Poll: Should freelance translators unite under a global professional standard? Autor vlákna: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Should freelance translators unite under a global professional standard?".
View the poll results »
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Personally, I don't think it's feasible, supposing you’re referring to some sort of mandatory rules. For starters we are FREElancers, so no one but me is obliged to follow my values and beliefs and my ethical principles…
| | | | Jennifer Levey 
Chile
Local time: 20:45
španělština -> angličtina
+ ...
| Before even thinking about a 'global professional standard' Proz needs to look closer to home | Dec 27, 2025 |
I venture to suggest that before anyone at Proz comes here trawling for opinions about any such 'global professional standard' they should make a serious effort to put this platform's own house in order and TERMINATE and PROHIBIT, once and for all, the abuse of the platform's 'job system' through the persistent posting of 'pseudo jobs' for potentially illegal 'AI training' purposes.
If Henry, moderators, support staff or anyone else here still doesn't know what's been going on unhin... See more I venture to suggest that before anyone at Proz comes here trawling for opinions about any such 'global professional standard' they should make a serious effort to put this platform's own house in order and TERMINATE and PROHIBIT, once and for all, the abuse of the platform's 'job system' through the persistent posting of 'pseudo jobs' for potentially illegal 'AI training' purposes.
If Henry, moderators, support staff or anyone else here still doesn't know what's been going on unhindered for the past several months (if not years!) there's some enlightenment here: https://www.proz.com/forum/prozcom_job_systems/376024-job_adverts_for_work_"for_ai_training".html
As per the latest response from a member of the suport team (cited in full in the link above) a lot of of these 'AI training' jobs - many of which have required audio and/or video recordings, and photos, of adolescents or minors as young as 5 years of age and/or other data collection activities that would necessarily be in breach of GDPR and/or other laws/regulations serving to protect the sentitive personal data of uninformed third parties - are 'valid' jobs falling within the current (recently enlarged) scope of the Proz job system, and their only 'defect' has been that the job posters had 'mistakenly' tagged them as 'translation' jobs and not 'AI training'.
For as long as the Proz management fails to exercise their duty of care both to us and to the potential victims of crimes conducted under the guise of these pernicious 'job offers', then we, the members and users of this platform, need to do our due diligence, assume our responsibility as professional translators/interpreters, and take a conscious decision never to quote on or accept such 'jobs'.
When we have committed ourselves to saying 'NO' to such activities, we will perhaps find ourselves in a better position to suggest how ethical and moral standards might be woven into a 'global professional standard' for translators and interpreters.
JL
[Edited at 2025-12-27 02:39 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Ricardo Aries
Indonésie
Local time: 07:45
Člen (2020)
angličtina -> indonéština
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| ISO 17100:2015 | Dec 27, 2025 |
There is already an international standard that addresses this: ISO 17100:2015 (https://www.iso.org/standard/59149.html).
To quote the standard:
“Application of ISO 17100:2015 provides the means by which a translation service provider (TSP) can demonstrate conformity of specified translation services to ISO 17100:2015 and the capability of its processes and resources ... See more There is already an international standard that addresses this: ISO 17100:2015 (https://www.iso.org/standard/59149.html).
To quote the standard:
“Application of ISO 17100:2015 provides the means by which a translation service provider (TSP) can demonstrate conformity of specified translation services to ISO 17100:2015 and the capability of its processes and resources to deliver a translation service that will meet the client's and other applicable specifications.
Applicable specifications can include those of the client, of the TSP itself, and of any relevant industry codes, best‑practice guides, or legislation.”
The challenge is that many translators and agencies are either unaware of this standard or choose not to implement it. Instead, they rely on their own internal procedures or local regulatory requirements.
For that reason, the idea of a truly global professional standard—one that all freelancers would follow uniformly—remains more aspirational than realistic.
And if we’re already dreaming big, we might as well go all the way: perhaps the next logical step is to establish a grand World Guild of All Freelancers, complete with a benevolent, all‑knowing chairman who will harmonize our workflows, settle our disputes, and decree universal rates from atop a majestic swivel chair. At that point, a global standard would be the least of our achievements. ▲ Collapse
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Ricardo Aries wrote:
And if we’re already dreaming big, we might as well go all the way: perhaps the next logical step is to establish a grand World Guild of All Freelancers, complete with a benevolent, all‑knowing chairman who will harmonize our workflows, settle our disputes, and decree universal rates from atop a majestic swivel chair. At that point, a global standard would be the least of our achievements.
...isn't that already established, with the "Certified PRO" badge granted by proz, together with an all-knowing chairman?
| | | | Jennifer Levey
Chile
Local time: 20:45
španělština -> angličtina
+ ...
| What? - A "World Guild of All Freelancers"? - Yikes! | Dec 27, 2025 |
Ricardo Aries wrote (with my emphasis):
...
And if we’re already dreaming big, we might as well go all the way: perhaps the next logical step is to establish a grand World Guild of All Freelancers, complete with a benevolent, all‑knowing chairman who will harmonize our workflows, settle our disputes, and decree universal rates from atop a majestic swivel chair. At that point, a global standard would be the least of our achievements.
