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Complimentary TM-Town membership for ProZ.com members
Thread poster: Jared Tabor
Anthony Baldwin
Anthony Baldwin  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 16:55
Portuguese to English
+ ...
tedious or necessary? Apr 28, 2016

Michael J.W. Beijer wrote:



All this groundless paranoia is just so incredibly tedious.

Michael


These days, some incredibly tedious paranoia is practically a necessity, there are so many scams out there and people/companies, etc. seeking to rob anyone gullible enough to forego some healthy skepticism and necessary paranoia.
I find my own paranoia and skepticism growing tedious at times, but then I occasionally hear of various horrors that befall those lacking my paranoia and skepticism, and then I feel completely justified.


 
Tomas Mosler, DipTrans IoLET MCIL MITI
Tomas Mosler, DipTrans IoLET MCIL MITI  Identity Verified
Czech Republic
Local time: 21:55
Member (2008)
English to Czech
SITE LOCALIZER
well Apr 28, 2016

Use it or don't use it, but stop 'nagging'.

1) I think that is about as logical or meaningful as if someone said "stop praise and promotion". Either anyone can say what they want (and others can read, reflect or skip it as they wish), or no one can say anything.

2) "don't use it" would indeed be a nice solution to various concerns, but if I or someone else don't use TM Town, it unfortunately doesn't eliminate the perceived inherited TM Town proneness to confidentiality issues.


 
Paulinho Fonseca
Paulinho Fonseca  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 17:55
Member (2011)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Do they accept Paypal? Apr 29, 2016

I tried to upgrade it by did not see any options for Paypal.



 
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@Paulinho Apr 29, 2016

At this time we do not accept PayPal. We hope to add that option in the near future though.

 
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Don't get caught up on "ranking" Apr 29, 2016

Maxi Schwarz wrote:
My first concern is about the idea "ranking" translators who join. I find that idea quite disturbing. That would give clients the impression the idea that some translators are "better" than others - or more damaging, "worse" than others. A client may choose one over the other based on such ranking, believing that it is validity. There is also the matter of reputation, which we spend years building. The ranking itself is done via these uploaded sample translations, with the problematics of that already discussed here and there.


First of all, I think you are overstating the concept of "ranking" on TM-Town. In our traditional directory, when a client does a search, the results need to be ordered in some fashion. You could, for example, order the results alphabetically by a translator's name. On ProZ.com, I believe KudoZ points factor in to the ordering (or "ranking"). On TM-Town, the default is to show Professional members first (ordered by translation units) followed by any other members (ordered by translation units). However, we also allow the client to easily change the ordering to be based on:
- Term concepts
- Years of experience
- Lowest rate
- Highest rate

Are you equally disturbed that the ProZ.com directory is "ranked" by KudoZ points?

The fact is some translators are "better" than others - and some are "worse" than others. Just like some programmers are better than others, while some are worse. Some NBA players are better than others, while some are worse. Some restaurants are better than others while some are worse. Some doctors are better than others, while some are worse. The list goes on.

If you ask me, "so then does the number of translation units a translator has uploaded make them better than another translator?" - well, of course not.

I think you need to look at the bigger picture though. On TM-Town we have 2 ways to search for translators:
1) Our traditional directory search
2) Our Nakōdo search

At TM-Town, we believe that Nakōdo is the future. It is a more efficient way to find the right translator for the job. Why do we have a traditional directory search then? Well, that is the status quo. It is what translators, clients, and agencies are used to and what they expect to find. Without a doubt though, we want to encourage them to try out Nakōdo and migrate toward that.

Why? Nakōdo analyzes the terms of a document that needs translation and recommends the translators who have translated similar material in the past. There is no concept of "ranking" with Nakōdo. The results are independent of how much a translator has uploaded. The results are based on an analysis of the terms of that document and an analysis of the terms of documents translators have loaded to TM-Town.

