Meaning only

I am increasingly unhappy with the "meaning only" option. It saves the requester points, but often takes at least as much effort as a normal request, and sometimes far more effort. I will try to explain why I say this.

The translator of a "meaning only" request has a reason to give far less effort, and in many cases produces a target that has only approximate meaning. Too often, a poll is then requested to check the meaning and it is my impression that these polls take far more effort, from more translators, than a normal request would have required. I find it much harder to evaluate a translation for correct meaning when the grammar, spelling, punctuation and word choice are poor. Also, precision of meaning and precision of grammar and form often are linked, so a "meaning only" request is, to me, a flag that says "much extra work for experts, editing required". I think in many cases, had the request been normal, ie not "meaning only", the translation would have been rejected.

So what to do?

1. A discount "approximate meaning" translation would not have the quality to which we aspire, so that's no good.

2. What if "meaning only" meant not a translation, but a summary, eg reducing a long "Dear John" letter into "he loves you but has decided to keep his wife".

3. What if we eliminate "meaning only". Does it serve a useful purpose?

Hey you're right those meaning only request are not very clear.

By the way, the "meaning only" doesn't save any points to the requester, it's the same price.

The only things I know about the meaning only is the 2 opposite case where you should and shouldnot use it :

You receive an email in a language you do'nt understand >> "meaning only"

You want to send a letter to somebody >> not "meaning only".

I'm waiting for the opinion of other experts. If really the "meaning only" translations result in a bigger effort by everybody, maybe we can go back and stop using it.

But in some cases, the meaning only allows to get translations on rare langauges where the translator is not native but can help.