Hi all,
to make sure that LingoZ will met your needs, we need your feedback. We have to be informed how the system we set up looks like from your side. We are far from perfect, but we are perfectly able to learn!

Below an email conversation with a team member. It raises some very important questions and gives you an idea of how much your feedback will help to improve our system = your work space.

PART I

Hi

I am one of your service providers. I have been translating some jobs posted on your site.
[...] Actually this is one of the reasons why I write you. To mention some of the things I noticed and I think can be improved:

1. After translation, the linguist cannot change what he had submitted. Maybe there should be a period of one hour or so in which, if the translator notices something, to be able to modify. Or to post an email address or a method how to announce these things.

2. The text posted on the site doesn’t keep format when copied in a word document. It is very uncomfortable to translate directly on the website. I would suggest to set a system in which you provide also a word file with the text that you need to be translated.

3. The word count you provide is slightly not correct. For example, on job 50 that I have completed, your word count is: 671 and the actual wordcount is 725
[...] Can you do the amendments?

I’ll be waiting for your reply
Thank you very much!
Adrian G.

Hi Adrian,

Fantastic input. That is exactly what we need. We need these voices expressing the view of the translator team while being on a job.

Here are my first reactions:

1. I know exactly what you mean. It happens to me all time. I am writing a text, send it to a colleague. After a few minutes I do my “clean your >Sent Items”, will open up attachment once more before placing it into the right folder. There it is: the typo, the sentence without an ending, where thoughts were faster than my hands, etc. I think you brought up a great idea! This would help to keep quality up (specially now, that we still do not offer proof reading as a service) and is also a great sign to the customer how much we care to deliver proper work. Give us some time to figure out how this can be done. Every addition to the system and work flow need carefully back up by the programmers.

2. This is one of the issue I planned to discuss on Translator-Lounge.com. Clearly it is wrong to make the translation directly onsite. A) it is dangerous in case you have any problems with your Internet connection, B) one should have a saved file with the translation for any further reference, and C) as soon as we are talking about longer texts it is far to uncomfortable. We plan to have in future the possibility for the customer to upload a word document instead of pasting text into the text area. This will solve most of the problem, we believe.

3. Concerning the word count. I rechecked with project ID 50:
a. The system recognized, as you mentioned, 671 words
b. Placing the same text in e.g. Word I see: 725 words
So you are right and I will discuss with our product manager (Oz Wilder, cc’ed) where we miss out on counting correctly.

Again, I am very happy about your report and suggestions.
I kindly ask for your patience (until changes and corrections will be implemented) and your trust (as to the fact THAT they will be implemented),
Yours faithfully,
Ursula

PART II

[...]
One more thing, if you don’t mind: I don’t know how your deadline system is, but it kind of makes the translator feel that it’s all the time on the rush as the deadlines are 1 - 2 hours. I think they are machine created according to the wordcount. But I might be wrong. Anyway, it would help if the deadlines would be a bit more lax (that is if they are not really urgent) If they are really needed in one hour, then it’s ok. I know this is also a thing to implement and it’s according to what the client wants. So…I don’t know if there is a solution to this one

As I will translate I will let you know about the things that could be improved and the things that I like about it.

Have a great future together with LingoZ :)) It looks like an idea of how the translation world will look in the future

Take care!

Adrian

Hi Adrian,

If we can continue what started during the last days already, that we grow together as a team, this project will be a huge success!

Deadlines are to what we would like to think industry standard multiplied by 2, so we should be on the save site. It is clear to me that you actually point your fingers at something else. Even a well calculated deadline brings pressure.
I would like to postpone this is for a few days as we are still having problems of synchronizing the “time of the system” with the local time of the translators, so deadlines might look more tight than they actually were intended. So let’s give it some more days and then let’s put it up for open discussion on the blog.

I guess you are right that LingoZ might point into the future of translation as such. If so, I see it as a prime aim, to have this future molded in a way that it will fit the humans involved. I believe that most people are trying to deliver good word, but everyone needs feedback, encouragement and help now and then. Also if we are talking about a team scattered all the world, that’s what I want LingoZ to be.

Today while eating dinner at home I had a nice “dream” – let’s make this a huge success, and then let’s have a party next year at Dubrovnik in Croatia (yes, yes, everyone on his/her own expense, but let’s make it off-season, cheap prices for a hopefully large group, and Babylon to pay for the party! ). And if not next year, so let it be in three years! But let’s get there.

Regards,
Ursula

We all are constantly learning from each other. This time I would like to share a painful lesson with you.

A colleague of ours was working on a 1100 word translation job for LingoZ. She did the translation directly on site, using the text area on the Project Detail page. Of course this translation lasted for some time and by the time she reached the end of the translation her session on LingoZ already ended. She was asked to log in again and ALL HER WORK GOT LOST.

Honestly, when building the system, we didn’t see the need to tell the translators, that they have to copy and paste the source text onto their computers and to work on their computer instead of relying on an Internet interface. We are very sorry for the hard way we learned this and also thankful that our colleague despite her frustration will stay on the team.

