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Friday, March 26, 2010

Update 1: Proposal related to barring outsourcers from offering rate at outset of job discussions

As some of you know, Proz.com is reviewing a proposal that was presented by several colleagues. The site opened a private forum to discuss the implementation of this proposal. I promised to give TEBP members regular updates of what’s being discussed. So this is my first update.

1) Background Information:
First came the petition.


As many of you know, a little while ago some of our colleagues in Italy posted a petition aimed at Proz.com. Although the petition has been closed and no new signatures are being accepted, you can read it here: http://bit.ly/aXbj1o

Then came the proposal.

You can read the proposal here: http://bit.ly/cdmn34 our group discussed it here: http://bit.ly/cEd0ga

Now, the forum.

As a result, Proz invited those of us who cosponsored the petition (please note, I cosponsored as an individual and not on behalf of our entire group since that is clearly a personal decision) to participate in a private forum to discuss the implementation of the petition.

Although my updates will eventually cover every issue, this one focuses on a thread Henry opened under the name “Proposal related to barring outsourcers from offering rate at outset of job discussions.” Before posting my update, please not I specifically asked Henry if I could post these updates in one of the threads and he wrote: “But you don't have to consider anything here confidential, at least not in my opinion. So go ahead and discuss elsewhere, if you want.” For the purpose of this discussion, I will quote some parts of the forum.

The part of the proposal being discussed reads:

1. Job-Posting Form

a) Outsourcers should no longer be permitted to indicate the price they are offering or intend to pay for a given translation or interpreting project, and that portion of the job-posting form should be eliminated.

b) Outsourcers should not include pricing or rate information anywhere else in the body of their job posting. To that end, job postings should be monitored and removed, if necessary.

c) Outsourcers should be advised clearly of the reason for such changes on the form they use to post a job.

d) Pursuant to c), above, we propose that ProZ.com feature the following statement prominently on its job-posting form: “ProZ.com has removed pricing information from the job-posting form because we believe that translators, as professional service providers, are in the best position to determine their own rates, which vary according to type and format of the text involved, the subject matter, the level of urgency, and the technical expertise required, among other factors. ProZ.com is convinced that quality in translation is ensured not by seeking the lowest rate available but by choosing skilled, competent translators. In keeping with the years of commitment and training required to become qualified professionals, translators and interpreters deserve adequate compensation for their work.”

2. Emailing of job offers to individual translators/interpreters using ProZ mail

a) Because of the above policy—that outsourcers may not indicate pricing information or maximums in their offers to translators and interpreters—we propose that the same vigilance be extended to first-contact email messages initiated by outsourcers using the ProZ.com messaging systems. In initiating first contact with a translation professional via such messages for the sole purpose of soliciting candidates for a project, outsourcers may not indicate specific price ranges, limits, or maximums. ProZ.com already possesses the ability to monitor system messages for violations of ProZ.com policies (the profile message form itself states: “Messages may be subject to review or vetting by site staff”); thus, we propose that ProZ.com extend such monitoring to messages initiated by outsourcers for the sole purpose of soliciting services from one or more translation professionals.

b) In addition (or, if the above proposal is not accepted, in the alternative), we propose that ProZ modify the warning language (“Rules for sending profile messages”) that accompanies the email form to include: “Outsourcers initiating first contact with a translation professional for the purpose of soliciting services may not indicate specific pricing, price ranges, limits, or maximums in their messages.”


To this, in the very first page of the thread Henry:
1) Started by saying that he will not agree to implement the part about barring outsources from indicating any offering price.

2) He then quotes the parts of the petition that say "professional service providers are in the best position to determine their own rates,” etc. and agrees with the overall idea. He claims Proz isn’t happy with abusive offers either, but…

“Here is why we won't implement the proposal exactly as stated. The idea of barring outsourcers from indicating any offering price has been considered before, and was discarded, in part because the absence of information from the client related to payment (or "budgeting", if you will) is not necessarily considered to be in the best interest of translators. Among the scenarios that could be considered are the one in which the client has no intention (or ability) to pay a reasonable rate, in which case time will be saved in knowing that at the outset, and the one in which the client is prepared to offer more than some service providers might otherwise quote. (Though much less publicized than the other scenario, such postings are made on a daily basis. Related, one of the actions that has been planned coming out of the petition is that more data on rates be made available to the community.)

Those two scenarios are not the only reason not to ban offering prices, but other than mentioning ProZ.com's guiding principles, and in particular, point #9 at http://www.proz.com/about/cornerstones ("Member discretion is given precedence over administrator discretion"), I'll leave it at that.”


