person's names

A lot of people (mostly Brazilians) ask for translations of names. I think that it's a waste of points and a waste of space on cucumis.
Names are never translated nowadays, even first names having corrispondent names in other languages (if you are Paulo, you remain Paulo, you don't become Paul, Pablo, Paolo, etc.) Not to mention nicknames, newly-coniated names and family names.
In my opinion, the only thing that can be possibly requested, with regard to names, is a transliteration in a different alphabet. But for doing that, one has to know the exact pronounciation of the names.
Fellows cucumers, what do you think about this subject?

I totally agree. When I see requests of names from english to spanish for example, I remove the request.
I accept translations from different alphabets. I will add a warning as soon as I have more time.

I'm sorry, but I don't speek good English... I don't totally agree apple, parce qu'il y a un problème: la langue source. Il faut ajouter toujours une traduction anglaise, sinon membres connaissants langues avec "a different alphabet" ne peuvent pas traduire, parce qu'ils ne connaissent pas le portugais, ecc... En fait, j'essaye de faire le plus possible de traductions anglaises pour permettre de traduire ces textes... Il y aussi beaucoup de textes comme "I love God", "X and Y for ever", ecc... Mais personne fait ce travail... J'ai écrit un message plus au moins à ce propos...

But, Nava, why should you ask a translation in English, p.es., of "Paulo Souza", if he just wants his name to be transliterated in Russian, Arabic and Greek? Paulo Souza will remain Paulo Souza in English.
As for your other requests:
1) I think that there should be a way for cucumis to recognize immediately when a text has already been traducted in the past,
2) I will never translate what I don't like to translate.

Sì ma è ovvio che se è già stato tradotto non chiedo una traduzione... Non ho capito il punto 1)

Volevo dire, a proposito di quei testi a cui tu ti riferivi:
1)che spesso sono anche dei doppioni (ma anche "triploni", "quadruploni", ecc.) e che non esiste un sistema che riconosca automaticamente un testo già esistente nell'archivio di cucumis: il riconoscerli come doppioni è affidato esclusivamente alla memoria degli utenti;
2)non vedo nessuna urgenza di tradurre queste frasi (non è che gli servano per compilare un modulo di assunzione, gli servono per farsi un tatuaggio o per inciderli in una medaglietta) e nessuna necessità di una traduzione in latino.
Tra l'altro, se il latino gli piace così tanto, perché non lo studiano?

1) Ormai è così...
2) Non c'ho voglia di risponderti, potresti leggere la pagina "Home"

I wish I understood what you guys said in the last few posts.

I think this is a complex topic, because as nava91 said above, it is valid to request an in-between translation if you want your name tattooed in Arabic, for example, since if the translator into Arabic doesn't know Portuguese, he will never see the translation otherwise. On the other hand, someone who doesn't know Arabic but does know the Arabic alphabet (like me, for example) could do the transcription.

But I for one am really tired of validating name translations. Yesterday when I got to my computer there were 46 translations waiting for me to validate, and about half of them were names!

In the case of the name translations from Turkish, another set of problems enters the picture. For example, the name "Serdar", which someone recently requested, has no meaning in modern Turkish, but in some ancient Turkish form it meant "commander" - so what does the requester want? A translation of the sound of the name, or of the ancient meaning?

And then there was the name "Çağatay" - this one is the Turkish version of the Mongol name Chagatai, known in the West as one of the Mongol rulers. But in modern day Turkish, it's pronounced "cha-a-tay" - the g is not pronounced. So what should the translator do here?

Maybe one day, I'll create a project about names (once the project section will be suited for it). Then we can get rid of all name translations in the main list.

Meanwhile, anytime you see a name translation request that is not very clear, and withtou any context/comments from the user who asked for it, don't hesitate to send a word to an admin to remove the request.

I hope I can add something like "report abuse" for each translations in order adminsitrators can view the list of translations to check withtout the need to send messages.

Finally, apple talked about the problem of translations already requested in the past. There is already a check (when submitting) but only on titles. I will see if it's possile to extend the check to the whole text in the future.

