| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] | Non-members "Featured translator"? Thread poster: Juan Jacob
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two2tango 
Argentina
Local time: 17:27
Member
English to Spanish
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Subhamay Ray wrote:
I am sorry but the very best translators in the world do not belong to either of your categories! None of them paid Proz.com 120 dollars, none of them participated in a funny game called Kudoz!
So you know who all the best translators in the world are, and you have proof that none of them is a ProZ.com member. I am puzzled indeed.
Regards,
Enrique
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Endre Both
Germany
Local time: 22:27
English to German
| Please keep discussion on point and within ProZ.com's scope | Mar 16, 2006 |
Without wanting to offend, I would like to remind participants in this thread to keep a) on topic and b) within ProZ.com's scope. See below for Forum rules and a definition of ProZ.com's scope.
http://www.proz.com/forumrules (#2)
http://www.proz.com/?sp=scope
Thank you for your understanding.<... See more Without wanting to offend, I would like to remind participants in this thread to keep a) on topic and b) within ProZ.com's scope. See below for Forum rules and a definition of ProZ.com's scope.
http://www.proz.com/forumrules (#2)
http://www.proz.com/?sp=scope
Thank you for your understanding.
Endre Both
ProZ.com moderator ▲ Collapse
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Henk Peelen
Netherlands
Local time: 22:27
Member (2003)
German to Dutch
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SITE LOCALIZER | Juan, I’m afraid you look from the wrong side through the field glasses | Mar 16, 2006 |
When you look at proz now, everything seemd very self-evident. Some years ago Henry wrote proz each day has to answer 3000 e-mails. An unbelievable lot of work has done to get the current result. Partly it must be paid (I mean at least the moderators support the site for free). (Among other things & in my opinion) Because people don’t understand that immediately, proz has to hold out a bag of toffees to the contributors: advantages, some more functional (for instance blue board and full job ac... See more When you look at proz now, everything seemd very self-evident. Some years ago Henry wrote proz each day has to answer 3000 e-mails. An unbelievable lot of work has done to get the current result. Partly it must be paid (I mean at least the moderators support the site for free). (Among other things & in my opinion) Because people don’t understand that immediately, proz has to hold out a bag of toffees to the contributors: advantages, some more functional (for instance blue board and full job access) and some more fun (for instance being featured).
Paying means nothing else than making proz possible. Kudoz is not a game, but a serious way of sharing expertise. You get browniz that prevent you from being in the red. It’s tax-deductable, so in the end you pay some 60-70 Euro / USD. Two or three hours work, or in countries where a Euro or US dollar has more spending power probably a day. So I think by far the people who don’t pay, don’t want to pay instead of not being able to pay the membership fee.
Your plea to get non-paying freelancers featured doesn’t make much sense to me. The feature feature is the toffee most easy to do without for people who need the proz advantages without being able to pay the membership fee
Something I don’t understand either is that you sometimes write Spanish on forums with English as language of communication. Don’t you think that’s disdainful for the 70% or so translators who don’t manage to read your postings?
The English world for a long time has offered worldwide solutions (for instance the Greenwich based 24 time zones), useable for everybody, though not loved by everybody. But everybody can in his private environment use the time partition he / she wants.
Sharing experience is a good thing. Askers learn from answerers, but answerers form askers as well. Freelancers learn form proz and each other, but proz as well from freelancers. Freelancers from clients, but clients from freelancers as well. Et cetera.
Be sure I don’t say that non-paying translators don’t or couldn’t support the site. Of course, there useful participating in Kudoz, forums, and their socialibility and their papers at powwows / conferences are gorgeous, but their must be revenues as well. The more payers, the more features, meaning the more free stuff for those who can’t pay.
So, when you want to keep the site apporachable and easy accessable, writing English everywhere and offer three hours for a membership fee makes most sense.
PS: I see it's possible to transfer Browniz now. If somebody wants 4000 of them, please let me know. I'll be glad to get rid of them.
[Edited at 2006-03-17 06:02] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | I am puzzled too. | Mar 17, 2006 |
two2tango wrote: Subhamay Ray wrote:
I am sorry but the very best translators in the world do not belong to either of your categories! None of them paid Proz.com 120 dollars, none of them participated in a funny game called Kudoz!
So you know who all the best translators in the world are, and you have proof that none of them is a ProZ.com member. I am puzzled indeed. Regards, Enrique
Really, I am puzzled, too. So... if they are not at Proz.com, where on earth could they be? How could anybody measures translation capabilities on people and rank them to be the best ones?
A puzzled Inés
| | | | Uldis Liepkalns
Latvia
Local time: 23:27
Member (2003)
English to Latvian
+ ...
| In my country they are hiding under the tables :) | Mar 17, 2006 |
I say it because of catastrophic shortage of translators here and I cannot think of a better place of them for hiding
Uldis
Ines Garcia Botana wrote:
Really, I am puzzled, too. So... if they are not at Proz.com, where on earth could they be? How could anybody measures translation capabilities on people and rank them to be the best ones?