3) Instead he proposes a strategy he summarized as "recognize, contain and filter". Consisting of the following:

“rather than attempting to "ban" (or in truth, "delay") the broaching of rates negotiation by outsourcers, our plan is to provide a dedicated place for budgeting information to be entered, when the client wishes to enter it (with appropriate messaging, perhaps even messaging providing reasons not to enter rates information). With budgeting information having been identified, it would be confined to a dedicated field -- and that approach supported by a policy barring the mention of rates in the *text* of a posting or profile message -- it could then be "contained", with access to it "filtered", thereby eliminating the potential that ProZ.com would be used to propagandize on rates.

How would access be filtered? In a few ways. For one thing, a better job could be done of making sure that job postings below rates you work at do not appear to you, or get emailed to you. For those who do not specify rates in their profiles (or for those who are not logged in), the decision on whether or not to display a job on the home page could be based on the rates of the community. If the outsourcer's budget is lower than the rates charged by 2/3's of the community, for example, it would not appear by default on the home page.

Filtering would also be based on another preference: the option not to see budgeting information at all (even when it has been specified.) Those who prefer to review job postings, or receive profile messages with budgeting information displayed (when it has been supplied by the outsourcer), could set things up that way. Otherwise, by default, outsourcer budgeting information would not be displayed.

As for the messages -- that "professional service providers are in the best position to determine their own rates", "quality in translation is ensured not by seeking the lowest rate available but by choosing skilled, competent translators", "years of commitment and training are required to become qualified" and "translators and interpreters deserve adequate compensation for their work" -- I can imagine a site area dedicated to the topic of rates, linked to from the job posting and quoting forms, with the two "information sheets" proposed elsewhere (one for translators, one for clients, created in a wiki) made available, along with actual data on rates charged by professionals, as expressed in profiles / job posting filters. What such an approach could provide is very significant: a means by which translators can jointly determine (1) the message that goes out to outsourcers and quoters, and (2) the rate below which job postings will not appear by default. In other words, control over all of this would be in the hands of translators (where it is anyway.)”

Forum participants were not happy about this proposal, but despite many well-founded objections Henry said he was not going to budge on this. Since I do not have express permission from forum participants to discuss their posts elsewhere, I cannot provide a transcription of what was said throughout the thread. However, I think my reply to Henry on this may shed some light on what's being discussed:

[quote]The reason I accepted Jared’s invitation to participate in this thread is because I wanted to give Proz the benefit of the doubt. I must admit I was disappointed by Henry’s initial decision not to bar outsourcers from indicating any price offering, but I still read through the whole long thread hoping there was an acceptable, fact-based reason for this. Couldn’t find one yet. So based on the reasons expressed so far, I have some questions for Henry and I respectfully request that each of those questions is answered.

Henry,

1) What would you say if I told you from now on I am only willing to pay $10 dollars a year for full Proz.com membership?

2) As we all know, rates are dropping. That’s why we’re having this discussion in the first place. That in mind, what would you say if I told you the reason I’m only going to pay $10 dollars a year is because I really can’t afford to pay more on the count of that decrease? (Following your logic that there is “nothing inherently wrong” with letting people who don’t have the “ability” to pay reasonable rates post unreasonable offers.)

Henry, you wrote
Now, who would see this posting? Herein lies the big difference between what the working group proposed and what I have called a better solution: In the approach I outlined, by default, no one would see this job! Not on the home page and not on the job listing page. What is more, notifications would not go out. Why? Because the rate would be known, and display and notifications could be filtered accordingly. This job would not be displayed or go to anyone, because it is a commercial job that pays less than 1 cent, and there is no one in the database that accepts less than one cent per word for commercial work. (Fractions of a cent are not recognized.)


You claim this is useful because…

The only way that people would be able to find this job would be to click "also show jobs below my rates." This is not likely to happen frequently, and if it does, at least the viewer will know what he/she is dealing with.


3) Can you provide empirical evidence of how this could help?

4) How exactly will this work? Would all users have to provide Proz with their rates? If so, would that information be public or private? Has Proz assessed the risk of people lowering the rates they input just to be able to see these offers and, therefore, starting a new cycle of low rates?

the situation is not as bad as it appears, one thread focused on that lately


5) Is this based on empirical evidence? If so, can you please name your sources for reference and for the sake of a founded discussion?

Petitioners are so sure that something has changed in the industry, even if it has not (yet) changed for them, that they are deciding to "put their money where their mouth is", and do something that is not in their own best commercial interest.


5) How is what we’re doing not in our best commercial interest? What are you founding this statement on?

I have kicked off a survey to get more insight into the opinions and priorities of ProZ.com members as they pertain to this proposal.


6) What objective criteria are you using for this survey? Was this statement meant to be as condescending as it sounds?