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Rubber Duck
19th March 2007, 03:28 PM
Entries into DNLocals Auctions will require Accredited Translations.

Accredited Translation will cost up to $20 each and must be obtained from those on our lists.

We are still seeking applications for Accredited Translations in various languages, and as yet no nominations have been confirmed. We are, however, putting up a very impressive line up.

We have already received offers from the following:

Rhys for Japanese,
Gee for Arabic
Blast for Russian and other Slavic Languages
DrBioHealth for Hindi.

If you wish to stand alongside these Linguistic Giants, then please let me know ASAP.

We are still open to offers on Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, Farsi, German, French and Swedish to mention just a few.

jacksonm
19th March 2007, 05:01 PM
Entries into DNLocals Auctions will require Accredited Translations.


Hi,
What are the qualifications to become an accredited translator? A government certificate that the individual has passed an examination to translate between the national language and english? Or a government certificate that the individual is competent in the national language and the individual is a native english speaker? What exactly are the criteria of qualification?

.

Rubber Duck
19th March 2007, 05:17 PM
The Criteria at the moment are that I have confidence that you are as competant and reliable an individual as I am able to find, and on that basis am prepared to nominate you to our Team at DNLocal for ratification.


Hi,
What are the qualifications to become an accredited translator? A government certificate that the individual has passed an examination to translate between the national language and english? Or a government certificate that the individual is competent in the national language and the individual is a native english speaker? What exactly are the criteria of qualification?

.

jacksonm
19th March 2007, 05:47 PM
The Criteria at the moment are that I have confidence that you are as competant and reliable an individual as I am able to find, and on that basis am prepared to nominate you to our Team at DNLocal for ratification.

Hi RD,
Please don't take this the wrong way, but I think that price is quite steep, and especially so for the services of a non-certified translator. The prices range all over the board, but even the upper end charge about 50cents (USD) per word. Usually with a per document minimum fee, but then we aren't talking about translating entire documents so the service is different.

Of course validation of the terms are needed, as well the site needs a business model to be worthwhile. I don't think this particular item is a good price/value relationship, though.

It may not matter much to me personally, anyhow, as I don't have so good domains...

.

Rubber Duck
19th March 2007, 06:03 PM
We will be setting an up bound of $20. Translators and Clients will be free to negociate below that ceiling. This is not going to be part of our charging structure but that is what it seems is going to be necessary to attract the best people. And we are attracting the very best.

At the moment, I feel it is too earlier to try to expect to introduce pricing that is market led, but that may well happen later. We are aiming at the top end of the market and our Buyers will demand quality. Quality comes at a price. However, I think when the final details are released you will consider our over pricing structure very competitive.

You will not be able to enter names into the Auction without an Accredited Translation, so it is going to be a bit of a captive market for Translators, but they are taking on a heavy moral burden even if it is only one word. You will be entering you domains into a highly targeted environment, where buyers are the very highest calibre and we expect to maximise your sales price.

No business model is going to suit everyone needs, but if you are not happy with our then we probably don't need your business in what will be our Elite Auction.

We do not, however, rule our lower cost and less restrive auction environments later as a mass market emerges for IDN. It is not our intention at this time to address such a mass market.

jacksonm
19th March 2007, 06:30 PM
We are aiming at the top end of the market and our Buyers will demand quality. Quality comes at a price.

OK, thanks for giving me the go ahead to continue debate. I will try to objectively state why I think the mentioned plan is less than optimal.

I already mentioned my feeling from the seller's perspective, which is not really the most important perspective here.

The two most important perspectives, as I see them, are:

1. The buyer's

- if I were bidding on a 20K USD IDN, you can be darned sure that I will demand the credentials of the translator. Non-certified translators do not give the impression of quality, and I will demand quality. Putting a price tag on the service of a non-certified translator does not make it "quality".


2. The site operator's potential legal liability

- if you as a site operator are sanctioning the auction of IDNs which your "accredited" team has certified the translation of, then you may be legally liable for disputes in the future regarding potential mistranslations or misinterpretations.


.

