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Saturday, October 31, 2009

A Walk Down Memory Lane

Now that Facebook has changed its layout our original group description is too long for the new space provided. So we’re adjusting. We’re keeping our original mission statement in a discussion thread on our Facbeook site and on our blog (just for keeps sake).


For those who would like to know (or simply remember) how and why Translators for Ethical Business Practices got started, here it is:


This group was inspired by a recent experience. As a professional translator and paying member of an online site supposedly aimed at helping me expand my business by connecting me to prospective clients, I have recently seen what really resembles unethical business practices that could potentially be detrimental to my business and the translation industry in general. When many paying members of this site opened a forum to discuss the issue and encourage site staff to address our concerns accordingly, our forum was closed. When we opened a second forum, asking why we had been censured, that forum was also closed. Their explanation was that we had violated site rules that state that threads can be closed by site staff when they feel the positive, result oriented environment of a forum has been lost (translation: site staff can unilaterally decide to close a forum when they can’t take the heat!). The only thing of which we were guilty was defending our rights as paying clients to be provided with clear, transparent information about a matter that affects legitimate legal concerns.


Fortunately, under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, we are all granted freedom of speech. Their rules and guidelines are subject to laws. Translation sites, agencies, and even clients can’t get away with doing whatever they want and then shutting us up!



This experience made me aware of how unprotected we sometimes are (or at least feel) from harmful, abusive, and/or unethical, unilateral decisions made by agencies, clients, and even companies that provide services to translators. That is why I decided to open this group.



This group has two main purposes:
1. To provide a place where translators who feel they have been affected by unethical business practices to get in touch with other translators who might have gone through similar experiences and can provide advice on how to deal with these situations.


Everyone is invited to join and express themselves, but please be respectful. Let’s try to focus on the issues and not use this group to bash sites, agencies, or fellow colleagues with whom we might have a problem. Remember, the intention is to defend our rights, not to violate the rights of others.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Our Ethical Obligation to the Environment is an Ethical Obligation to Ourselves

It was John Locke who wrote, “The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it… that all being equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in life, health, liberty, or possessions…" (in Second Treatise of Government). Beautiful words indeed, but often taken ever so lightly. There are many kinds of harm: intentional, unintentional, accidental, cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and the list goes on. I myself am no stranger to unintentional harm, something I’m sure I share with many of my readers. Harm is something that is easy to cause and difficult to amend. The harm we cause can often go unnoticed for years, but have lasting effects for generations to come.


John Locke spoke of natural law, a theory which may not be vividly supported in modern law, but which inspired Constitutions, Bills of Rights, and many of the other legal frameworks that represent the foundation of Human Rights as we know them. Moral philosophers like John Lock, among many many others, asked themselves what rights we needed to grant each other and what obligations we needed to assume in order to build healthy and prosperous societies. Life, health, liberty, and possessions came to be the main building blocks in modern social designs.


This is why when speaking of perpetual poverty, unhealthy living conditions, genocide, and torture, among others, we can speak of violations to “basic” or “fundamental” Human Rights. Hundreds of countries all over the world have signed international treaties that obligate their governments to respect and ensure these rights. Human Rights treaties obligate governments to uphold ethical principles that foster dignity and prosperity. It is understood that when a person is deprived of their health, their liberty, and their possessions that person is deprived all things that can ensure their life. And life is at the top of the rights our legal frameworks are designed to protect.


Life: the cornerstone of all rights. Once life is lost all other rights simply wither away, for there is no sense in ensuring health, liberty, and possessions to the dead. Life gives rights themselves their meaning. Life can be protected in many ways. Most governments have criminal laws that make their citizens feel their lives are “protected” –but we all know criminal law is mostly corrective. Attempts against life are usually “punished” and not “prevented” with criminal law, what ensures life is not simply punishing attempts against it, but providing the necessary social, economic, and educational conditions for life to be sustainable.


