Put on de Red Pee fo da agency

When I received a message from a colleague that ProZ had begun "certifying" translation agencies with the dreaded red Plob, I thought she was joking. There are real certifications for serious businesses, verifying that their documented procedures are orderly and traceable among other things. These include ISO 9001 and EN 15038, and the more ambitious agencies usually seek these because they are required for business with some large clients or RFPs. Surely no serious translation agency would feel the need to be "certified" by The Translation Workhouse with its increasingly debased standards. Well, once again, I have learned that human greed and folly have depths which even my cynicism cannot plumb. If one goes to the ProZ home page but is not logged in, the link to these "certified" proZtitution agencies is visible. I followed it and found a list of corporate members, some well known, some with the Plob.

What, I wonder, is being certified here? I am familiar with ISO 9001 and EN 15038, and I can't really imagine a lot of value that would be added here. But perhapZ the SiteStaff have developed important and relevant criteria, such as testing the timeliness of bank transfers for a specified amount. Both end customers and freelance translators would benefit from knowing that an agency using ProZ has been verified as a registered business with a working bank account.

So KudoZ to the phoax at Ze Zite for distinguishing such select translation service resellers (TSRs) as:

Have you considered applying for the Certified PRO Network?

Dear test123,

From the information available in your profile, I see that you offer translation services in German to English, a language pair that is currently under-represented in the ProZ.com Certified PRO Network. In the first part of this year, 1312 jobs in German to English were posted at ProZ.com, but there were only 104 members in the Certified PRO Network to respond to them. As you can see, then, this might represent an excellent growth opportunity for you.

If you would like to be included in the Certified PRO Network and increase your opportunities to meet clients at ProZ.com while distinguishing yourself as a professional, please complete your application here:

http://www.proz.com/pro-tag/info/express-interest

Make sure you also watch this short video on how to complete your application before submitting your application for review: http://www.proz.com/videos/Tutorials%20on%20ProZ.com/746

Find out more about the ProZ.com Certified PRO Network here: http://www.proz.com/pro-tag/info/about

Looking forward to welcoming you to the network!

Kind regards,

Maria Kopnitsky

ProZ.com Certified PRO Network

ProZ.com

The translation workhouse

-------------------------

ProZ.com Headquarters

P.O. Box 903

Syracuse, NY 13201 USA

The preceding letter was copied exactly from the mail forwarded to me by a former ProZ moderator. The account "test123" is a testing profile set up years ago to explore certain new features of the site. He and I are both amused and puzzled by the invitation for a nonentity to join the fabled red pee network. If it is in fact true that there are only 104 "approved" red bubbles (as he calls them) for a language combination as common as German to English, it makes you wonder what's up. I know there has been a huge exodus of talent from the platform, especially in European countries where the disregard of data privacy and security concerns runs strongly counter to laws and expectations. In fact, a lot of the best translators I know for German and English are no longer ProZ members, and outsourcers who restrict their listings to the membership or the red bubbled ones are simply shutting themselves away from a lot of the best talent now.

It's also clear that these invitation processes are not personally reviewed by those responsible. I really can't imagine that Ms. Kopnitsky believes that "test123" is even a serious alias. Many of us now use aliases on PrAdZ to keep the search index trash for repetitive content in Tamil and god-knows-how-many-other languages from burying real content we rely on for professional publicity. But "test123"? It takes a special kind of faith to believe in that.