added about the degree of cooperativeness of PM’s during the project, agency’s rates as compared to market averages in that particular language pair and specialized field, and so forth... but the shorter the better, of course.
I am aware that making such a change in the BB can take some time and can be complicated, yet I believe it would render the tool much simpler to use and certainly more precise. However, there might be potential problems and difficulties to this that didn’t occur to me while formulating this suggestion (like, how valuable the info will still be when not updated for a long time), so I would really appreciate opinions.
[Edited at 2004-11-02 03:20] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Eva Blanar 
ハンガリー
Local time: 18:51
英語 から ハンガリー語
+ ...
| The main issue is payment | Nov 10, 2004 |
Basically, what we want to know is reliability about payment, so it would be just perfect to insert somehow a pulldown menu or something to indicate this.
What if the score 1-5 is generated on the basis of answers to questions - like the ones mentioned by Xola? This might sound complicated at a first glance, but for the others, the information that you did lots of jobs for the agency, large ones, you know the people there etc. are all considerations increasing their value. And the... See more Basically, what we want to know is reliability about payment, so it would be just perfect to insert somehow a pulldown menu or something to indicate this.
What if the score 1-5 is generated on the basis of answers to questions - like the ones mentioned by Xola? This might sound complicated at a first glance, but for the others, the information that you did lots of jobs for the agency, large ones, you know the people there etc. are all considerations increasing their value. And there might be an extra choice of "never again" (a zero) - otherwise, the system generates a number on the basis of the answers to the questions. ▲ Collapse
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