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Community recognition program

Community recognition program

Translators without Borders (TWB) fosters a global community of over 200,000 volunteers who donate their time and language skills to help people get vital information and be heard,
whatever language they speak.

Join the community as a volunteer

TWB’s community recognition program is our way of thanking our amazing community members and helping them strengthen their professional profile.

Volunteers accumulate points through different activities on the TWB platform and can convert those points into rewards, including professional recommendations and confirmations of volunteer work.

Here’s what you need to know about the community recognition program:

1

Where can I see how many reward points I've earned?

You can see this in the recognition points badge in your profile on the TWB platform. Once you’ve reached a certain point threshold, you can request your reward(s).

We offer rewards based on the number of points collected. You can request: 
  • confirmation of volunteer work (5,000 points)
  • reference letters (15,000 points)
  • recommendations on professional platforms, such as LinkedIn or ProZ (30,000 points).
To request your reward, simply email us at recognition@translatorswithout
borders.org. Our team will process your request and get back to you within two working days.

You will receive points based on different volunteer activities, such as the number of words you deliver per task:

Type of task Unit Points accrued
per unit
Translation 1 word 1
Revision 1 word 0.5
Transcription 1 word 0.5
Voice recording 1 word 1
Subtitle translation 1 word 1
Subtitle revision 1 word 0.5
Terminology 1 term 10

No, your points will never disappear from your profile, even if you don’t volunteer with us often. The points will always remain in your recognition badge and increase when you complete more tasks and earn more points.

Your points are cumulative, and won’t ever decrease: they will keep on increasing with your contributions! The more points you obtain, the higher the rewards.

You might lose points if the quality of your work is poor. The content we produce can have a serious impact on people’s lives, so the quality of your contribution must be in line with our Code of Conduct. If your work is incorrect or of poor quality, we might deduce the points you earned for that task from your profile. If you constantly deliver poor-quality work, you might be excluded from the program. While contributions to our mission are always greatly appreciated, remember that our community recognition program is not just about collecting reward points.

Our community recognition program also includes monetary rewards for some languages.

 

Speakers of some specific languages often face high connectivity costs when offering their online support. These monetary rewards aim to cover some of those expenses. We hope that this will allow speakers of those languages to volunteer more with us. This program is not a form of employment, and rewards do not constitute payment for services. Currently, the languages for which we can offer monetary rewards are Amharic; Bura-Pabir; Shuwa Arabic – Arabic Script; Shuwa Arabic – Latin Script; Dari; Fulah; Haitian; Hausa; Kanuri; Kibaku; Kurdish Bahdini; Kurdish Kurmanji; Kurdish Sorani; Lingala; Ganda; Wandala (formerly Mandara); Marghi Central; Mongo; Nande; Ngombe; Oromo; Pushto; Pushto, Pakistan; Rohingya Bengali; Rohingya Latin; Shi; Somali; Somali, Ethiopia; Swahili; Swahili, Congo; Tigrinya; Lamang (formerly Waha). This list may change depending on our strategic needs and budgetary constraints. If you deliver work in these languages, you can check how many points you have, and the monetary rewards you can receive in the new “Recognition” section of the TWB platform.

All community members are automatically registered in our community recognition program. You don’t need to register or sign up in any way. If you believe something is wrong and you are not getting points for your contribution, please contact us at recognition@translatorswithout
borders.org


Remember, your contribution must be in line with our Code of Conduct, since the information you contribute can have a serious impact on someone’s life. If your output is inaccurate or inadequate (for example, if you deliver unedited machine translation), you might not qualify for the program (see point 6).

We aim to be fair and mindful of the average time a volunteer spends on a task. Some tasks, such as translation or voice recording, require more time and resources than others, such as revision or transcription. To make sure that everyone’s contribution and time are fairly recognized, we differentiate between tasks that are more time-consuming (1 point per word) and tasks that should take less time (0.5 points per word).

We are aware that revisers might occasionally encounter issues with the translation they revise. If you find that the translation you are revising is not up to standard and needs to be completely re-translated, you are always strongly encouraged to contact our team. If we find that the translation is poor quality, we would deduct the points from the translator’s balance. You can then decide to re-translate the text and get 1 point per word for this work. If someone consistently delivers bad-quality translations, they will be excluded from the recognition program.

At the moment, voice data collection and validation activities are part of a separate, dedicated recognition program under TWB Voice. This program operates independently from the recognition system used for language services such as translation, revision, and transcription. It also may include languages that are not included in this recognition program.

Disclaimer: For members of the Tarjimly community, there is also a distinct recognition program currently in place. We are actively reviewing both systems with the aim of aligning and potentially merging them in the future to provide a more unified recognition experience.