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| User | Thread poster: Marilena Berca Will there be any translation contest soon? |
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Marilena Berca 
Spain
Local time: 02:43
 Member (2009)
English to Spanish
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Hi, I was wondering if ProZ staff are thinking of organizing a new translation contest anytime soon... thanks, regards.
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Henry Dotterer
United States
Local time: 20:43
Member
SITE FOUNDER |
This year's "big" contest will be announced over the next several weeks.
Thanks for asking!
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Marilena Berca
Spain
Local time: 02:43
Member (2009)
English to Spanish
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TOPIC STARTER |
Henry Dotterer wrote:
This year's "big" contest will be announced over the next several weeks.
Thanks for asking! |
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Thank you Henry! I am looking forward to it!
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Noni Gilbert
Spain
Local time: 02:43
Member (2007)
Spanish to English
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Looking forward to it.
Cheers
Noni
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Christel Zipfel
 Partial member
Italian to German
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Ali Al-Saqqa
Palestine
Local time: 02:43
 Partial member (2010)
English to Arabic
| | Technical, Scientific | Oct 5, 2010 |
I saw the last year's contest, its subject was about literature.
But this is unfair for scientific and technical translators; we market ourselves
as "integrate f(x) from 0 to infinity with respect to x" translators, so we,
probably, are not going to win simply because this is not our specialization.
Any ideas for this year's contest ?
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Soonthon LUPKITARO(Ph.D.)
Thailand
Local time: 07:43
Partial member (2004)
English to Thai
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Ali Al-Saqqa wrote:
I saw the last year's contest, its subject was about literature.
But this is unfair for scientific and technical translators; we market ourselves
as "integrate f(x) from 0 to infinity with respect to x" translators, so we,
probably, are not going to win simply because this is not our specialization.
Any ideas for this year's contest ? |
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Yes, I prefer translation of technical contexts. More translators will enjoy with it, I expect!
Soonthon Lupkitaro
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 02:43
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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Christel Zipfel wrote:
Would it not be better to make sure to close a previous contest, and particularly within a reasonable time, before starting another one? |
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Are you serious? The previous contest has been "making a close" for months and months now. ProZ.com staff optimistically thought that if they don't set a deadline for voting, then more people would vote, even in languages where no-one is interested to vote (or: in languages where nearly everyone thinks the translations all stink).
| I for one don't feel interested at all to partecipate and to vote once more under these circumstances. |
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What circumstances? I don't understand what it is about the last contest's voting procedures that discourage you from voting in the new contest... please explain?
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The system isn't perfect, I'll admit to that. For example, in the previous contest, I was not allowed to vote for my own entry, and so I had to vote for the second-best entry as "best", and the third-best entry as "second", and the fourth-best entry as "third". Since there are only 5 entries in my language combination, that means that the entry I would have had to vote for as "third best" is actually "third worst".
There is also no way to formally abstain from voting (AFAIK) so staff can't see whether non-voting is because of non-interest or because voters believe that no entries deserve a vote.
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inkweaver
Germany
Local time: 02:43
English to German
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Ali Al-Saqqa wrote:
I saw the last year's contest, its subject was about literature.
But this is unfair for scientific and technical translators; we market ourselves
as "integrate f(x) from 0 to infinity with respect to x" translators, so we,
probably, are not going to win simply because this is not our specialization.
Any ideas for this year's contest ? |
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The subject was "Business" if I remember correctly - that's why I didn't participate.
But with the wide range of possible specialisations, it is impossible to make every translator happy. I would certainly be delighted with a real literary text, but would give legal or technical texts a miss.
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Christian Schneider
Germany
Local time: 02:43
Member (2008)
English to German
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Henry Dotterer wrote:
This year's "big" contest will be announced over the next several weeks. |
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That's good to hear since 'this year' is almost done.
Looking forward to the contest.
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 02:43
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| | Last year's contest's topic | Oct 6, 2010 |
inkweaver wrote:
Ali Al-Saqqa wrote:
I saw the last year's contest, its subject was about literature. |
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The subject was "Business" if I remember correctly - that's why I didn't participate. |
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If you're talking about the English text, it was a literary text, and it wasn't particularly business-related. It was an exerpt from a humorously written guide to business common sense, and was probably aimed at the general public, as a bit of light reading. What made last year's text difficult was the fact that it was written in 1890, with all that goes with that.
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Annabel Rautenbach
South Africa
Local time: 02:43
Member (2007)
Dutch to English
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Our language pair still need 2 (only 2!!!) people to cast votes to announce a winner, but for some reason, we cannot get those two people!
Can't the site moderators help with this ... i.e. send out a memo to persons in those languages once again asking them to vote.
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 02:43
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| | Perhaps a poll is in order | Oct 6, 2010 |
Annabel Koekemoer wrote:
Our language pair still need 2 (only 2!!!) people to cast votes to announce a winner, but for some reason, we cannot get those two people! ... i.e. send out a memo to persons in those languages once again asking them to vote. |
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Perhaps we can poll the relevant translators to find out why they did not vote. The results may be significant. Edited: I just did that... I e-mailed all 107 eligible voters to ask them why they didn't vote. Let's see if I get any responses.
[Edited at 2010-10-06 15:51 GMT]
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Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 02:43
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| | Result of my small poll | Oct 9, 2010 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
Perhaps we can poll the relevant translators to find out why they did not vote. The results may be significant. Edited: I just did that... I e-mailed all 107 eligible voters to ask them why they didn't vote. Let's see if I get any responses. |
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I got 13 responses within 12 hours, with 2 more responses two days later. The reasons are:
didn't know about the competition = 9
didn't want to vote for imperfect entries = 1
didn't know that he could vote = 1
isn't a text translator = 1
was too busy = 3
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Ali Al-Saqqa
Palestine
Local time: 02:43
Partial member (2010)
English to Arabic
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In popular language pairs, such as English into Arabic, I am sure that having two or more
contests whould jsut be wonderful. There are many many translators so, for sure, there will be many participant and voters for each contest.
I simply can't see the reason for not applying this suggestion, you will have, say, a literature, medical and technical contests. Maybe also an economics one.
Site STAFF: what's your opinion ?
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