Crowdsourcing is a new concept which is becoming very popular. This concept is defined by Wikipedia as a neurologist compound of Crowd and Outsourcing for the act of taking tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing them to a group of people or community, through an ‘open call’ to a large group of people (a crowd) asking for contributions.
Facts that mislead people’s idea about crowdsourcing
At the same time contributions can be paid or unpaid. Most of the time, this implies that contributions are unpaid.
Is crowdsourcing a good idea?
Usually people are mislead by different reasons as to why they should resort to crowdsourcing translations like, the fact that sometimes they underestimate the importance of a translation, or, most of the time because it is free of charge.
Most of the time, people who work for free as translators have other sources of income and they do it “for a cause” or just because “they are in it for their hearts”, but this doesn’t necessarily proves that they are professional linguists.
Crowdsourced translation cannot replace professional work
There are many reasons why a crowdsourced translation cannot replace professional work, such as:
- Usually, people engaged in crowdsourcing are only contributing with small bits of text. This means that the crowdsource team will need many participants. The result would be even worse if those people would have to translate a few hundred credit reports or patents over the weekend.
- In case of confidential documents, we guarantee that a company will always agree to use the services of a professional translation agency, knowing that their documents data is safe.
- A team of unpaid editors wouldn’t check if the translation made by lots of translators is consistent with the rest. Not even a paid one.
- Expecting a good quality translation made by an unprofessional linguist is a matter of luck.
- In case of medical and legal cases, a poor translation can lead to all sorts of complications.
- As long as there is the argument “it’s free”, many people will give crowdsource translation a chance. That’s why some of these translators use campaigns to “educate the client”, which, in our opinion will never work.
Benefits of crowdsourcing translation
Faster results: If you are a company requiring a project to be completed quick and cheap, crowdsourcing has a great potential to achieve it on time, because more people will simultaneously work on the project.
Cost savings: One of the top advantages of using crowdsourcing is associated with smaller costs or free for the work performed by volunteers, customers, business partners, experts or other members of a community who want to get connected and serve with the translation works.
Feedback in real-time: Companies that allow their translation projects to a community will get feedback in real-time from the members participating in their projects, allowing them to pick from different variants.
Engagement: Using the power of the crowd in the translation projects and including the community members in a company’s projects will create more engagement and brand engagement because they will provide and work for the same goal.
Efficiency: Another advantage of using crowdsourcing for translation projects is efficiency and the reality that you can use a higher number of resources to work at your project at the same time.
We are here for you
The most important thing is that crowdsourcing is not here to stay. In time it will disappear and it will only be remembered as a fad.
A few things we can tell you are that:
- We at NordicTrans always guarantee our product
- Our translators are the most qualified professionals
- We always deliver on time
- You get high quality translations at affordable prices and no crowdsourcing.
Send us your request today to [email protected] and a Project Manager will get back to you with a quote. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
