Originally written by Thor Kottelin on November 21, 2008 8:01 AM If, according to TC's rate statistics, a job offers less than the average rate, perhaps that job could be relegated, in some way, to a "peanuts department", where it would be highly non-preferred in terms of e.g. visibility, and perhaps also be accompanied by some kind of warning. ... On the other hand, I actually think that posters should not be permitted to make any offers whatsoever.

If I understand you correctly, Thor, you are asking on the one hand for TC to pre-sort job offers according to the rate proposed by the agency and on the other hand you believe that agencies should not be allowed to propose a rate for any job. Aren't those two procedures likely to be mutually exclusive?

The "relegation" to a "peanuts department" amounts to a classification of translators according to their price expectations, i.e.  "high-end translators", "midmarket translators" or "low-end translators". Agencies could be instructed to direct their jobs to translators in the appropriate market segment.

Or, rather than calling it "peanuts department", it might be better to separate us into "full-price translators" and "discount translators" and have two separate job posting areas and instruct agencies to advertise their jobs in the appropriate area.

"Discount translators" would, of course, include all those who ostensibly charge above-average rates but offer discounts for repetitions, 100% and fuzzy matches, something that a real "full-price translator" would, of course, never do.

Just as in a true "discount retailer" where the wares are stacked up roughly on pallets on the floor to emphasise the cut-price aspect, TC could make the "discount translator" section look a little tacky, devoid of all software snick-snack, whereas the "full-price translator" section would have the software equivalent of hand-polished apples and tropical fruit on display.

We have to do something to relieve the "full-price translators" amongst us from all these awful feelings of anger and of being insulted by being - quel horreur! - mistaken for and addressed as humble "discount translators"!

Derek

Cut-price "Discounter" model for translator classification: 

Thank you, Derek, for having solved this for us. I am glad that in your picture above, no one is shopping in the damn discount area. I am sure that together we can fix the translation market too! Keep up the good job!

Jacek

Originally written by Kevin Solan on November 7, 2009 4:17 PM ...that's £84 for 10k words, or less than 1 penny per word!! [...] I am astounded to see that at the time of writing, the poster already has 11 bids and climbing!

Originally written by dominique f. on September 26, 2009 8:31 PM here's one more job offer that made my teeth grind (as we say in France) tonight... [...] That's 0.026/0.03 US cents. Don't even want to make the conversion in euros! At least she's not demanding TRADXX! And this person is from the UK, not China or India... Couldn't bite my tongue this time and I sent her a shame-on-you email. (51 replies, excluding mine...) df

Of course one advantage of threads like this one could be to deter people from further bidding, so that in Kevin's example, only the ususal 11 people would bid the moment the job is posted and then, like in that supermarket shown by Derek, the crowd would refrain from flooding the damn discount area, so the job poster would remain just with his initial 11 bids, or 51 in dominique's example. Everybody else, instead of bidding, would flock to threads like this one to discuss further improvements to the market reality. Like maybe shutting down the Internet?

Originally written by Jacek K. on November 8, 2009 7:28 AM Everybody else, instead of bidding, would flock to threads like this one to discuss further improvements to the market reality.

I concede that I had an advantage in parodying the situation because I was able to simplify what is in reality a complex situation.

My picture showed the clean, orderly appearance of a discount retailer at 6 a.m. after the shelf stockers have finished their work and the public has not yet been admitted. The parallel situation in the freelance discount translator's working corner of his/her living room is similar - the cleared desk, the glistening computer screen, the freshly sharpened pencils, the three miscellaneous second-hand dictionaries, the silent sanitized old dial telephone waiting for the day's business to commence.

 Later, that same day, after the peak rush hour, the discount retailer looks completely different - ripped open boxes are scattered about everywhere, the floor is dirty and there are traces of squashed bananas trodden into the tiles, the coffee that escaped from a couple of torn bags, the pile of biscuit packets that has been knocked over.  In the freelance discount translator's working corner the situation is similar. The 3 cents/word job is not quite completed, three half-emptied coffee cups stand around, pencil sharpenings floating on the cold coffee remains. There are biscuit crumbs on the keyboard, greasy fingerprints on the computer screen, an opened tin of corned beef stands on the table with some bread rolls from yesterday. The half-dry contents of the washing machine are piled up on the ironing board. The fax machine has run out of paper and is making a plaintive beeping noise and somewhere in the back a baby is crying.

Long gone is the romance of the clicking daisy-wheel printer, the glare of the green-phosphor monitor, the smell of sealing-wax on the large registered envelope ready to catch the last post for the day! Ah, those were the days! 

Unluckily, the world of the full-price translator is closed to me but I can half-shut my eyes and imagine Harrod's delicatessen department - the smoked salmon and caviar, the bottles of Bollinger, the lace handkerchiefs, the pretty little boxes of scented pot pourri ... 