Today, almost ten thousand bloggers around the world are participating in an international effort to sustain life: Blog Action Day. It is an effort to provide the social, economic, and educational conditions necessary to promote health, liberty, and life. Today humanity is facing a challenge. Indiscriminate use of natural resources coupled with massive pollution has lead to consequences that threaten life as we know it. Life, the moral value we have sworn to uphold in our legal frameworks and constitutions. The moral value we placed at the top of our treaties. The moral value protected in almost all our religious books, regardless of our religions. Our inaction, our failure to draw out effective legal frameworks, our violations to the Kyoto protocol, our inability to find ways to promote economic growth while protecting our planet is threatening the health of those who live in the areas that are most highly affected by the main consequence of our actions: climate change.


At the most critical point in time, our world leaders have decided to revaluate our priorities. Life is being threatened, the legal frameworks based on our moral and ethical principles have proven insufficient. Our world leaders have realized the commitment we made to uphold life in our treaties and constitutions entails more than just creating laws that “punish” crimes against life. They have realized that our disregard for the environment will, in the long run, constitute a crime against life, but it will be one we can neither punish nor correct, only endure. They have realized that just as certain social, economic, and educational standards are required for a healthy and prosperous society, certain environmentally-friendly social, economic, and educational standards are necessary to sustain life. Because of that, a new legal framework will be drawn out in Copenhagen this year: one which needs to be far more ambitious than the Kyoto protocol, one that contemplates economic growth in ways that do not harm our environment, one which ensures sustainable development while protecting basic human rights. Our world leaders have realized the ethical commitment we, as societies, have made to protecting life entails an ethical commitment to protecting the environment that makes life physically possible, thus turning our ethical obligation to the environment into an ethical obligation to ourselves.


To learn more about climate change, the new framework being discussed in Copenhagen, the effects of climate change on poverty, or any other issue related to global warming, please visit: the WWF, 350.org, and the UN Climate Change Conference Blog.



Tuesday, October 13, 2009

TEBP: The Road Ahead

Sometimes our actions have consequences, both negative and positive, that extend far beyond anything we can imagine. Sometimes our actions generate crises and those crises bring new opportunities to learn and grow. TEBP has recently undergone a “crises” which I am hoping will soon turn into an opportunity for growth and expansion. It is no secret that TEBP recently cleared up a misunderstanding with AIPTI regarding an apparent overlap between our groups. Fortunately, this misunderstanding was quickly resolved and I do not wish to go back on that in this post, I do invite any members of either AIPTI or TEBP who wish to voice any opinions, express concerns, or ask any questions about this issue to visit our relevant discussion thread on our group site.


This misunderstanding did, however, bring to light a series of internal issues TEBP now needs to address. It has lead to some members leaving TEBP. Although it is always sad to lose a member, as I have stated in our discussion thread, TEBP’s focus is quality and not quantity and the kind of members we are looking for are people who are willing to do much more than just click join, refrain from participating, and then leave the group the second they don’t agree with something we are doing. We need people who are active and willing to express their opinions. We cannot build a community around silence and passiveness. That’s not what this group is about.


An issue that was raised in our discussion thread is an apparent “division” among people who are members of TEBP alone and people who are members of both TEBP and AIPTI. Some TEBP members feel there’s something behind the silence of people who happen to be members of both groups. At this point, I respectfully disagree. As I shared on our group site, and after some interactions with certain members on NdeT, I think the overall silence in our group is related to one thing only: our group isn’t taken seriously enough because it’s on Facebook – a “social” media site. I would love to hear from group members on this, but I get the feeling that being a FB group makes some members feel we’re really just a social group. If my perception is correct, this is something we need to work on because TEBP was not created to be just a social group (no offense to social groups though).


Another issue that has been raised repeatedly, which is intricately related to what I wrote above, is the detrimental effect of silence. This silence is generating an overall feeling of mistrust among members and can ultimately divide TEBP into two distinct groups. This is unproductive and unnecessary and we need to turn this situation around before it has negative consequences among our members. It’s the sort of thing that can kill our efforts before we even get started and given the time and effort that certain members continuously put into this group, it would be a shame for that to happen.


