| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6] | Clients can now give translator feedback (WWA) without registering Thread poster: Jason Grimes
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Hi again. Much seems to have happened when I pulled the plug on the Internet to be able to work.
'Corroborated' suggests that there is some supporting evidence. Simply being a registered member doesn't really do that, although being willing to fork out something along the lines of $150 per annum to fill in those entries does lend them credibility. Pretty much nobody would pay for a fake account just to fake some WWAs..... See more Hi again. Much seems to have happened when I pulled the plug on the Internet to be able to work.
'Corroborated' suggests that there is some supporting evidence. Simply being a registered member doesn't really do that, although being willing to fork out something along the lines of $150 per annum to fill in those entries does lend them credibility. Pretty much nobody would pay for a fake account just to fake some WWAs... but coming up with a different adjective was (or still is) a better solution.
One thing that doesn't get mentioned much is that, just like there are some types of clients who just won't register because they don't normally need or want to, there are also some parts of the world, usually developing countries, I guess, where paid memberships are rarer than elsewhere for financial reasons. Not providing them with full functionality for the feedback they receive is reasonable, but restricting the perceived credibility of the feedback they give could be problematic.
All in all, I think it's a good idea to distinguish the status of the commenters and leave it to visitors to figure out with the help of some soft guidelines as to what they might want to pay attention to in their reasoning.
Also, once you have a dividing criterion in place, you don't need to diminish those who fall below the level. You can elevate those who do, instead, using positive language. So, for example, no Good Feedback and Back Feedback but Feedback and Premium Feedback.
Speaking of which, I think it already works this way when you look at someone's WWAs and see it already there that his outsourcers have a BB and a good record on it.
SEA-words wrote:
I am still afraid to leave negative WWAs, since there is no way to prevent retaliation. They were both jobs assigned through Proz.com, but so far there is no way to make my feedback anonymous. This is such a pity when you dealt with unprofessional people - you can't expect them to behave professionally when they get a negative feedback, either.
Perhaps I can help you see why. People don't necessarily read everything and come up with a weighed, reasoned judgement, as in due process, fair trial, pros and cons, moral certainty and whatnot. They may instead employ a risk-avoiding directive to skip all those translators who have some negative feedback and just focus on those who don't. Thus, negative feedback can be more damaging than it suggests on the face.
Plus, there'd be need to review that feedback, I guess. Also, plenty of feedback would reflect misunderstandings about unstated expectations or otherwise some expectations that aren't really warranted by the law or good practice. You know, am I happy with the princess treatment client service I received or not.
... Given that clients just can't judge the quality of translation, which is the same problem legal marketing has been struggling with for ages.
Now as for anonymous feedback, the lack of consequences awaiting the author would be a double-edged sword when it came to reliability. Sure, such a person is at liberty to speak. On the other hand, he has some sort of perfect liberty to the point that he isn't really accountable much. That opens way to self-serving purposes that nobody will really be able to verify.
Plus, those things could actually, eventually, get Proz.com or even its individual staff members involved in a law suit, not necessarily in the US, by the way. Defamation laws are crazy in some parts of the world.
What's the use of the WWA if it is only for positive feedbacks?!
'We were not completely satisfied with the quality of service. The translator failed to remain available for contact and reflect all of our client's requirements in her translation. There were also some issues with the payment deadline and we recall being told that she would not perform any other job for us unless and until the contested invoice were to be paid immediately, and we had quite a few that had to go to untested people. We are not recommending this translator.'
Such a piece of non-speak as above would hardly be actionable, while it might very well be damaging, you know, largely because of the length it took conveying all those unmet expectations and other sad, unfulfilled emotions the outsourcer and his client experienced, which will now be NLP-ed into sympathetic readers' memory (as in other outsourcers who are now hearing from someone who understands them, walking in the same shoes).
Catherine GUILLIAUMET wrote: Have you ever read a confidentiality agreement ? Particularly one of those issued by the US agencies and other scientific communities stakeholders ? In most cases, it is clearly indicated that their identity and/or professional details must not be disclosed by the translator. It means that they will never appear in the BB. It is one of the main reasons why a lot of our colleagues among the most qualified and skilled have so few WWA feedback. If from now on the client must appear in the BB for his/her feedback to be taken seriously, those colleagues will never get a single WWA 
I'm sorry for going off topic but since we have two senior staff members here: what Catherine talks about really is a problem.
Outsourcers can just ban criticism in their translator-agency contracts, while they will always be happy to receive positive feedback and ignore the fact that it mentions some 'confidential' details of their business collaboration.
But try saying they didn't pay your or didn't communicate about the requirements of the job efficiently with the client and the translator, or that their QA was bad or they have continual payment issues (e.g. payment batches that suggest poor liquidity).
The above will easily fall under confidential business information. Even without an outright ban on 'criticising'. And I have actually seen a ban of the kind already.
Outsourcers aren't stupid. They have marketing, management, PR and sales pro's, who know how to manage feedback and related reputational issues.
You guys probably can't afford to terminate the memberships of outsourcers who do that because you need their presence here on the boards, but it does suck that they can manipulate the BB like that. I wish we – i.e. you as staff and we as members – could come up with a way to keep it fair.
Speaking of which, the rules are very restrictive in cutting out a bunch of very relevant details that just about any outsourcer can have struck from his BB if he contacts a staff member and insists on strict enforcement of the rules. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Emma Goldsmith 
Spain
Local time: 08:39
Member (2004)
Spanish to English
Jason Grimes wrote:
More changes have been made. How does your feedback look to you now?
The total number of positive entries is now shown as the headline number.
I think this is a good solution, Jason. And "unidentified" rather than unqualified/uncorroborated is also a good move, IMO.
| | | | Erzsébet Czopyk
Hungary
Local time: 08:39
Member (2006)
Russian to Hungarian
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | feedback from the end clients, some strange events and a request | Oct 16, 2013 |
Henry Dotterer wrote:
Apparently Jason's announcement left some room for misunderstanding. The change announced here was made in response to user requests to make the process of obtaining feedback more open, not more closed.
This change was not intended to detract from anyone's profile, but once again, the contrary: in fact, recent changes already have resulted in significantly higher response rates from clients on WWA requests.
Dear Henry, I would like to turn directly to you with trust and give some explanation.
First of all, something strange is going on. This week I received some new WWAs from the clients whom I sent a request more than 6 months ago and they telling they just received the e-mails.
???
It means previously the system not worked and the e-mails just seemed to sent? Do yo have any idea regarding this?
With the new system, some of my clients told me they do not like the idea with the registration obligation. This simply scares a private client/individual. Some fo them suggested they would like to identify themselves via their Facebook, Google or LinkedIn profile as a private person but at least, does it mean a positive entry from a private person considered less valuable as an entry from a company? (Some of my new clients spent a lot for the translations which are usually related to a relocation process of a whole family.)
So why the obligation to be registered on ProZ.com? Will the site or the community receive any benefit of it? Or will we full of registered but not active members?
I sent a support request with an offer: in case of a private person who does not want to register at all, I can offer to show a scanned copy of signed order for the particular project which contains the name and the data of a customer, including the language pair of the translation ordered.
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