These two working environments are worlds apart. I am beginning to see the logic behind the proposals to separate the job offers - a dark, obscure corner for the discount jobs, bright lights and marble columns for the full-price jobs. It all makes some kind of twisted sense!

Derek

Working environment for full-price translator:

SUGGESTIONS RE HOW THIS COULD BE DONE:

Comments by Bidders on Job Posted

Type of Comment:

* RE: general

* RE: rate(s)

* RE: deadline/delivery date

* RE: other (language combination, place of work, qualifications requested, etc.)

Comments to date about this job offer: 10

Please note bidders: comments to job posters will expire three days after the job is posted. Only bidders may make comments to job posters and only fellow  bidders may see them. Comments will expire when the job posted is closed.

** Click to see comments posted by other bidders.

** Remove my comment/edit my comment.

** Save my comment until job post is closed by job poster.

Originally written by Jane Lamb-Ruiz on November 8, 2009 3:46 PM Type of Comment: * RE: general * RE: rate(s) * RE: deadline/delivery date * RE: other (language combination, place of work, qualifications requested, etc.)

I have a question: What possible interest could I have in reading other people's comments about rates and delivery dates of a particular job on top of all the general stuff that already litters the forums here?

What I would like to see would be the contents of other people's bids.

Open bidding, just like at a real reverse auction. that is the way to go! Then when I see a half dozen 3 cent bids, I can exit immediately,

When I see only 7 cent bids, I can send off my 5 or 6 cent bid if I really want the job.

Derek

Whatever, Derek. I give up. Who is littering? 

Originally written by Derek Thornton on November 8, 2009 5:20 PM Originally written by Jane Lamb-Ruiz on November 8, 2009 3:46 PM Type of Comment: * RE: general * RE: rate(s) * RE: deadline/delivery date * RE: other (language combination, place of work, qualifications requested, etc.) I have a question: What possible interest could I have in reading other people's comments about rates and delivery dates of a particular job on top of all the general stuff that already litters the forums here?

Perhaps by having the comments posted under the respective offers within the Job Board itself?

This site's policy has always been to keep the forums and the Job Board as separate areas.
Many users who visit the forums never check the Job Board, and vice versa.
(The same is true for TCTerms, BTW).

Therefore it makes little sense to discuss specific job offers in a forum.

IMHO, it would be simpler and more relevant to comment on each offer under that speciic offer, on the same page.
Thus only people interested would read and contribute comments.

Originally written by Laurent Chiacchierini on November 8, 2009 4:30 PM Therefore it makes little sense to discuss specific job offers in a forum.

To me, it makes even less sense to read a discussion of specific job offers at all. Why would I, as a discount translator, be interested in reading all those totally predictable negative comments about low rates for the jobs in which I might be interested?

To me there is clearly another way to divide up translators. There are those, and I am one of them, who believe that the market will regulate translation prices and delivery times and there are others who appear to believe that translators should be able to manipulate prices and delivery times to their own advantage by restricting free trade.

Until the forum provides for a separation of jobs to suit those two camps I fail to see the point in all this.

What kind of comments are we going to read? Expressions of anger from all you full-price translators at being insulted by having to read low-priced job offers? Complaints about the short delivery times required? Who is going to take any notice of that stuff? Nobody!

Or is it just intended to be a safety valve for all that pent-up anger with the illusion that somebody is actually going to react to it? We have that already in the general forums.

Is the idea perhaps to shame the cheap job offerers so that they realize the error of their ways and raise their prices, extend their deadlines and insist on hiring only translators with PhDs? That is not going to happen, folks, you are kidding yourselves!

Apart from some translators, nobody on this planet has the slightest interest in raising the price of translations. They are already a serious cost item and many hundreds of people are working full time to remove the human element as completely as they can.

To me, it is a complete mystery why otherwise sensible people cannot any see further than the end of their noses. This is a dying trade and we have the privilege of being present at its death throes.

The only rational course of action is either to re-tool to produce cheap translations quickly ourselves or change trades. There must be something else we can do with our talents - like generating original web content or ghost writing! There is no longer any big money in translation jobs, not those that get advertised on forums like this one at least.

Originally written by Laurent Chiacchierini on November 8, 2009 4:30 PM IMHO, it would be simpler and more relevant to comment on each offer under that specific offer, on the same page. Thus only people interested would read and contribute comments.

Well, for what it is worth, I for one am against it. It sounds like an exercise in futility to me.

Derek

Originally written by Derek Thornton on November 8, 2009 7:11 PM Well, for what it is worth, I for one am against it. It sounds like an exercise in futility to me.

Then, just ignore it, like I would do myself, if this were to be implemented.