The idea behind TEBP from day one was to build a community, to exchange best practices, resources, and ideas, to work together to beat isolation and abuse, and to defend our basic rights and liberties. All of these goals require dedication and commitment, something a lot of members benefitted from behind the scenes, but very few members actually seem willing to give in return. Now we have reached a crossroads, and it’s time to change that. The road ahead will require commitment and dedication. The road ahead will require change and introspection. The road ahead will require vision and cooperation.


All of the questions raised in the above mentioned thread lead me to think it is time for a serious change. In that thread I quoted Martin Luther King and I would like to quote him again here, “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.” It is time to make changes to our group. We need to figure out what kind of group we want to be, are we going to be one of those groups you just join and forget about or are we actually going to carry out our mission and work towards Ethical Business Practices?


It is time to design the future of our group. Between free machine translation services like Google Translator, crowdsourcing on Twitter and Facebook, the newly approved US budget for improving machine translation, undercutting, unethical agencies, uneducated clients, etc. our industry is facing a challenge. Some translators feel we are on the brink of extinction, although I don’t think humans can be eliminated from the translation process altogether, I do feel change in our industry is imminent and we need to work together to be prepared to face it. TEBP has always been about finding ethical ways of dealing with these issues. What we need to figure out now is what we’re going to do about it and how.


As someone pointed out to me recently, there are hundreds of translation groups on Facebook and several hundred translator’s association in the world and very few of them are really doing anything other than talk and charge membership fees. This group was never intended to be a member-packed, low-impact Facebook group, nor do we intend to become an association: we’re somewhere in between and we need to define that somewhere. Since the day of its creation our group was intended to be different and make a difference. With that in mind, I would like to invite all members of TEBP to take a few minutes to question why they are members of this group in the first place, what they expect from the group, and what they are willing to contribute to the group, and once that introspection is done, I would like to invite all members to share their conclusions and ideas with us in our new discussion thread: the Road Ahead . For those who do not wish to make their contributions public, please feel free to submit them by email by filling out our blog contact form (asking you to fill out the form is tedious, but we’re trying to avoid spammers).

Friday, October 9, 2009

TEBP, AIPTI and NdeT Address Misunderstanding

Today I published a post requesting clarification from AIPTI and Nota del Traductor as to what seemed to be an overlap in time and aims between TEBP and AIPTI. This post resulted in everything from angry messages to someone leaving TEBP (and something tells me more people will probably follow). However, it was not all negative; it also resulted in what turned out to be a very productive conversation with the president of AIPTI.


My initial post raised questions on several issues surrounding the creation of AIPTI, which included what appeared to be inconsistencies in the public statements made by AIPTI creators as to when exactly their project came to be and why if the association had been in the making for years it was not yet constituted as a not-for-profit organization. During our conversation, the president of AIPTI volunteered information and evidence that an association has been in the making at least since 2007. I must refrain from providing details as to what information I was given because I promised confidentiality. But I do now believe beyond any reasonable doubt they have been organizing this association for a very long time.


In my post I had also raised a question regarding someone who left our group only three days before AIPTI purchased its domain. My question surrounded the time line, the fact that this person expressed a “difference of opinions” but had never voiced their opinions, etc. After my conversation with the president of AIPTI, some light has been shed on this person’s odd behavior and I don’t think it has anything to do with AIPTI.


I also questioned why no one thought to include TEBP when AIPTI was launched. During our conversation I explained to the president of the association that if TEBP would have known about their project, upon reviewing their mission statement we would probably have given them our full support. I was then told that because AIPTI supports TEBP’s mission, they had decided the president would be sending me the info personally. In fact, she had actually sent me (and several other people) a copy of their press release through LinkedIn the day before the association was launched to the public. Unfortunately, I never saw that information, and I believe that may have contributed in part to the misunderstanding.


