For me, the thing that makes most nervous about translations is that I can't read them. They're a black box. They could say almost anything... 'all your base are belong to us' springs to mind (and it can be much worse).

So when I see:

'First available freelancer works on your order'

I leave. Tell me it's quick. Tell me it's easy. For whatever reason, that phrase just makes me lose all confidence in your site.

On another note. Are these translations audited? For an additional fee can I have another translator (maybe a 'senior' or 'trusted' translator) proofread them?

I would probably just have another from the same service translate it back to English. Paying double but it would help add some type of feedback for judging accuracy.

If it comes back good enough then I would accept it. If not I would ask for my money back. I wouldn't tolerate too many screw ups though before I went somewhere else.

The problem is that even if the meaning is clear, it can still be very poor language. In fact, you could possibly end in a situation where a certain idiom is translated directly which might give a bad result but look fine when translated the other way.

If you translate "I won't take no for an answer" directly into Danish, you would get something like "jeg vil ikke tage nej for et svar", which isn't very good Danish though the meaning is quite clear. Translated back, it would give you the impression that the translation is excellent.

Perhaps include some translation samples

EDIT: I've updated the front page as suggested, thanks!

That's a good point. I've had some translations done through the site and needed to ask my native speaking friends if it was good quality.

For now, translators are untested as I don't have the resources to do it. There's the option of retrying the order with another translator or getting a refund.

It's the best I can do for now, and I'm keeping a close eye on any abusers/poor quality translators. There will be certainly something set up for trusted translations once the site is further on its way.

i would suggest letting translators judge other translations. even suggest improvements with some type of trusted translators as moderators. this way you dont waste too much of the trusted translators time.

best of luck to you

It is beneficial for a translator to rate similar translators negatively, especially with languages for which very few translators exist (for example, my native language Dutch has 5 translators at the moment), which creates a new problem.

You'll probably get the best quality by letting N translators translate a certain text, and let another translator select the best match, all anonymously of course.

You might consider having an additional meta field where the person requesting can write notes about the translation request to provide context for the translator. I worked on large piece of software that had to be translated into many languages and often the translators would ask us for comments in our string files so the could come up with the most appropriate translation.

Yup, once you add a translation to your cart you can add comments for the translator (and vice versa)

I really like the UI, it seems to be very simple and user friendly.

It would be great if the translators were required to uncover information such as education and how old they are. It would also be great if you could filter out based on age and education. But maybe this isn't an issue if you have enough data and a good enough rating system...?

Anyhow, good luck, seems like a solid product.

Thanks,

This is my 10th design iteration so I'm glad you like it!

Just signed up as a translator.

1) There is no confirmation email. However, since you do not require a choice of a password when signing up, this is doubly problematic.

2) You place translator emails in the clear, even when not signed in to the site.

3) There is no way to delete an account.

4) You need to be clearer about your fees. State explicitly that there are no fees for withdrawal if there are none.

5) The best solution for a a verified translation would be to allow translators to post a review rate, and allow clients to choose their reviewer(s). This will not be a free service for any but the most needy of translators. Eventually, this could be integrated into the translation ordering wizard.

6) You forgot a language: Latin, which is critical for legal translation.

7) More important than age is education, but above all, you should require translators to post their mother tongue. It is also virtually required to state one's field(s) of specialization.

8) The site design is smashing, although the translator sort and filtering is weak (see note above).

Hi HN,

Thanks for the last round of advice for caterpi (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1267012)!

I've worked on a lot on design, bug fixes, and suggestions since then. Would appreciate some more advice especially regarding marketing/bootstrapping :)

Chris

I registered at the site (http://www.caterpi.com/people/545002) and want to help with the translation of the site, but it's not possible to choose a language there besides what's already offered. Where should I ask to start translations into other languages? (Like Dutch, Esperanto and Portuguese).

One essential point... You don't see anything about the native language of the translators (and nothing about e.g. Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese). Also local languages are not there but might be in want. (If you put Esperanto in the list, better also Frysian for example)

But please try to find a way to not get details in the way. It's a nice and clean site and that's good :).

I think you could aim this at non-native English speaking folks who write tech support emails in English.

It's cool that you can pay in Ruby.