For translators, Nakōdo makes it easier to find a particular kind of translation work, while decreasing the number of inquiries outside of one’s working fields. The approach also contributes to higher efficiency and quality of work, since working in your areas of specialization requires less time for you to research new concepts and terms.

So that begs the question - why even show translation units? Why have the default ordering of your traditional directory be based on translation unit counts?

The answer is, for Nakōdo to work well, it needs translators to upload work. Remember, translators are our customers. At TM-Town we don't receive any income from clients or agencies. We serve translators. Our interests are aligned with yours. The more work you upload, the better TM-Town can work for you. We thus have an incentive structure in place to encourage translators to load more work (of course with the proper controls that I have discussed in detail earlier in this thread). Just like ProZ.com has an incentive structure in place to participate in KudoZ. KudoZ is only useful if people are using it. Nakōdo is only useful if documents are uploaded.

[Edited at 2016-04-29 06:07 GMT]


 
Stanislava Adamcová Balajová MBA
Stanislava Adamcová Balajová MBA
Slovakia
Local time: 21:55
Member (2014)
English to Czech
+ ...
CAN´T CREATE AN ACCOUNT Apr 29, 2016

Hi I tried to sign in with Proz, but unfortunatelly it says something about verification method, unpossibility to sign in etc...

 
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Local time: 05:55
@Stanislava Apr 29, 2016

Can you try registering with a username and password (instead of the 'Sign in With ProZ.com' button). Then, once your account is created you can link your ProZ.com account from the account settings page.

If you still have trouble after trying the above please email me.


 
Michael Wetzel
Michael Wetzel  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 21:55
German to English
seems like the core issue to me Apr 29, 2016

For me, that is what it boils down to: Once the list has been narrowed down according to a client's selection criteria, the TM-Town system is probably a better way of ordering the list of translators than KudoZ points. At any rate, it seems like a viable alternative and I think it makes sense to offer it parallel to an ordering according to KudoZ.

TM-Town certainly was providing an incentive for translators to do things that were almost certainly in violation of professional common
... See more
For me, that is what it boils down to: Once the list has been narrowed down according to a client's selection criteria, the TM-Town system is probably a better way of ordering the list of translators than KudoZ points. At any rate, it seems like a viable alternative and I think it makes sense to offer it parallel to an ordering according to KudoZ.

TM-Town certainly was providing an incentive for translators to do things that were almost certainly in violation of professional common sense and almost all translation contracts by uploading their TMs to a third-party server without their clients' consent. They were not "asking" or "encouraging" translators to do that, but they set up a system that was very clearly and necessarily going to lead to and reward this behavior.
However, they responded by developing this Deshi thing, which very clearly deals with this problem and seems to do so very effectively.
In fact, Deshi seems to do away with all of the security and confidentiality issues raised here.

The privileged presence of TM-Town on this site before its acquisition was more or less shady and I find TM-Town's advertisements and the whole language of its corporate image very annoying. However, that's not really to the point. The past is the past and advertising blah-blah is advertising blah-blah.

So, I guess I have a personal dislike of TM-Town, but it looks to me like a more or less convincing concept and they have actively responded to criticism.

I don't think Nakodo is the future of translation-industry matchmaking (or dating) services. Like Maxi has pointed out, translating in a field does not make someone qualified to translate in a field. On the other hand, it is probably a very useful tool for big agencies to quickly find translators and to do so with a better success ratio than a KudoZ ranking. It also heavily privileges translators who work with CAT tools or are willing to jump through hoops to comply with CAT-oriented clients, which is probably also good for those clients.
Collapse


 
Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:55
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
answers Apr 29, 2016

Anthony Baldwin wrote:

I fail to see how this site is supposed to be useful to me when:
a) it only allows one language pair (i have three), and;
b) so much of it seems to depend upon me uploading documents, but 90% or more of the work I do is protected by NDAs and Confidentiality Agreements, so I can not upload any of it, and I definitely don't have time to sit around sanitizing documents (I.e. removing names or other protected data)


a) See their Professional plan, which supports three pairs
b) See "Deshi" (discussed extensively in this thread), allowing you to keep all TMs local

Michael


 
Erik Freitag
Erik Freitag  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 21:55
Member (2006)
Dutch to German
+ ...
Why not do away with uploading documents? Apr 29, 2016

Kevin Dias wrote:
Nakōdo is only useful if documents are uploaded.


