Comments on Translation Tribulations: Преступление и наказание (and amnesty!)

I had a personal record of four comments censored ...

2010-08-30T18:17:54.438+02:00

I had a personal record of four comments censored in this single thread, by three different moderators, Mother Teresa included, for use of words as innocuous as "clowns", "crap" (in the sense of hogwash, not faecal matter, of course!) and another for rather facetiously pointing out they'd been inconsistent and missed one instance of "clowns" in my first post. It was hilarious, actually, watching the almighty ProZ machine scramble to protect its main sponsor's interests.

@J&D: Me watch my language? Aside from the fac...

2010-08-27T23:12:24.552+02:00

@J&D: Me watch my language? Aside from the fact that I seldom do, I wasn't even part of that forum thread. All the stuff I posted here was captured by someone else and sent to me. I did have a look at the thread, write a private note to an SDL employee telling him what I thought of that silliness (the old "amnesty" campaign gets brought up often as an example of bottom-of-the-barrel marketing) and the compose this post.

If the ProZ screw-up hadn't been brought to my attention I would likely not have noticed. Most of the really useful peer discussion happens elsewhere now and has since Henry decided he couldn't deal with criticism any more and drove the old moderator team to the exits. No matter. It's his yard; he can unzip and water it however he pleases and needn't mind what the neighbors think :-) And if the performance of the moderators makes that yard smell like no one has cleaned up after the mutt for a while, the finicky ones among us will just have to watch our step, won't we?

I noticed a while ago that the thrust of a lot of ...

2010-08-27T20:48:04.318+02:00

I noticed a while ago that the thrust of a lot of moderating on ProZ.com sought to avoid sensitive subjects (somewhat comprehensible) but also to tone down any criticism of outsourcers (no matter how small or disreputable) and large advertisers (for obvious reasons). This is slightly outrageous, considering that my membership fee and that of other thousands of translators probably outweighs the importance of revenue from even SDL's ads. In any case, this "amnesty" case is a typical example of the result: the completely paranoid censoring of even the lightest jabs at the large LSPs that inhabit our ecosystem in a website at least partially funded (and, thanks to crowdsourcing, maintained by the collaboration and content provided for free) by freelance members.

Too funny -- and sad, actually. Just another reaso...

2010-08-27T18:12:03.025+02:00

Too funny -- and sad, actually. Just another reason we don't really participate in Proz discussions; we just do so once in a blue moon. We agree -- there are other places to have great discussions, such as this blog. And good thing we have never worked with SDL/Trados at all; we are DVX girls! And Kevin, hehehe, you need to watch your language! "Rubbish"? That is terribly offensive; we won't be able to sleep tonight! :)

Dear Kevin, You know what? Even Fyodor Mikhaylovi...

2010-08-26T15:02:29.748+02:00

Dear Kevin,

You know what? Even Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky needed "amnesty" when he was exiled to Siberia for 4 years instead of being executed by a death squad.

I can understand ProZ's policy well. It's about their survival as a translation portal. Their income depends on advertisements. SDL is one of their main sponsors. They don't want people displease "big spenders."

It's all right that way. He who needs to be there for marketing undures their power exercises upon him. We don't. Just watch, remembering how it started with Nazi system and ended. People are not stupid at all.

Stay being an inglourious basterd!

Cheers,
Wenjer

All e-mails from SDL always go straight into my sp...

2010-08-26T12:45:04.334+02:00

All e-mails from SDL always go straight into my spam folder, so I didn't know about that amnesty campaign. SDL Trados 2007 was one of the worst purchases I ever made, so no amnesty for me, thank you.

As for ProZ RuleZ: Today I had to explain to a moderator (from a former Soviet republic) that "EU" is not an agency but a political union of countries. Then she allowed me to mention it in my posts.