Languages market place

What do you think about adjusting the cost of the translation requests according to the target language ?

I mean we have few Hindi translators and plenty of french translators.

Then for example a 100 points request to french would now cost 20 points. The same request to Hindi would cost 1000 points.

This way, requesters could submit much more request into "common" languages. I often have the complaint of members who would lke to contribute and who receive an email notification telling them "There is something for you to translate!". Then when they arrive on the site, there is nothing to do because it has been done by somebody else.

With this new system there would be much more translations involving common languages and much more members could feel contributing.


The only problem is that when you translate common languages you earn less points, of course.

Actually it's like a language market place where the price of the languages depends on the demand and on the offer.


Hey, it's just an idea and I want to know your opinions about it. You must know it's an heavy developement, the kind of thing we must think twice before doing it.

Hi JP

I agree that the "price list" for translations needs updating.

It is not only the target or source language itself that can create discrepancies. Some translations are "easy" even if they are in a less common language. However, certain translations, because of their contents, are much more difficult to work , even if the source and target languages are more common.

Technical, medical, legal... translations need absolute precision and it is almost impossible to work on them without the use of language dictionaries, thesaurus, encyclopedia...

The same cannot be said of "Jack, I'm totally in love with you, would you like to share my ham sandwich" type translations, but they "cost" the same as a more complicated translation.

Is this the right place to also ask about exclusive translation times? Lengthy or more difficult (like those mentioned above) seem to be impossible within the time given.

For such texts I almost invariably copy/paste the source to my word processing program to do the translation and it is only once it is translated that I click on the "translate" button on the request page.

Qu'est ce que t'en penses?

Bises
Tantine

JP,

I think that that is a very good idea. It would increase the amount of translations for those who wish to translate into the "main" languages here.

The terminological translations mentioned by Tantine is also something we should develop some kind of rating for. At least avoid the estimated time lapse for difficult translations. Why not create some kind of terminological "flag/flags" that could be combined with the language request?

Another thing that should be dealt with are "one word translations"... I think they should be very expensive for the requester, this could stop the amount of "dictionary requests" and "name translations".

The "language market", I think, would be a more intelligent and wiser system.

I concern only about if the English experts' work would be banalized, because English would become the cheapest language among all.

With such a new system, what about we have our own "Cucumis currency" - which, of course, would have a nice name - instead of the overused "points"? I think on it because that "language market" would need some exchange rate, didn't it?

I agree it would be great to evaluate the level of complexity of translations.

But the price of the translation must be known when the user submit the translation request. And we cannot trust the users to set themselves the level of complexity, can we ?

Tantine, I advise you to click on the "translate" button before you start translating. Because when you do this, you lock the request, ie nobody else but you can translate it.When the time is over you just have to realod the apeg to reset the lock.

If you don't do this, one day somebody could submit the translation before you and you will be trapped

Forgot to say - the "language market" system could help to solve, indirectly, the amount of needed bridge translations.

Yep goncin, an exchange rate.
There would be list looking like :

Price ratios :

english : 0.1
french : 0.1
portuguese : 0.09
chinese : 0.5
hindi : 12.3


If I submit an english text of 100 characters (usually 100 points) and I want it to be translated :
in Hindi : 1230 points!
in French : 10 points!

Thus of course english translators will need to do a lot of translation to earn points

We can change the word "points" if you wish, that would be fun, but it is used in many sentences and it will be a nice amount of work to change the language files

Hey, wouldn't English be the cheapest one?


We can change the word "points" if you wish, that would be fun, but it is used in many sentences and it will be a nice amount of work to change the language files


But we are supposed to be here to translate

Hm... the most common languages would be too cheap so. Many newcomers want to earn a lot of points, so I think the idea is great I just would not reduce the cost of the others´ work so much. If you translate a text of 100 English characters into French you still work on it. That Hindi speaker won´t work on it more than a French speaker (let´s imagine they are native ones), because both speak those languages at the same high level, only the languages are different.

My suggestion would be to leave prices as they are, but increase the points translators can earn for rare languages. (Or OK, but French for only 2O points is too little!!)

Oh, and I think that we should first discuss which languages ARE rare ones. Because I don´t think only Asian ones count then (Lithuanian, Albanian, Czech, Swahili etc.)!

Maybe we should earn seeds or pips instead of points?

This could be translated into each language, in using the name for watermelon seeds in each language:

seeds
graines
pips
stones

Oh maybe some translations (one word jobs) could be paid with pips and "heavier" translations paid with "stones" (noyau

I quite like pips myself, its a nice word!!

About hitting the "translate" button - it's already happened that once I've translated and get back to the page its already disappeared
On the other hand if the timer runs out whilst I'm looking up a complicated concept in a dictionary or an encyclopedia or trying to find an alternative with the Roget, I'd be in the sam "sticky" situation. I only really use this method for long translations. Shorter ones I do straight on the translation page.

Pips, seeds, stones, graines, noyaux, anyway I have a bio garden so I already have lots of these hehe ;D

Bises
Tantine

Tantine, this is a really nice idea!!! Different kinds of ´money´, hm.... I think poor Jp has really much to do thanks to creative Cucumaddicts...

I like the idea of seeds instead of points

Cisa, 20 points was an example but you're right it's very too low. The ratio would be computed automatically by the system. It's depending on the number of pending requests and the number of completed translations in th same language.

Little seeds grow new watermelons!!!

La petite Cendrillon is one little seed that is already growing in our garden.

Bises
Tantine

Why did I say that Cucumis is deserved to have a currency of its very own? I need to stop having ideas that get headaches to jp!

I like thinking in seeds, as well (I confess I first pondered about watermelon seeds when I got bored of that tasteless "points".

BTW, is Cendrillon your daughter, Tantine?

I guess so

Is goncin's family a Esperanto family?
So goncin has a mother language of Esperanto?

Lietuvių kalba.
World use to write Bazil. Should we correct them?

If they write Bazil, without the "r", like you wrote, I think we shoud have to correct them as well

Too bad they learned to write Brazil with "z" with us: our country's first name after independence was Imperio do Brazil

Is goncin's family a Esperanto family?
So goncin has a mother language of Esperanto?
(pluiepoco, 17 August 2007 23:39)


I'm afraid that my mother doesn't even know what's Esperanto

getting points when you did a translation is encouraging and more meaningful than seeds (especially for beginners). I am a beginner and I wouldn't change my points with seeds