What in my view made this conversation productive was that, despite the unfortunate circumstances surrounding it, I had the chance to exchange opinions with the president regarding some of the issues translators face today and I have found that we share a great deal of common views. I also got the chance to further understand AIPTI’s mission and I feel that it differs a bit from that of TEBP, but aside from a couple of things I would like to further discuss with her if I get a chance, overall I think what they are trying to do is quite respectable and I sincerely hope they are able to carry their mission out.


On a personal note, I wish the circumstances surrounding how I got to talk to the president were different. After our conversation I felt I was talking to someone who genuinely cares about our industry and who is willing to work (and fight) very hard to improve working conditions for us all. Although that’s just my personal impression, I think it’s worth sharing.


As far as members of TEBP who are using materials from TEBP on other forums, I would again like to kindly ask them to let me know next time. Under the series of events that led to this misunderstanding, that didn’t help.


Finally, there are two things I would like to clarify with this post, just for the record:


My intention when publishing my first post was not to discredit or harm AIPTI or any of its members in any way. All of the information I had is verifiable and true to the best of my knowledge at the time, unfortunately there was some information I lacked because it was not intended for the general public in the first place.


Although I was requested and advised from several sources to delete my previous post, I have decided not to do that at this time. The reason is simple: what I published was published in good faith. I know in general there are going to be a lot of mixed feelings regarding my post for while, but all the information I had before today made me feel things needed to be clarified. I could not bring myself to letting something that seemed odd and fishy just sit there. I will not apologize for defending my beliefs or for trying to clear up a misunderstanding. I cannot apologize for speaking my mind or fighting for what I think is right. If I ever did that, I would have to drop out of Law School. I will, however, apologize if I have caused any real harm, as it was never my intention to do so and I will NOT condone or support any misuse of my previous post, particularly if it is used with the intention of harming AIPTI or any of its members in any way.

TEBP Respectfully Requests Clarification from AIPTI and Nota del Traductor

A new translator’s association was launched on September 30, 2009. This association’s aim, as stated in their motto, is to foster ethical “professional” practices in the translation industry. As a group that has already been aiming at fostering ethical “business” practices (as expressed in our motto) in the translation industry since July 21, 2009 we welcome this new initiative and wish them the best. However, we can’t help feeling there might be a bit of overlap with our group in terms of aims and after analyzing the following timeline, we would like to respectfully request clarification from AIPTI and Nota del Traductor on this series of events.


July 21, 2009: Translators for Ethical Business Practices was created on Facebook. Our mission statement (which has not been changed since) included bringing translators and interpreters together to brainstorm ways of raising industry standards, to discuss issues pertaining to payment and outsourcing, among others (which are currently having a serious impact on our industry), and to figure out a way to fight these problems and raise the bar so that clients can get better service and translators and interpreters can get better payment.


On the first week of August, we got a new member who wrote to me saying they had become interested in our group because our idea was being discussed on another site (Nota del Traductor), a site that belongs to one of the founding members of AIPTI. I looked into this and found 2 references to Translators for Ethical Business Practices on Nota del Traductor: 1) one on July 21, 2009 (same day TEBP was created) in a forum discussing turn-key translations and 2) on July 23, 2009 in another forum in which the president of AIPTI posted links and descriptions of translation-related groups on Facebook, except TEBP was the only group that was not limited to a mere link and description, the president of AIPTI actually copied our mission statement in full on the forum thread.


August 5: One of the very first members of TEBP, founding member of AIPTI, and someone who has a very close relationship to the president of AIPTI, left our group and felt compelled to post that they were leaving on our wall, although no explanation was provided as to the reasons for leaving the group. I contacted this person about it, asking if anything had happened in our group that they were not comfortable with, and they said they were leaving simply because there were differences of opinions. However this person had never actually voiced their opinions in any of our discussions, replied to any of my messages, nor participated on our blog or fan page.