This seems to be what a great deal of the reservation TM-Town experiences revolves around. If your statement is correct that, for Nakodo matching, it makes absolutely no difference whether you upload bilingual documents or a Deshi file, why not do away with uploading documents/TMs altogether? This would take a lot of pressure from your business concept.

Anyway, I completely fail to see any use in the other purposes of uploading translated documents named on TM-Town, namely the possibility to search them. That's what the CAT tools used to create those TMs are for. Send a database to some kind of online storage in order to search it remotely instead of on your local computer? Really? Why would anybody ever have any use for that function of TM-Town?

So I think you could do your project a lot of good if you just buried the idea of uploading TMs at all. I understand that this may be a difficult step for you, since you probably have spent a lot of work, thought and money into the concept, and it may be hard to realize that nobody has a use for it. Abandon it, and - bang! - confidentiality issues gone, as well as the (not completely unfounded) suspicion that TM-Town will at some point in time make use of the uploaded TMs.

The Deshi process is superior, by far. It was a wise step to make the Deshi files plain text, so you can actually see what's in it.


 
Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:55
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
I prefer uploading my actual TMs to using the Deshi workaround … Apr 29, 2016

Erik Freitag wrote:

Kevin Dias wrote:
Nakōdo is only useful if documents are uploaded.


This seems to be what a great deal of the reservation TM-Town experiences revolves around. If your statement is correct that, for Nakodo matching, it makes absolutely no difference whether you upload bilingual documents or a Deshi file, why not do away with uploading documents/TMs altogether? This would take a lot of pressure from your business concept.

Anyway, I completely fail to see any use in the other purposes of uploading translated documents named on TM-Town, namely the possibility to search them. That's what the CAT tools used to create those TMs are for. Send a database to some kind of online storage in order to search it remotely instead of on your local computer? Really? Why would anybody ever have any use for that function of TM-Town?

So I think you could do your project a lot of good if you just buried the idea of uploading TMs at all. I understand that this may be a difficult step for you, since you probably have spent a lot of work, thought and money into the concept, and it may be hard to realize that nobody has a use for it. Abandon it, and - bang! - confidentiality issues gone, as well as the (not completely unfounded) suspicion that TM-Town will at some point in time make use of the uploaded TMs.

The Deshi process is superior, by far. It was a wise step to make the Deshi files plain text, so you can actually see what's in it.


Please no, as I prefer uploading my actual TMs to using Deshi. I see no confidentiality problems in uploading my TMs to TM-Town, and like the idea of creating an online repository of my TMs/TBs that I can connect to from inside my CAT tools (currently CafeTran and Studio, memoQ hopefully on the way).

As a freelance translator, I am entitled to handle my computer and the data on it as I see fit, and after having carefully assessed TM-Town prior to using it, I feel that uploading my own TMs to it in no way constitutes a confidentiality risk. That is, I am entirely certain that my clients' data is secure. Just as the doubting Thomases are entitled to their endless fear and paranoia, I am entitled to my trust. They have assessed it, and find it lacking. I have assessed it, and believe it is safe.

I sometimes wonder how anything gets done in Germany at all, what with all the fear of breaching some NDA or other. Data security is great, but too much of it can also be bad for business.

Michael


 
Erik Freitag
Erik Freitag  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 21:55
Member (2006)
Dutch to German
+ ...
It takes all sorts Apr 29, 2016

Michael J.W. Beijer wrote:

Please no, as I prefer uploading my actual TMs to using Deshi. I (...) like the idea of creating an online repository of my TMs/TBs that I can connect to from inside my CAT tools.