Rubber Duck
19th March 2007, 06:42 PM
Well it is a question of what is feasible and what the opposition is actually offering. Without going into to too much detail it won't take much research on the part of buyers or sellers to realise that we are in the process of raising the bar an awful lot. Sedo cannot transact any non-Latin names and cannot even manage Czech for example. Moniker are incapable it would seem of even displaying the Unicode. Sedo have consistently been selling "IDN" names that will have absolutely no chance in a million years of ever getting into our Auctions. I could go on but I don't feel I need to.

On the legal aspect of things it will be made quite clear that it is going to up to the buyer to excercise due diligence and that the principle of Caveat Emptor will apply.

At the end of the day, the market is out there. If you feel you can do so much better, then make us raise our game even further by offering a superior service at a lower price.


OK, thanks for giving me the go ahead to continue debate. I will try to objectively state why I think the mentioned plan is less than optimal.

I already mentioned my feeling from the seller's perspective, which is not really the most important perspective here.

The two most important perspectives, as I see them, are:

1. The buyer's

- if I were bidding on a 20K USD IDN, you can be darned sure that I will demand the credentials of the translator. Non-certified translators do not give the impression of quality, and I will demand quality. Putting a price tag on the service of a non-certified translator does not make it "quality".


2. The site operator's potential legal liability

- if you as a site operator are sanctioning the auction of IDNs which your "accredited" team has certified the translation of, then you may be legally liable for disputes in the future regarding potential mistranslations or misinterpretations.


.

jacksonm
19th March 2007, 06:53 PM
If you feel you can do so much better, then make us raise our game even further by offering a superior service at a lower price.

Heh! I don't want to try to compete with you on building an auction service, as I would likely be very unsuccessful by myself and I don't see the need for this type of fragmentation. However, I am certainly competent to design and implement every aspect a superior online auction site. Now, if you would like to recruit me into your team as the architect of the site, then I'd be happy. But I'm not working pro bono :-)

.

mdw
19th March 2007, 07:00 PM
OK I'll weight in with my 2 cents

First I don't think the appraisal fee is that important. The buyers are probably gonna be sure about the term before they bid thousands or tens of thousands. Would you really buy a $20k domain in a foreign language on the word of someone you have never heard of? It's not really that hard to do your homework.

Secondly, the $20 price may be a bit too high or low, but it's just impossible to tell with no historical data to look at. Too high a price will leave buyers feeling like they are being taxed, too low a price and it no longer adds any perceived value. Get feedback then adjust the price based on that.

Thirdly, the site operator's potential legal liability may indeed be a concern. It is advisable to have a carefully crafted terms written up that all buyers must sign, disclaiming any responsibility and explaining that a reasonable effort was made to offer the appropriate level of service. Caveat emptor is always the watchword of smart buyers after all, and this should be no exception. Buyers need to do their due dilligence, or hire someone to do it for them, just as they do in buying real estate, businesses, etc.

Rubber Duck
19th March 2007, 07:12 PM
OK I'll weight in with my 2 cents

First I don't think the appraisal fee is that important. The buyers are probably gonna be sure about the term before they bid thousands or tens of thousands. Would you really buy a $20k domain in a foreign language on the word of someone you have never heard of? It's not really that hard to do your homework.

Secondly, the $20 price may be a bit too high or low, but it's just impossible to tell with no historical data to look at. Too high a price will leave buyers feeling like they are being taxed, too low a price and it no longer adds any perceived value. Get feedback then adjust the price based on that.

Thirdly, the site operator's potential legal liability may indeed be a concern. It is advisable to have a carefully crafted terms written up that all buyers must sign, disclaiming any responsibility and explaining that a reasonable effort was made to offer the appropriate level of service. Caveat emptor is always the watchword of smart buyers after all, and this should be no exception. Buyers need to do their due dilligence, or hire someone to do it for them, just as they do in buying real estate, businesses, etc.

Thank you, Planet Earth.

Cannot argue with any of that.

555
19th March 2007, 07:31 PM
I can only speak for myself on Hebrew.

I feel 1000% confident to guarantee the translations and suggest if it has any additional meanings/usages.

From the other hand i also surely won't base a 20k domain purchase on 1 guy that says its good.

The problem i see with using a pro. translation company which i am sure if provided sufficient time they will get all done etc. but since we are dealing with domains in foreign languages this translation done by them and which was done based on 'pure' word to word translation may not be what we as buyers want.

maybe a combination of both will at least serve as some reassurance.

alpha
19th March 2007, 07:37 PM
RD, for those that feel $20 is too much; you are probably underselling it.

