Difference between revisions of "Motivating Volunteers"
(first version) |
(No difference)
|
Revision as of 16:12, 1 March 2014
- Create and keep Facebook group animated.
- Translate appropriate news from LC community. Never copy-paste, never share, but tell the news in your own words in your own language.
- Share language-related items: English and your language.
- Share TED-related items.
- Share translation-related items.
- Share pointers to other translator communities.
- Share guidelines one item at a time.
- Share educational (translation and language) items.
- Message translators personally.
- Write a personal message (from scratch) if you see an active one gone.
- Study their profile and greet personally (as opposed to automatic message).
- Note and applaud their particular skills, for example.
- Analyze and suggest them how they can make a contribution - you can ask them to do one of these points (e.g. please, print and post this poster in your university).
- Connect with translators in other social networks.
- Keep up with what's going on in their personal lives.
- Not for everybody and up to a certain extent. There are normal commonly understood limits, but you can make new friends here as well, just don't be pushy.
- Ask questions and create polls.
- Their opinion matters.
- You'll know them better.
- You'll learn a whole lot.
- Engage regularly in other ways, especially in the real world.
- Real world creates a strong bond and you'll meet some amazing people.
- Send the most active ones paper cards or small physical gifts by mail.
- Hangout with them locally, especially if you are in a major metropoli or simply passing by.
- Teach them how to use tools, not only Amara, but other professional translation tools.
- WordSRT - macros to use the power of Word processor (spell checker, grammar)
- Subtitle Edit - fine tweaking and checking of transcripts
- Various comparison tools (also called differs) - to compare two versions of subtitles and see more than Amara shows you.
- Various CAT tools - these are power tools for pros, often they cost thousands of euros (and often they are worth their price)
- Get out there in universities and schools and do some propaganda with English teachers.
- TED-wise and OTP-wise
- OTP is a good practice for most language students AND it is more useful than translating something nobody needs.
- Be careful not to invite too low-level or beginners, as this will lower the quality of translation or increase your load.
- Print out and post posters in local schools and universities.
- Browse online for great universities in other cities and contact faculty with proposals for their students.
- It's a good practice for them, they translate something anyway and it's usually a throw away thing. Here they have a chance to do something useful.
- It might be a great help for you, especially if a faculty member reviews students' translations - for example to grade.
- Browse and engage with other communities of translators and volunteers.
- Go translation-wise - people who are translators and translate for the sake of translation or love for language.
- Go cause-wise - people who care about a particular topic (physicists, artists, activists, etc) and translate for the sake of their topic or field.
- Set up Unnabot and the welcome message.
- Help translators get started
- How to check out a translation.
- How to translate.
- How to tackle hard places.
- Help translators through hard places in translation.
- 5 minutes for you - 1 hour for them.
- Teach them to use community help.
- Help translators to find reviewers.
- Use your community (but not abuse it).
- Use your knowledge of particular translator skills and interests.
- After approval send the translator and the reviewer a thank you message regardless of how bad or good their translation was.
- You can use templates, but personalize them every time - nobody needs another robot to talk with.
- Create a software tool to make their (and your) life easier.
- This might be a simple workaround to ease frustration with Amara bugs.
- This might be something specialized to take care of your language features.
- accents proofing or replacing like ì or ё.
- often misused phrase detection.
- Show them the impact of their efforts.
- TED-provided statistics about OTP project.
- Personal stories (how your mom or niece or nephew enjoyed their translation).
- Say thank you when they go.
- They might return later on.
- They did a lot of good already, the deserve it.
- Never expect or demand anything. No pressure, we are all volunteers.
- Be grateful they chose to do some good.
- Regardless how little it is.
- Little is still better than nothing.
- Regardless how able they are.
- May be it was a 9-year old kid who did that "horrible" translation. Or a disabled person. Or a dog - it's internet, you never know who's on the other side :)
- Regardless how little it is.
- Do some of these regularly, do some of these once
- Try all of them, see which ones work best.
- Try something new and share here.