| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] | ProZ.com is acquiring TM-Town Thread poster: Henry Dotterer
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| Is it really an improvement? | Apr 18, 2016 |
Erik Freitag wrote: Tom in London wrote:
Simple question:
What does TM Town do that Proz doesn't already do? Proz already brings me lots of direct clients who find me through my profile.
[Edited at 2016-04-18 14:09 GMT] It's not for you, Tom. You can safely ignore it.
That seems like a good point Erik. But the question is: who is it for anyway? I argued somewhere else that this is just another type of bidding system where it's most important to upload as many files as possible to win a job; where do those files really come from, who holds the rights to their use? I see this new system as an extension of the job board system. Who do think will be the ones using this system a lot? Those who also apply at job boards. I am sure they'll jump on the bandwagon. I don't see this as an improvement for professionals. Can we all safely ignore it? Should we discuss it at all? Hmm... What about improvements for professionals? Could we come up with those improvements as quickly as this new extension was established? Unfortunately, I doubt it.
[Edited at 2016-04-18 16:15 GMT]
| | | | | Not the same experience | Apr 18, 2016 |
Tom in London wrote:
Simple question:
What does TM Town do that Proz doesn't already do? Proz already brings me lots of direct clients who find me through my profile.
[Edited at 2016-04-18 14:09 GMT]
Lots of direct clients? You are a lucky guy then Tom.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:51
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
Lots of direct clients? You are a lucky guy then Tom.
Thank Bernard. I don't call it luck. I call it having a good profile on Proz.
Is TM Town going to affect this in some way if I don't pay extra for it?
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:51
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Henry Dotterer wrote:
..... (using natural language processing and so on)
What is "natural language processing"?
(Later)
Oh- I've just googled it. It's what I do when I use dictation software.
[Edited at 2016-04-18 16:54 GMT]
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| That is not the intent | Apr 18, 2016 |
Tom in London wrote: Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
Lots of direct clients? You are a lucky guy then Tom. Thank Bernard. I don't call it luck. I call it having a good profile on Proz. Is TM Town going to affect this in some way if I don't pay extra for it?
In the short term (next few years), no. Longer term, hard to say... because of possible indirect effects. My advice is to experiment with TM-Town when time permits. See how things develop, as well as what value, if any, TM-Town brings to you personally.
Being conscious of the fact that it is your membership dollars that have made the investment in TM-Town possible, we are giving you the chance to do that for free. Hence the year of free membership. There is no automatic renewal or anything like that, so you can rest assured that when you experiment with TM-Town, you are not putting anything more at risk, financially, than your time.
We are going to be working hard to improve both ProZ.com and TM-Town as we go forward. With an account at both sites, you will be well positioned to watch and evaluate the value to you that is delivered, and whether or not you want to continue to invest in one or both sites in the future.
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Tom in London wrote: Henry Dotterer wrote:
..... (using natural language processing and so on) What is "natural language processing"? (Later) Oh- I've just googled it. It's what I do when I use dictation software.
Right. And in this case it is an attempt to programmatically answer the question, "Which translators in the database are most likely to be knowledgeable with regard to the content in this document?"
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Tom in London wrote: Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
Lots of direct clients? You are a lucky guy then Tom. Thank Bernard. I don't call it luck. I call it having a good profile on Proz. Is TM Town going to affect this in some way if I don't pay extra for it?
I get some inquiries from direct clients through Proz.com, but I can't say they are many. There is a trend even from those people to ask for cheap translations. I don't expect that to improve any time soon. Of course, there are exceptions. But that doesn't mean I am going to start uploading files to the town. See my previous comments.
[Edited at 2016-04-18 20:51 GMT]
| | | | Selcuk Akyuz 
Türkiye
Local time: 04:51
English to Turkish
+ ...
| good translator = KudoZ points or TMs? | Apr 19, 2016 |
I played the KudoZ game for a while and I was listed on the first page.
Now I am using my other deadly weapon TMs
IMO, the Jobs system here at ProZ is for certain agencies and translators. It is the Your Best Price system, not for me.
KudoZ possibly helped me to find some clients. When I was an active answerer, my profile page was visited frequently and I was offered projects by some 'good' a... See more I played the KudoZ game for a while and I was listed on the first page.
Now I am using my other deadly weapon TMs
IMO, the Jobs system here at ProZ is for certain agencies and translators. It is the Your Best Price system, not for me.
KudoZ possibly helped me to find some clients. When I was an active answerer, my profile page was visited frequently and I was offered projects by some 'good' agencies. But the KudoZ system was not fair, at least after some years, Accumulated points over years and years of playing the game helped the oldies only. I was one of those oldies in my pair but the game was boring. Now I don't answer questions, I don't get points and I am not listed in top three. So my profile page gets less hits each month and therefore no new clients through ProZ for me.
Tom in London wrote: Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
Lots of direct clients? You are a lucky guy then Tom. Thank Bernard. I don't call it luck. I call it having a good profile on Proz.