The single biggest problem facing a non native domainer is not confirming the translation, but confirming whether the term is prime.

Arabic for example is notorious for having dozens of ways to say the same thing.. I assume this accreditation service will score it somehow to cater for this?

It might be useful if you can post an example of the accreditation form you will be using that states all this.

rhys
19th March 2007, 07:45 PM
Hi RD,
Please don't take this the wrong way, but I think that price is quite steep, and especially so for the services of a non-certified translator. The prices range all over the board, but even the upper end charge about 50cents (USD) per word. Usually with a per document minimum fee, but then we aren't talking about translating entire documents so the service is different.

Of course validation of the terms are needed, as well the site needs a business model to be worthwhile. I don't think this particular item is a good price/value relationship, though.

It may not matter much to me personally, anyhow, as I don't have so good domains...

.

I can appreciate your point of view on that. But all of the translators for the auction do have good reputations on IDNF or DNLocal for their respective languages. We are putting that on the line to accredit seller's domain names. I have a reputation and relationships to protect and I personally care that a buyer may lay down $XX,XXX based on a translation I provide. The hypothesis is that the assurance of translation accuracy will give people confidence to bid up domain names. If you hire a translator off the street all you need to do is pay 10 cents. But that random translator won't know anything about domain names or the context behind IDN. He will have a challenge in providing buyers with confidence in the value of a name.

I don't speak for the others but I believe that if this auction proves successful then over time RD can replace me with someone equally trustworthy who may be a professional translator and whose time is worth less than mine. My intent is not to make lots of money from this, it is to help the auction get established.

Rubber Duck
19th March 2007, 07:51 PM
You have raised some good points here.

What is new about our system is that discription of the domain is not being left to the Seller to define although we intend to provide a link out so the more organised sellers can provide supplementary information.

Those providing the basic translation are independent and their fee is more or less guaranteed so there is no apparent reason why they should wish to misrepresent the name. That is certainly not always the case when it is left purely to the Seller.

We do no intend to inundate the Buyer with volumes of information. Already I have indicated that on DNL that a secondary meaning will be given where appropriate and the grammatical classification will be given. The popularity of term will be indicated, as the Type of term Generic/Dictionary/Common TM will be noted. We are not going to get heavily into Trademark Law here, but if it is a mark familar to the Translator it will be flagged as such. It has today been indicated to me we need to do something about accented and unaccented forms. I think we will simply provide main alternative forms of the word, which Buyers may then go and check out using the common tools.

What we are attempting to do it sift any obvious rubbish or attempts to deceive from the system so that the noise that elite domainers object to is missing. Hopefully, they will quickly be able to identify their acquisition targets with some level of confidence. We are not trying to create a bullet proof system, but we are trying to offer something 100 time better than anything that is currently on offer.

RD, for those that feel $20 is too much; you are probably underselling it.

The single biggest problem facing a non native domainer is not confirming the translation, but confirming whether the term is prime.

Arabic for example is notorious for having dozens of ways to say the same thing.. I assume this accreditation service will score it somehow to cater for this?

It might be useful if you can post an example of the accreditation form you will be using that states all this.

blastfromthepast
19th March 2007, 08:01 PM
Hi,
What are the qualifications to become an accredited translator? A government certificate that the individual has passed an examination to translate between the national language and english? Or a government certificate that the individual is competent in the national language and the individual is a native english speaker? What exactly are the criteria of qualification?


In the United States, there is a professional association that some people are members of: http://www.atanet.org/ But this is in no way a requirement to find translation work. They offer certification by exam.

The Translators and Interpreters' Guild http://www.ttig.org/ is a professional union, part of the AFL-CIO.

tee1
19th March 2007, 08:39 PM
For me $20 is an incredible deal for these individuals to provide a translation, but as Alpha suggested, to also someway identify that this is the "best" term or prime term, or at least some way to rank them. Which requires a domainer, not a professional translation service. I assume most non native speakers here have used them, I found mixed results using them. A translation and ranking from the individuals below would give the auction substantial credibility. Not that it needed it
Rhys for Japanese,
Gee for Arabic
Blast for Russian and other Slavic Languages
DrBioHealth for Hindi.


