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Do agencies use bots? Thread poster: Emily Gilby
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Emily Gilby 
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:38
Member (2018)
French to English
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One of the agencies I work for uses a portal system which releases jobs for translators to claim. When they release a job, you get an email notification with a link to take you to the job. For years, I'd have time to click on the link, look at the job details and consider whether I had the time to take it on before accepting or rejecting it. In the last couple of years however, now when I click on the link, even if I do it immediately as soon as I receive the email notification, the job has alre... See more One of the agencies I work for uses a portal system which releases jobs for translators to claim. When they release a job, you get an email notification with a link to take you to the job. For years, I'd have time to click on the link, look at the job details and consider whether I had the time to take it on before accepting or rejecting it. In the last couple of years however, now when I click on the link, even if I do it immediately as soon as I receive the email notification, the job has already been claimed. I've even taken to having the portal open on my browser so I can just refresh the page but there is no job to be seen, it's already been taken. I used to think that people were maybe just a fraction quicker than me and accepting the job without even looking at the job details, but as it seems to happen almost every time now and it's so instantaneous, I can't help wondering whether some agencies are using bots to accept these jobs that seem to get snapped up quicker than humanly possible. Would love to hear your thoughts/experiences. ▲ Collapse
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Eva Stoppa
Germany
Local time: 05:38
English to German
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I don't see the use of using a bot and claiming an existing Job which, then, cannot be done by this bot.
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| Do you know a friendly PM there? | May 23 |
Emily Gilby wrote:
One of the agencies I work for uses a portal system .....For years, I'd have time to click on the link....
Sounds like you've been working with them for a while.
Is there a friendly PM you could ask?
If it happens a lot, it's unlikely they won't have noticed the same "person" accepting everything instantly.
There again perhaps they haven't & you'll be doing them a favour (unless they're happy with the results delivered, I guess, but even so they'd have all their eggs in one basket if people like you are driven away).
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Emily Gilby
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:38
Member (2018)
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Eva Stoppa wrote:
I don't see the use of using a bot and claiming an existing Job which, then, cannot be done by this bot.
I would assume that the job would then get assigned to a human translator at that agency.
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Emily Gilby
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:38
Member (2018)
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Charlie Bavington wrote:
Is there a friendly PM you could ask?
It's not that kind of agency I'm afraid, it's always been very automated. I will try though if I manage to get hold of someone.
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I would put it down to some people's email downloading more frequently.
I can't see any reason for bots to be involved, unless they are just making up jobs to make people feel more and more desperate...
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Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 06:38
Member
English to Turkish
Are the jobs being sent through Plunet? I'm registered with a couple of agencies using Plunet where the same issue you describe happens. My guess is that the PM has already assigned the job to a translator by the time you've received the job email.
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Emily Gilby
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:38
Member (2018)
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Baran Keki wrote:
Are the jobs being sent through Plunet? I'm registered with a couple of agencies using Plunet where the same issue you describe happens. My guess is that the PM has already assigned the job to a translator by the time you've received the job email.
It's not Plunet but it's one that a few different agencies use though. I'm not sure of the name actually, it doesn't say anywhere obvious on the portal. I'm not sure the PMs are that involved, it seems to be more who accepts the mass requests first and it always seems to be the same person (I usually manage to accept the reviews so I can see the user's number).
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Emily Gilby
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:38
Member (2018)
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Christopher Schröder wrote:
I would put it down to some people's email downloading more frequently.
I can't see any reason for bots to be involved, unless they are just making up jobs to make people feel more and more desperate...
That's good to know. I'm not sure what affects server speed but I'm sure me living out in the middle of nowhere won't be helping it!
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Zea_Mays
Italy
Local time: 05:38
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
| do colleagues use bots? | May 23 |
I think tech-savvy people would be able to code a bot to claim jobs for them. I'm not one of those people, so I don't know how it's done, but I know from an agency I work with that they had to find ways to distribute jobs more fairly because there were individuals who were getting more jobs than others. Maybe because of connection speed, maybe because of click speed, maybe because of bots? What's for sure is that there were many people complaining, and that helped, because the agency took the co... See more I think tech-savvy people would be able to code a bot to claim jobs for them. I'm not one of those people, so I don't know how it's done, but I know from an agency I work with that they had to find ways to distribute jobs more fairly because there were individuals who were getting more jobs than others. Maybe because of connection speed, maybe because of click speed, maybe because of bots? What's for sure is that there were many people complaining, and that helped, because the agency took the complaints seriously.