Aw shucks  The qualies needed for the position of 'chairman' of this monopolistic 'guild' clearly rule out an application for the top job from our very own Henry.
And it might be argued that any such global standard, far from becoming 'the least of our achievements', might more accurately be labelled as the 'worst of our failings'.
It might also be suggsted that the goals of this (fictional, at least for the time being...) 'guild' are already being achieved with remarkable alacrity and efficacy by Artificial Ignorance; that shapeless, emotionless 'thingy' which already sits atop its own 'majestic swivel chair', all the better able to spot any service providers (that us, remember...) who are not pulling their weight, those who try sneaking 'human translations' out from darkened home offices at the dead of night in the hope of staving off the constipation that all too often comes from a 24/7 diet of peanuts as a substitute for worthwhile income.
JL
| | | | Gregor Trebec
Slovinsko
Local time: 02:45
angličtina -> slovinština
+ ...
If there is a standard, there is also a school behind the process. In a way there are already schools, universities and systems describing your level of English for example therefore you are inventing warm water.
| | | | Daryo
Local time: 01:45
srbština -> angličtina
+ ...
| There is a small fly in that ointment (or a whole swarm of them?) | Dec 28, 2025 |
Ricardo Aries wrote:
There is already an international standard that addresses this: ISO 17100:2015 ( https://www.iso.org/standard/59149.html).
To quote the standard:
“Application of ISO 17100:2015 provides the means by which a translation service provider (TSP) can demonstrate conformity of specified translation services to ISO 17100:2015 and the capability of its processes and resources to deliver a translation service that will meet the client's and other applicable specifications.
Applicable specifications can include those of the client, of the TSP itself, and of any relevant industry codes, best‑practice guides, or legislation.”
The challenge is that many translators and agencies are either unaware of this standard or choose not to implement it. Instead, they rely on their own internal procedures or local regulatory requirements.
For that reason, the idea of a truly global professional standard—one that all freelancers would follow uniformly—remains more aspirational than realistic.
And if we’re already dreaming big, we might as well go all the way: perhaps the next logical step is to establish a grand World Guild of All Freelancers, complete with a benevolent, all‑knowing chairman who will harmonize our workflows, settle our disputes, and decree universal rates from atop a majestic swivel chair. At that point, a global standard would be the least of our achievements.
There is a small fly in that ointment (or a whole swarm of them?)
I tried to get a closer look at that ISO 17100:2015 standard. But to no avail.
https://www.iso.org/standard/59149.html#lifecycle
Tough luck: I would have to fork out 132 + 18 Swiss Francs for the privilege of being told how I'm supposed to be doing what I was doing for decades without anyone ever complaining!
A point of terminology:
We don’t have an 'international standard' we have 'a standard produced by an international organisation' which has run out of what really needs to be standardised and has gone on a rampant mission creep.
The challenge is that many translators and agencies are either unaware of this standard or choose not to implement it. Instead, they rely on their own internal procedures or local regulatory requirements.
Fancy that! Businesses paying attention to local regulatory requirements IOW their non-optional legal obligations instead of some purely optional 'recommended cookbook' that has no legal authority whatsoever! Why on earth would they do that?
No doubts that it is a challenge for self-appointed experts in how you should organise your business! I’m puzzled how the 100+ staff translation services of various EU and UN agencies managed to function before the ISO saviours explained them how it’s done in 2015!
Another fly buzzing around, spoiling the ointment:
this ISO 17100:2015 standard is in fact ***NOT APPLICABLE*** to what is predominantly (if not almost exclusively) on offer from translation agencies! Did you miss this bit:
'The use of raw output from machine translation plus post-editing is outside the scope of ISO 17100:2015.
ISO 17100:2015 does not apply to interpreting services.'
https://www.iso.org/standard/89761.html#:~:text=The%20use%20of,to%20interpreting%20services.
Translated in plain-speak: if agencies get their way and reduce everything to PEMT this SO 17100:2015 will be headed the way of the dodo bird!
The more relevant ISO is this one:
ISO 18587:2017
Translation services — Post-editing of machine translation output — Requirements
https://www.iso.org/standard/62970.html#:~:text=62970-,ISO%2018587:2017,Translation%20services%20—%20Post-editing%20of%20machine%20translation%20output%20—%20Requirements,-Published%20(Edition%201
But strangely enough I have yet to hear from an agency proudly boasting about being ISO 18587:2017 approved! All I’ve heard so far from agency owners is about the fading into irrelevance ISO 17100:2015. Feel free to correct me if you have examples to the contrary.
Never mind that many agencies may themselves soon also join the dodo bird, as final clients are fast wising up they don't need any intermediary to get uncritically trusted and barely checked 'AI translations' – for that DIY will work just as fine.
Final point: standards - even perfect ones - are nothing to be 'united under' – translators may unite in some kind of guild / professional association / union which is an entirely different beast from 'a standard'! And as discussed at length in passing years, that worldwide union is unfeasible.
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