Well, in the particular case of names, I don't think that is useful to ask an in-between translation, on the contrary I think that the translation language can distort the original pronunciation of the names.
I know nothing about transcription to Arabic, but I know that if you want to write a foreign name in Russian you need to know its pronunciation and I know that the same thing happens in Japanese.
Let's take the name Alice, for example. It's written in the same way in Italian and in English, but it is pronounced in a very different way, so if I want to transcript it in Russian I will write:
1. Элис (letter-by-letter Elis –“Э” is a very open E) if it is an English Alice;
2. Аличе (letter-by-letter Aliče – č sounds like ch in cheese) if it is an Italian Alice.

And if I want to transcript in Russian the name Charles, which has the same spelling but a different pronunciation in English and in French, I will write.
1. Чарлз (letter-by-letter Čarlz) if it is an English Charles;
2. Шарл (letter-by-letter Šarl – š sounds like sh in shop) if it is a French Charles.

I think there should be an explanation on the very first login of new users about names translation.There's a culture in Brazil of trying to translate names ( since I was a little boy people ask me translate 'em).My answer was always negative.
I make trancriptions into japanese and other languages.
Ohter thing wastes time is request for already existing translations, just like : I love you.I've seen thousands of these!
That's it.Let's work!

I finally found the topic (check time!) Yes, as kafetzou and apple said, it makes sense either to add some informations in the comment area when a name's got a meaning which is known and also when it's interesting to share knowledge of it, or to transcript which is doable when the expert (and why aren't you expert, apple?)has got the linguistic knowledge required for such an exercise. apple and kafetzou seem to have this knowledge and maybe would they will to suggest another service to provide that JP is going to add in his todo list. Yes, it is very interesting to know about all these stories about a name, but in terms of work, a lot of names are submited to translations in many languages, mostly Brasilian, but also Turkish, Hebrew, Arab, Hindi, Chinese and others I forgot. Sometimes it sounds funny, like the translation o senhor Rodrigues did from a Portuguese (or was it Spanish?)name into English, but I must say, from my own point of view, that it is mostly real pain to the ass, got to verify with how many "m" or "l" or "p", it is writen in the target country. Of course, some things are good to be known, but to resume it takes a lot of time and it's true that it would be better if there was a kind of a "department" assigned to this kind of work, in whom we can trust and rely on. But the task seems to be a huge one, as thousands of names are going to be submited to translation. In the eventuality of such a new service, we'll be oblige to recruit volunteers who will be devoted to this humble task, transcription of names for the tatoos (blood, sweat and tears, with our eternal gratitude). There aren't hundreds of solutions, because it seems to be difficult to refuse some translations from names and accept some others, due to the fact that some of them have got an historical meaning and that some other's memory is lost in the night of times (ou dorment peut-être au fond de quelque grimoire inaccessible?)
One thing is sure, it is that if we don't want to be overflown (don't know if this verb is correct, hope you understood)by these requested name translations, we gotta do something about.
What do you think, JP?

It should be like a territory:the small ones are very easier to work with.The creation of departments with different kinds of work can be a sollution for the time problem of some translators, and a good thing for those who like to translate this kind of text, that need some research upon history and meanings; cultura nunca é demais!

It is not so easy to do, ask JP and he will tell he's already got to work on another service to be provided, which will allow people to submit texts writen in sms mode, but it would be unfair to assign specificly some definite members to this job, so that the "department" I was talking about has just to do with translations of names.
But anyway, thanks for your suggestion, caspertavernello.

Oh wow - sms - it makes the most sense to have a native speaker translate those into the normal language, then a translator into the target language, where another native speaker well versed in sms would translate it back into the sms of the target language!

And as for the names - maybe a database would be good ...

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Yep, a database for names would be great I think about using the "project" section for this.

For now, I will try first to avoid duplicated requests which would avoid a lot of request yet.

The SMS translations is another story. I think it's realted with the posibility to tag the requests "meaning only". Once this feature is done, there is no problem with that.

Hello everybody! My server at work has some problems, so I won't be able for some time to come on cucumis in the morning...Cold turkey...
Francky, you couldn't find the topic because I put it in the wrong section (it has nothing to do with website translation!)
Anyway, I agree on the database, but, meanwhile, jp, couldn't you just refuse the translations between laanguages having the same alphabet and accept just transliterations, as you said in you first post? Would it be difficult?

Hi apple, I do it manually, but I can't set an automatic process because it's hard to know if a request is about a name.

I guess one solution would be stop giving people free translation points - they have to earn them first.