The issue of professional translators providing their services for free has once again reared its ugly, miserable, penny-pinching head again. Some time ago I wrote about a job posting on Proz asking for a specialised text to be translated for free. Now, according to an article in the New York Times, the professional networking website, LinkedIn, has asked it’s translator members whether they would be interested in volunteering their services to localise the LinkedIn website. Yes, you heard right.  A professional website aimed at professional service providers is asking it’s fee paying members to provide services for free.

I’ve never made a secret of the fact that translators are sometimes their own worst enemy when it comes to professional recognition. We translators regularly complain that we do not get the professional recognition we deserve and that the money we make is not commensurate with the amount of effort, training and commitment required to be a translator. This, as I’ve said before, is largely due to translators not standing up for themselves and for charlatans working for peanuts. But companies who are prepared to take advantage of translators and employ “yellow pack“, bargain-basement translators are every bit to blame. So it’s hardly a surprise that I’m not impressed by LinkedIn’s new venture.

"Sure, translation has its challenges but the plentiful supply of bananas and the chance to play on a tyre swing make it all worthwhile".

But hold on a minute, I’m detecting the slight whiff of hypocrisy here. Why have I never complained about Facebook’s foray into crowd-sourcing? Or Wikipedia for that matter? Like LinkedIn, Facebook asked it’s members to band together and translate their website into various languages for free. LinkedIn were even promising to credit the translators who volunteered so it’s not like the translators weren’t getting something out of it. But the reason I didn’t have a problem with Facebook is because it, like Wikipedia is a kind of hobby or recreational site and much like Wikipedia, they don’t really have a business model with which to make vast sums of money (if you’re interested in how web companies like the mighty Google make their money try reading “The Google Story“).

On top of this, the Facebook translation project was just an excuse to get users involved in the website – it wasn’t an excuse to save a few bucks. In fact the way Facebook went about localising its site ultimately proved more expensive than if they had just gone to professional translators in the first place (they had a review system for translations and even got professional translators to translate the strings “just in case”).

But the LinkedIn case is different from what I can make out. They are supposedly a professional site aimed at promoting professional relationships and respecting its members. They also charge their members a lot of money for their premium services. Would LinkedIn have asked its graphic designer members to design a new logo for free? Would they have asked members who are website designers to redesign the website for free? Would they have asked caterers to come around and stock the LinkedIn canteen with food for free? Unlikely to say the least. Yet somehow they felt comfortable asking the translators to give them a freebie. Maybe they have a point, after all we are just trained monkeys who speak a couple of languages real good.