There are many others on this board that have helped me either via pm/email or just from their posts with translations. One of the many assets found here and at dnl, increase the $20 to get them if you have to. A certification stamp of some kind I feel would fuel current non-idners move into IDNs :)

tee1

jacksonm
19th March 2007, 08:46 PM
For me $20 is an incredible deal for these individuals to provide a translation, but as Alpha suggested, to also someway identify that this is the "best" term or prime term, or at least some way to rank them. Which requires a domainer, not a professional translation service.

Now you and Alpha have hit the nail on the head.

I do not feel good at all about paying a non-certified translater 50 times more than a certified translator charges.

But I do feel very good about paying a knowledgeble domainer with language skills 20 bucks to rank a term.

I would not sell this as "accredited translation", rather "term ranking" or something even more clever...

.

mulligan
19th March 2007, 08:52 PM
While some may see the price as excessive we are aiming to provide experienced domainers who are fully fluent in their respective languages.

We intend to be a top class venue for domainers - run by domainers

Rubber Duck
19th March 2007, 09:06 PM
We seem to be closing the credibility gap a little here now.

I think what you need to consider here is who is buying into the service rather than simply looking at who is actually paying for it.


Now you and Alpha have hit the nail on the head.

I do not feel good at all about paying a non-certified translater 50 times more than a certified translator charges.

But I do feel very good about paying a knowledgeble domainer with language skills 20 bucks to rank a term.

I would not sell this as "accredited translation", rather "term ranking" or something even more clever...

.

g
19th March 2007, 09:39 PM
I had tons of pms asking to confirm the translations or if it is a primary term

and I had replied to them all in details ......

if I was charging 20$ per name.... I would have collected now 200K$ may be :)

it was a period of time that the market needed more players ......I think the market has to move to a different stage so I think the free arabic IDN appraisal service is over.

and all of you should also assume that most 7$ premium IDNs are gone as well ..... :)

we will be offering arabic IDN appraisal service together with translation services at dnlocal

Good luck to all
Gee

rhys
20th March 2007, 12:01 AM
Now you and Alpha have hit the nail on the head.

I do not feel good at all about paying a non-certified translater 50 times more than a certified translator charges.

But I do feel very good about paying a knowledgeble domainer with language skills 20 bucks to rank a term.

I would not sell this as "accredited translation", rather "term ranking" or something even more clever...

.

There is probably something in the middle we can work out depending on what direction RD gives us. Ranking is something that I am uncomfortable with because if you think about it, it is very difficult to definitively know exactly how wide the universe is of terms to be ranked. Also this is sometimes quite subjective. If you don't know how big the set needs to be, then ranking becomes quite tricky.

However, I can tell you if a domain name seems to be one of the most common terms for a particular kind of search. Or I can try to explain simply the nuance that a straight dictionary may not be able to communicate. I just can't guarantee always that it is the most common term for a given search. Hope that makes sense.

Rubber Duck
20th March 2007, 12:12 AM
What we are looking at here is:

Primary Translation ( Grammatical Classification)
Secondary Translation (Grammatical Classification)
Primary Term Classification (Generic, Dictionary, Non-Dictionary, Meaningless etc.)
Useage Frequency (Primary Term, Popular, Uncommon, Obscure etc.)
Equivalent Terms including accented variations, equivalent in other scripts used in same language, similies etc.

There will be no formal ranking and the principle of Caveat Emptor will apply.

The basic information will nevertheless be independent and very useful to buyers, but they will still bear the responsibility of conducting their own due dilligence.

Sellers will get automatic entry into Auction provided they pay the fees based on Reserves prices for which there will be a minimum. Sellers will not be able to provide their own translations on the Auction site but will be able to submit a link to allow them to furnish supplementary information.

Rubber Duck
10th April 2007, 11:11 AM
A list of Accredited Translators for the Elite Auction has been posted here:

http://www.dnlocal.com/elite_auction-b75.0/

The Specification for Translations is also posted here.

We also invited those approved as Accredited Translators to provide contact details at this location.

We expect to be able to announce that we are formerly open to accept listing for the auctions and to qualify buyers.

We are expecting to be able to announce a list of very credible domains at the minimum reserve $500, along with an introductory dispensation in the terms of qualification.