Grats Tom, you are No. 2 at KudoZ points listing in your language pair but you don't use CAT tools, right? So you don't have TMs and limited to 300 characters for your profile at TM-Town.
On the other hand, no. 1 Italian-English translator at TM-Town is a Turkish translator with 2-year experience but a huge TM.
Now, the Jobs system was not good, KudoZ was not fair and the new site will be possibly exploited. But any suggestions? ▲ Collapse
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| Top notch TMs for sal... äh, to donate! | Apr 19, 2016 |
Together with job offers out of my fields of specialties (which I finally had to decline) I received numerous top notch TMs (eng-ger) in medicine, patents, law and some other fields. Anybody interested in them to build up a high ranking position in TM Town? Just replace the existing "created by" fields with your name (with Notepad) and there we go...
[I forgot to indicate this post as satire]
[Edited at 2016-04-19 09:18 GMT]
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Matthias Brombach wrote:
Together with job offers out of my fields of specialties (which I finally had to decline) I received numerous top notch TMs (eng-ger) in medicine, patents, law and some other fields. Anybody interested in them to build up a high ranking position in TM Town? Just replace the existing "created by" fields with your name (with Notepad) and there we go...
[I forgot to indicate this post as satire]
I actually thought this was quite spot on, also considering things such as "On the other hand, no. 1 Italian-English translator at TM-Town is a Turkish translator with 2-year experience but a huge TM" from Selcuk...
How can this be seriously considered an improvement of any kind or a "useful" directory for both clients and translators?
Also, as Selcuk said, while the KudoZ system DOES have its flaws and pitfalls (plenty of them), you generally have to show some degree of ability/knowledge in a pair in order to get "points", based on peer review. How does that compare to TM-Town? What if, say, I download a looooong source text, segment it using "creative" segmentation rules (or even into single words), machine translate it, create a tmx (or "town" file) and upload it? I will suddenly have gazillions of "translated segments" (not even words...) under my belt in whatever pair I want... How is this a useful/meaningful system for anything/anyone?
EDIT: "in whatever pair AND FIELD I want"
[Edited at 2016-04-22 16:30 GMT]
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:51
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Selcuk Akyuz wrote:
....no. 1 Italian-English translator at TM-Town is a Turkish translator with 2-year experience but a huge TM.
I wouldn't want to give any work to a non-native English translator. As for his huge TM - too much information !
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 02:51
Member (2008)
Italian to English
I'm not happy and it seems I must, regretfully, begin either planning my life post-Proz, or relegating Proz to little more than an enjoyable, cosmopolitan forum in which to exchange experiences, opinions, and the occasional joke with colleagues all over the world.
I don't like where this TM Town thing is going. In my experience most agencies are generic and don't have the ability (or the time) to evaluate the skill of a translator by looking at their previous work in specialist subj... See more I'm not happy and it seems I must, regretfully, begin either planning my life post-Proz, or relegating Proz to little more than an enjoyable, cosmopolitan forum in which to exchange experiences, opinions, and the occasional joke with colleagues all over the world.
I don't like where this TM Town thing is going. In my experience most agencies are generic and don't have the ability (or the time) to evaluate the skill of a translator by looking at their previous work in specialist subject areas.
My experience suggests that they are more interested in general reputation, professionalism, adaptability, and whether they actually like you as a person and rely on you, by working with you over a long period. Most experienced translators will already have their own portfolio of such clients, and won't really be relying on something like TM Town to gain a (theoretical) advantage in a competitive process for finding work. They will already have as much work as they can handle.
Added to which, all the translations I do are strictly confidential, including all the text strings they contain. I would never make them available to anyone other than the client/agency that paid me to do them, no matter how many promises of confidentiality I might be given. I don't even know if TM Town works!
It would be interesting to hear the views of some agencies.
[Edited at 2016-04-22 17:38 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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| Give it a chance | Apr 22, 2016 |
In another forum I stated that we translators are a conservative bunch. Whenever there is an innovation (new CAT's/Windows or whatever new version), it seems we immediately say 'NO'. Well, I had my share, so you don't have to start that all over again.
My point is that TM-Town is nothing more and nothing less then a new platform, which we can use, or not. Is it perfect? I don't know. Show me perfect, and I'll show the imperfection of it.
Like it or not, there will be mo... See more In another forum I stated that we translators are a conservative bunch. Whenever there is an innovation (new CAT's/Windows or whatever new version), it seems we immediately say 'NO'. Well, I had my share, so you don't have to start that all over again.
My point is that TM-Town is nothing more and nothing less then a new platform, which we can use, or not. Is it perfect? I don't know. Show me perfect, and I'll show the imperfection of it.
Like it or not, there will be more innovations in the future, and I for one am (NOT) looking forward to all the same discussions.
[Edited at 2016-04-22 22:53 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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