Point system

Since I first registered with Cucumis.org I've seen a lot of improvement, both on the site usability and the type of translations requested (e.g. no single words).

I have however still a couple of suggestions concerning your point system. First the facts:

The number of users that master each of the languages on this site differs greatly. Hence you can expect an English to French translation to be done immediately, while other must wait for weeks, even months.

The type of content is also manifold: we can see love letters, commercial correspondence, poetry, lyrics, scientific articles, etc.

The current system does not take these parameters into account: a word in English and a work in Urdu have the same value (or very similar).

What I suggest is:

1. Make the cost of the translation depend from the origin and destination language. You could use some multiplicative coefficients: e.g. 1 English word is worth 1 Cucumis point, 1 French word 1.2 CP, ..., 1 Urdu word 100 CP.

The value of a translation would be computed by some simple rule like # of words * origin language coeff. * destination language coeff.: translating 100 English words into French would cost hence 120 CP.

2. The same should be said about the type of text to translate. While letters are easy to translate, this is no more the case of poetry (I avoid to translate it). A coefficient should be also used in this case.

This proposal will push people that master one or more rare languages to make translation from and to this language instead of concentrating on those that anybody could do...

I hope you appreciate my 2 cents.

Piotr

Hi Piotr, sure it's good idea, and I had already suggested such e an improvement. The system si quite fair but I'm quite scared abuot the number of english requests the english experts would have to cope with.

About the type of text, it's also very right, but it will be another borring job for admins (checking each type of text). Let's wait for their opinions.