1.) To avoid similar occurrences I added a note to the Project Detail page:

(Click on image to enlarge)

The link of the “Learn more” leads to a new paragraph in the FAQ for Translators:
10. Who is responsible to avoid data loss?
You are. The text window on the Project Detail page is no work space. This text window is to be used only for pasting your finished translation for submission. Using this text window for making your translation might lead to data loss in case your Internet connection gets lost or your session on LingoZ ends. Please copy the text to be translated to a file on your local computer and save your work frequently.

We added the request to have a “Save” button on the Project Detail page, but it entered our long list for future improvements with a low hierarchy. The solution right now is just there at your finger tips: Save your works on your computer.

Best regards,
Ursula

Well, blame my sleep deprivation. I unintentionally deleted some of your comments together with annoying spam entries I find very day.

Most of the comments and their issues have been already answered and solved - so no damage done.
The latest post, from Adriana Adarve, opened a new issue, that certainly will keep us busy for a long time. Adriana addressed the time allowance per job and how it is calculated. We went for what we learned is industry standard and actually doubled it for now. So we are on the save side. We want to give a good service to the customers, and time is one of the factors, but by far not the most important one. As said, I believe that this issue will be subject to further discussion and fine tuning based on the feedback from the translator team.

Regards,
Ursula

Hi all,

I just added a short guide on How to subscribe to RSS?
It would be great if as many as possible from the team subscribe to the RSS feed of our blog. It will help us to have a common level of knowledge on the project’s progress.

Regards,
Ursula

Hi all,
Adriana pointed out to us (per email and as a comment on the last post) that the word count for a job she was accepting was not the factual word count of the job. Needless to say that this is by far the worst bug we faced.
Please find below the answer I sent to Adriana per mail. I will keep you updated on this highly sensible issue.

Hi Adriana,

You are absolutely right!
It was easy for me to check as this was the last job I happened to send out before going to bed.
I am deeply shocked and your calm reaction is highly appreciated.
Be sure that my reaction to the technical team will not be of that nature!
The word count on this turned our wrong from all sides. Also in my account of a costumer the wrong 32 word count shows. .
1.) Of course I will see to it that the correct earnings will be added to your account.
2.) We have to get this bug fixed ASAP. This is unbearable.
3.) I will instruct all my colleagues that are sending out jobs to verify the word count first.

Thanks again for great and friendly way of bringing this bad news to us. It helps to concentrate on the real issue.

All the best,
Ursula

Hi all,

I hope you all enjoy a nice weekend. Also the LingoZ team slowed down a bit and trying to get a rest before we will make the service public during next week.
Here are some issues we are aware of and we would like to share with you:

1. Selection of Native Language in “My Profile”: Here the wrong list went online, resulting in many missing languages. This will be correct during Monday.
2. Jobs currently send out: These jobs are rather short ones (around 200 words each) Their main aim is to test the stability of the system.
3. FAQ page: Thanks to Al and some more translators later on, we have a corrected version. I simply do not manage to upload it from home.
4. Typos, grammar mistakes and the like: the only place where you should forgive them are in my writing (emails and here on the blog). Please forgive me and - I know this is a terrible thing to say - please get used to it… I am the amateur when it comes to language, you are the professionals.
   
   No way of overlooking and excuses when it comes to text visible on LingoZ Translation or in the letters sent out from system. Please feel free to point these mistakes out to me in an email. Thanks for your help!

Thanks to everyone for the fantastic feedback, the bug reports and suggestions.
All the best,
Ursula

Hi all,

I hope we managed to get over the most annoying bugs by now. The site is back to normal. Feel free to enter your accounts and update your profiles.

Thanks,
Ursula

Hi all,

Pamela W.R. was just sending a virtual champagne in her email. Thought I am passing this on :-).
So far we are doing great. The jobs we were sending out have been translated on time. My belly tells me that this is going to be a huge success. Of course success doesn’t come without hard work, does it?

Hi all,

We are fixing several bugs right now and expecting system downtimes for several minutes.
Bugs to be fixed are:
To have all translators again on the “Active Status”
Having synchronization of your local time and the time of the system.

Both are extremely important issues, so we do not delay the fixing.
Will inform you all as soon as the fixes are done.

Please keep on reporting any problems you experience, directly to me per email.
Thanks,
Ursula

Hi all,

I was answering email late into the night, still having many of them pending.
Before starting again, here two things I want to share:

1. Bug on Translators Status:
   Many of you noticed and thank you for drawing our attention to this severe bug. We will change your status manually to “Approved” again, but more important this is the first thing our programmers will have to solve still today.
2. Special Thanks to Al G.:
   Even before I was able to ask for help, Al came up with a proofread version of the FAQ. Yes, I wrote that, like all the other texts. Much too fast and with too little time. I am an amateur and you are the professionals. Thanks for helping my out, Al! Also touching to read the “we’ in Al’s email: “I think it is most necessary to show an image of quality as much as we can.”

   More during the day,
   Ursula