Thanks for replying, Michael - interesting to hear that there actually is someone who uses that feature. I still don't understand why what you describe should in any way be preferrable to just connecting to your own TMs locally, but it takes all sorts, I guess.


 
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@Erik Apr 29, 2016

Erik Freitag wrote:
This seems to be what a great deal of the reservation TM-Town experiences revolves around. If your statement is correct that, for Nakodo matching, it makes absolutely no difference whether you upload bilingual documents or a Deshi file, why not do away with uploading documents/TMs altogether? This would take a lot of pressure from your business concept.

Anyway, I completely fail to see any use in the other purposes of uploading translated documents named on TM-Town, namely the possibility to search them. That's what the CAT tools used to create those TMs are for. Send a database to some kind of online storage in order to search it remotely instead of on your local computer? Really? Why would anybody ever have any use for that function of TM-Town?

So I think you could do your project a lot of good if you just buried the idea of uploading TMs at all. I understand that this may be a difficult step for you, since you probably have spent a lot of work, thought and money into the concept, and it may be hard to realize that nobody has a use for it. Abandon it, and - bang! - confidentiality issues gone, as well as the (not completely unfounded) suspicion that TM-Town will at some point in time make use of the uploaded TMs.

The Deshi process is superior, by far. It was a wise step to make the Deshi files plain text, so you can actually see what's in it.


I can understand your perspective. However, just because there is a vocal minority who feel a certain way, does not mean all translators share those opinions. The reason we don't abandon the uploading of documents/TMs (in favor of only Deshi .town files) is that many translators do use the tools we offer.

I can completely understand that you would never work that way, or have any interest in those tools, but many of the translators who use TM-Town do (I look at the usage stats every day. If translators weren't using a feature we would get rid of it). TM-Town is not limited to just searching files and integration with CAT tools.
The platform also provides:
- TM & glossary analytics
- Term extraction
- File conversion (TMX, XLIFF, XLS, CSV)
- Ability to easily share files with other translators (collaborators)
- Document alignment

I know some translators in this forum would never touch an online CAT tool, or would never use a MT plugin...but that doesn't mean that other translators aren't using them. The same goes for TM-Town's tools. I realize you see no use in them, but it doesn't mean that other translators don't find value there.


 
Erik Freitag
Erik Freitag  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 21:55
Member (2006)
Dutch to German
+ ...
Sure Apr 29, 2016

Kevin Dias wrote:

I know some translators in this forum would never touch an online CAT tool, or would never use a MT plugin...but that doesn't mean that other translators aren't using them. The same goes for TM-Town's tools. I realize you see no use in them, but it doesn't mean that other translators don't find value there.



Sure, I give you that - I genuinely suspected it doesn't get much use. I'd still (and equally genuinely) like to hear why those translators prefer to give their TMs to a third party in order to search them online, instead of just searching them locally.


 
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Possible reasons Apr 29, 2016

Erik Freitag wrote:
Sure, I give you that - I genuinely suspected it doesn't get much use. I'd still (and equally genuinely) like to hear why those translators prefer to give their TMs to a third party in order to search them online, instead of just searching them locally.


Obviously I can't speak for all translators, but from feedback I have heard from TM-Town users, some reasons include:

1) Available across multiple computers. Maybe you have a desktop and also a laptop. Instead of having to always sync your TMs between computers, you have them stored in one central location you can access from any computer.

2) For some translators it is easier. Many translators are not computer whizzes, so getting things to work right locally (while probably easy for you) may be difficult for them. On TM-Town they only have to load the document and then it is automatically indexed into search.

3) Potentially faster. Some translators have older computers that are not very powerful. If you start to have a lot of segments, searching them locally might be slower than searching them through TM-Town (web browser or a CAT tool extension).

4) Offsite backup (we had a translator whose computer crashed but he was able to recover his TMs from his TM-Town account)


 
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