A puzzled Inés
[Edited at 2006-03-17 01:02]
| | | | | Honorary membership, maybe? | Jun 19, 2006 |
Maria Luisa Duarte wrote:
Henry has explained it very clearly, and I quote:
"Where I live, hockey players have "pickup" games. A group of players gets together and has a game, and at the end of the game, they divide the costs of 90 minutes of ice time among the number of players. If there are 20 players, and the cost is $100, each player pays $5. How many goals one scores, or how many times one passes, does not affect how much one pays; the point is that everyone who plays uses the ice, and the ice costs money."
Unquote
Unfortunately, that analogy falls very flat, very quickly: It fails to take into account that the Proz.com "hockey" players actually PROVIDED most of the ice on which the rest of us skate! They found a great but empty hockey facility called "Proz.com", but there was no ice in the rink. So the painstakingly helped to filled it with ice, one crystal at a time, out of their own efforts.
In other words, the Kudoz leaders were, indisputably, responsible for populating a very, VERY large chunk of the glossary out of their own personal efforts. Without that data base, Proz.com simply would not be what it is to day, and I agree wholeheartedly with Juan Jacob that the points leaders DESERVE recognition.
In fact, I would even go even further:
I think they deserve honorary lifetime membership, with no fee. Anyone who has dedicated enough time and passion to accumulate 10,000 points, should not have to pay to skate on his own ice, IMHO.
I don't care how much anyone paid to help Henry build the ice rink: If nobody had bothered to fill it with ice, then it would be worthless.
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Juan Jacob
Mexico
Local time: 14:27
French to Spanish
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TOPIC STARTER | Thanks, Stuart. | Jun 19, 2006 |
You couldn't put it more clearly.
"If you don't pay you don't play" seems quite rude to me:
I don't pay, but I play, and a lot, to put the ice together.
Regards.
| | | | Maria Karra
United States
Local time: 16:27
Member (2000)
Greek to English
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| continuing the analogy | Jun 20, 2006 |
Stuart Allsop wrote:
In fact, I would even go even further:
I think they deserve honorary lifetime membership, with no fee. Anyone who has dedicated enough time and passion to accumulate 10,000 points, should not have to pay to skate on his own ice, IMHO.
People don't have to pay to skate on their own ice; they can skate on their own ice as much as they want, after they put it in their own rink. This is Henry's rink. The rink cannot be created with kudoz points, it can only be created with money and with hard work. When the rink gets damaged someone has to fix it; and the person who has to fix it (read: developer) must be paid. And he can't be paid with ice or kudoz or dedication, he has to be paid with money. Those who accumulate 10,000 points or more do get a lot back from the site. They are given the opportunity to network even via the kudoz system alone, they get jobs, they meet colleagues who often become collaborators, and they are given the chance to showcase their skills and knowledge (not just on KudoZ but in the forums as well), and of course, get advice from other colleagues if and when they need it. I'd say ProZ is quite generous in that respect.
Maria
| | | | | Empty shell... | Jun 20, 2006 |
Maria Karra wrote:
People don't have to pay to skate on their own ice; they can skate on their own ice as much as they want, after they put it in their own rink. This is Henry's rink. The rink cannot be created with kudoz points…
Yes, but the point that several people seem to be missing here is that even the best ice rink in the world is useless if it has no ice! It would just be an empty shell. A very NICE empty shell in this case, by all means, but empty nonetheless. It is ONLY because of the efforts of ALL of us that there is ice in the rink, and frankly it just seems glaringly obvious that those who put the most ice in the rink deserve a few free games every now and then, while those who just want to sit in the seats and watch can and should pay the price of entry.
It is a tribute to Henry that he managed to build a really nice place where people come to do both, but that doesn’t change the fact that some people contribute with their wallet, and others contribute with their blood, sweat and tears. Some folks are willing and able to pay for the best seats in the house and the extra privileges that go with them. But Henry also left the door open for others to drop in and lend a hand, if they want, even though they don’t get good seats or privileges. Fair enough,
To stretch the ice-rink analogy to breaking point, in a world-class game, the guys on the ice don't pay to be there: They are PAID to be there. The guys sitting in the bleachers enjoy the benefit of learning the skills demonstrated by the expert players on the ice, and are quite happy to pay in order to do so. Henry's master stroke was to provide some free seating, and some paid seating, and ask everyone to bring some ice.
But now that I've flogged a perfectly good analogy to death, I wanted to repeat my point here: There are a very, very few leaders who have put in vast amounts of effort, while the rest of us look on in awe and admiration, wondering how on earth they managed to do that, and WHY they did it. All that Juan and I and some of the others are saying, is that it would be nice to recognize those efforts.
I just checked, and across ALL languages there are only about two dozen people with more than 10,000 points. Would it be such a terrible thing to say "thank you" to those guys, in a meaningful way that might also serve as an incentive for the rest of us?
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