On August 8, 2009: (only 3 days later) The president of AIPTI purchased the domain for AIPTI (you can verify this information on www.whois.net). The site was not launched to the general public until September 30, so this information was not known to me at the time.


In mid August, I tried to create a LinkedIn group to reflect our Facebook group. I was unable to use the name Translators for Ethical Business Practices because it had already been taken by a private group, i.e. someone else had gone and created Translators for Ethical Business Practices on LinkedIn. I asked members of TEBP about this and no one knew anything about it.


September 30, 2009: AIPTI was launched with a very similar mission to that of TEBP, 20 members of TEBP are active (and some even founding or honorary members of AIPTI) only one member of both groups thought to email me about AIPTI. Not a single one of these 20 members shared information about AIPTI on TEBP inviting fellow members to join. How is it that members of an association dedicated to promoting ethics and “stimulating the creation of institutional bonds with other associations and public entities, both foreign and domestic in the defense of the Translating and Interpreting profession” didn’t think to include a group dedicated to fostering ethics in its opening ceremony or dinner celebration considering one of the missions of the association is to promote cooperation between professionals? I even ran into two of its founding members in person that same week and neither one of them mentioned this to me.


In their press release, AIPTI states it has been in the making for two years, which would indicate that the overlap is just a coincidence. Yet on September 30, 2009 in her own forum, the president of AIPTI wrote that they have been working on this initiative for “months” (not years), and she later clarifies that they’ve had the idea of doing something like this for years. There are several other comments on several other forums (including Translator’s Cafe) indicating the hard work they have been putting into this association for months (not years). I don’t doubt, from the seriousness and size of the association, that it took a while to put together. The only thing I am questioning is the overlap in aims and time.


This association also claims to currently be processing their legal status as an NGO. There is no public record of this on the IGJ registry (Inspección General de Justicia, the organ in charge of supervising the constitution of commercial and not-for-profit organizations in Argentina), which is consistent with the statement on their site claiming they’re awaiting approval. However, given that IGJ registration only takes a few months, and the president of this association has insisted on claiming it has been in the making for years, why isn’t the issue of their legal status settled yet?


The overlap between the creation of Translators for Ethical Business Practices and that of AIPTI is something I think needs clarification. Another point that needs clarification is why, despite the fact that the creators of AIPTI were aware of the existence of TEBP, they still chose to make their slogan in English so similar to that of TEBP: if you add the word “working” to ours and change “business” to “professional” you get the AIPTI slogan.


On another note, I have also noticed that some members of TEBP who are also members of AIPTI have copied materials I’ve sent to TEBP members by email (or published on our site for discussion on our forum) and published it on Nota del Traductor for discussion there. Although the information I send members of TEBP is not copyright material, my goal when addressing members of TEBP is for that material to be used on our forum. There is no law against using it anywhere else, but I do find this practice to be a bit disrespectful: when I take the time to look for information for TEBP, I intend for it to be used on TEBP. If I wanted to look for information for members of Nota del Traductor or any other forum, I would post it there. What makes this worse, is that the members who took materials from TEBP to other forums didn’t even bother to participate in our discussion forums (or even confirm receipt of these materials).


With that in mind, I would also like to ask members of TEBP who happen to be members of AIPTI or Nota del Traductor, to please let me know if you are planning to use materials for TEBP on other sites so that I can let the other members of TEBP know in case they too are interested in joining the discussion. TEBP was never intended to be a private club or closed group. We have been open to the general public from day one because we believe that raising the bar in our industry includes effective and inclusive communication. Closing ourselves to private forums fosters secrecy and the kind of clique-like behavior that can ultimately lead to further division in our industry.


Because we don’t believe in “every man for himself” (or every group for itself, for that matter) we would like to clarify these apparent indiscrepancies with AIPTI and Nota del Traductor and hope our groups, forums, and associations can cooperate with each other in the future.