Crowdsourcing translation is an effective way to tap into the expertise of users. The advantages of crowdsourcing translation are very visible: It can be an expeditious way to work on a translation project, since the number of workers can be indefinitely large, and they are always available. It can also build a bridge between the company and users, enhancing the brand loyalty. However, despite that crowdsourcing seems constructive and beneficial, a difficult question may arise —— How can I find so many volunteers? Even if I find them, how can I keep them motivated to do the translation for us? Crowdsourcing usually targets large numbers of people. It is true that if project managers fail to have enough volunteers, the word “crowd” will not be suitable for crowdsourcing translation. Thus, in this blog post, I will focus on how to maintain quantity.
- One of the most effective ways to make people happy and willing to work is to give them presents and rewards. For example, giving them memorial T-shirts which can never be bought elsewhere is practical. Volunteers who want to be recognized as one of the contributors, or someone who simply just want to have a nice limited-edition T-shirt, are likely to be motivated. However, understanding what rewarding system is suitable for the case is important. Volunteers may have different preferences or expectations for their rewards. According to Jeff Beatty, who is the Head of Localization at Mozilla, he said volunteers in Western Europe tend to seek for self-satisfaction, the sense of being needed, and the contribution behaviors themselves are quite enough for them to keep motivation; while American volunteers will prefer T-shirts, caps, things that can be used to let others know they participated. Asian volunteers like food; free snacks or pizza will likely be ideal for motivating them. Therefore, project managers should consider using various kinds of rewards for people with different culture background.
- Keeping in touch with your volunteers also plays a vital role in maintaining motivation. People do not like to be left alone with no further feedback. Companies and organizations need to constantly give them feedback, such as telling them that their translation have helped the project to go smoothly, asking them to keep an eye on what will come in the near future. Emails and calls are necessary.
- Machine translation can also be used to motivate volunteers. Many people have the experience that starting is the most difficult part for doing things, but after the starts, things go much more smoothly. Machine translation is like priming the pump; it helps to start projects and volunteers will not be intimidated to start and do not have to worry about where to begin.
- Encouraging people joining the programs usually requires good marketing. The four Ps of marketing is a widely used model. It consists of Product, Price, Placement, and Promotion. For the products, project managers need to tell the potential volunteers that what they can get. It can be wonderful experience, good feelings, or helping them to build constructive social connections. For the price in this case, the opportunity costs may not be too high for the volunteers, since it will deter people’s interest. The organizers need to cooperate so that volunteers will be easy to join. Some typical practices are: having a flexible schedule, providing guidance to the tools; and if organizers are holding a meeting event, then they should think about offering children care. All of these efforts are aiming to reduce the costs for the volunteers. Placement should not be neglected as well. Project managers and organizers need to find a place that is easy to commute. As for promotion, advertisements can be posted on social media, like Facebook groups, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. Local newspaper is also a good choice if targeting elder volunteers.
Quantity is essential: time spans, quality, and consistency are all heavily affected by quantity. Lacking enough users and volunteers will expectedly defer the project’s accomplishment. The practices elaborated above are some typical ways, more practices are also needed based on the actual situations. People may argue that even if we have many volunteers, how can we ensure that the translations are high-quality enough to meet the requirements? Here is my personal opinions regarding quality control for Crowdsourcing Translation.