There was a moment when they introduced a limit on page refreshes (because of large use of automatic page refreshes) - when you reached # refreshes, you had to wait I think 20 minutes for the next refresh cycle.
They ended up with a rather complicated timed system, but it seems that jobs are now more evenly distributed among translators.
So complaining is for sure something you should do IMO. ▲ Collapse
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Keith Jackson
France
Local time: 05:38
Member (2017)
French to English
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The simplest explanation is that the job has already been allocated when it is posted onto the site. The PMs probably have to put the job on the first-come-first-serve portal to meet their objectives or possibly other commitments to customers. Alas!
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Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 05:38
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
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| Lack of transparency | May 23 |
That’s exactely the problem here, a total absence of transparency. I am not among those who want to be involved in it. This type of agencies do not provide good jobs or added value anyway.
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TURJOMAN ..
Saudi Arabia
Local time: 06:38
English to Arabic
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| The same thing happened to me | May 23 |
Emily Gilby wrote:
One of the agencies I work for uses a portal system which releases jobs for translators to claim. When they release a job, you get an email notification with a link to take you to the job. For years, I'd have time to click on the link, look at the job details and consider whether I had the time to take it on before accepting or rejecting it. In the last couple of years however, now when I click on the link, even if I do it immediately as soon as I receive the email notification, the job has already been claimed. I've even taken to having the portal open on my browser so I can just refresh the page but there is no job to be seen, it's already been taken. I used to think that people were maybe just a fraction quicker than me and accepting the job without even looking at the job details, but as it seems to happen almost every time now and it's so instantaneous, I can't help wondering whether some agencies are using bots to accept these jobs that seem to get snapped up quicker than humanly possible. Would love to hear your thoughts/experiences.
The same thing happened to me when I was volunteering for an organization that requested volunteer translators. I couldn't translate any article during that period. After that, when I received an email, I opened it quickly upon arrival and got three consecutive articles. Speed may have played a role in that
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Dan Lucas
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:38
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
| Automated job grabbing | May 23 |
Zea_Mays wrote:
I think tech-savvy people would be able to code a bot to claim jobs for them.
That's what I would do. I would have a python script poll the server every few seconds, parse any new jobs, and grab anything with a volume or delivery date that I could handle. If it were only myself doing it I don't think there would be a problem and the agency probably wouldn't even notice. If lots of people were doing it then the impact on the server would probably be quite significant.
This might be what Emily has noticed.
Dan
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Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 06:38
Member
English to Turkish
| First-come-first-served agencies are the bread and butter of scammers | May 24 |
Zea_Mays wrote:
but I know from an agency I work with that they had to find ways to distribute jobs more fairly because there were individuals who were getting more jobs than others. Maybe because of connection speed, maybe because of click speed, maybe because of bots? What's for sure is that there were many people complaining, and that helped, because the agency took the complaints seriously.
I'm sure a deviously industrious individual taking the time and trouble to get himself registered to a first-come-first-served agency as a translator of dozen languages (by stealing other translators' resumes) will find a way to 'code a bot to claim jobs', which are then to be outsourced on Upwork to bottom-feeders at 1 cent per word.
If the agency 'take the complaints seriously' and is in need of 'finding ways to distribute jobs more fairly', why not do away with the idiotic practice of sending jobs on the "first-come-first-served" basis, and actually assign tasks to tried and true translators instead of taking absurd chances with dubious characters who got themselves registered there by clicking on the 'Join Us' button and completing (or rather having others complete) an easy, generic test translation?
Is it too much trouble for them to hire PMs who will personally deal with translators to assign them tasks? Does this scheme (automatically sending out job emails on the first-come-first-served basis) help agencies save money by not having to hire PMs? I mean what kind of effed up business mentality is this?
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