Things like this could happen if amateurs do the work of pros :-)!
TAUS (Translation Automation User Society) presents in its newsletter an interview with the Localization Director at Linden Lab, the "Second Life" company. Linden Lab has opted for a "Crowdsourcing" approach to localize their content.
Just thinking of the possibility that enthusiastic users just for an emotional reward (or teeshirts..whatever) are ready to work on the translation of a product from a "for profit" company, does not stop amazing me.
It is true that there are many activities that we do that have a direct beneficial impact on other businesses (in my own blog entries where I talk about interesting products for instance).
Linden Lab is not the first company to take this approach: Google, Sun, Facebook, and even Microsoft have tried or used Community Translation.
The first time I heard about translation being performed by the users I immediately thought that those who opted to participate were translators looking for a job or a project within the companies asking for participation. I was wrong.
Be careful: It is not really free!
As mentioned on this Community Translation article on MultilingualBlog, this approach is not really "free" for the companies taking this path.
There is technical and human infrastructure to be created to support this "Cloud Translation":
The company opting for this choice, needs to have the hardware and software ready. I can not imagine this approach with hundreds of different individuals translating each a small part of the content without a few mandatory basics:
- Project Management: Undoubtedly there will be a team managing the resources (this is true no matter if the translation is done by the cloud or performed by professional paid translators). In my perception there will be a need for additional experience, additional knowledge and increased project management skills in the team managing such "Community projects". It is very improbable that things will go right if the team is not really doing an amazing job mitigating risks and anticipating community and project behavior. The planning stage must be very challenging and interesting.
- Terminology: First point where this starts to be really particular. In the TAUS interview mentioned above, one of the main arguments to opt for Community translation is that the users of the product, are the ones that have the real knowledge about it. I can only agree with this. Any professional in the GILT industry knows how bad a translation can show if the translators are not familiar or do not investigate (or are not provided with the necessary training and reference material) on the specific product.
This is really true for technical translation. In short, with this approach, those who use the product and understand it are the ones creating the terms in the target language. This is a solid argument.
Of course there needs to be a team managing the consolidation of the terminology, and specialized software to control and share it with the "community" when approved.
- A few additional words on this just mentioned "consolidation" need. Consistency must be a real challenge in such projects. It is already difficult to maintain intra-language consistency when working with big teams in traditional localization or translation projects. If each individual translates a small part and we are probably talking of hundreds of translators per language, imagine the problems that could be faced with this approach... On the background a hard work with CAT tools must be performed. Choice of the tools must be a key point on the success of these projects.
- Technical infrastructure: CAT tools as just mentioned. The company will need to invest in the correct tool that will enable the management of the content. But not only that. There will be a need for servers, portals for sharing information... all this will need a technical infrastructure with many costs involved.
There seems to be small literature on Community Translation, specially on large projects. Having the community work on a project is not a new idea. Just check the numerous open source projects where developers have joined efforts to create very good products.
Would you do it? Being part of a team managing such a project must be really interesting. Participating as a translator is a very different topic. I find it a good option for collaborating with non-profit organizations...
A few links to related and mentioned articles:
http://www.multilingualblog.com/index.php/weblog/community-translation-aint-free-translation/
http://thecontentwrangler.ning.com/profiles/blogs/2008157:BlogPost:26420
If you have links, experiences, reports to share on this subject, please do not doubt to contact me to add them to this post.
4 comments: