Translation blogging in German

Hang out at the Watercooler
The migration of translators to the Watercooler continues to proceed at an impressive pace, and the newcomers are full of suggestions for how to make the environment better. It's nice to see that suggestions are well received, too, even if technical implementation may not always be possible. There are some limits to what one can expect from a working translator who set up that fine, free site as a better place for networking, not a clearing house for jobs and projects or a source of Google AdSense revenue.

One interesting feature of the site is its internal blogging for each member. The Watercooler is a "closed" site, which means access is restricted to approved members and there is no access to search engines. Discussions on the site stay on the site generally, so unlike PrADs forums, where one's posts and comments are visible to the entire online world (including prospective customers), one can get down to some more serious business discussions if inclined to do so. Members who want to restrict a particular blog post or comments permission to a more limited circle ca use the "friends" feature. Very nice.

As part of finding my way in that rapidly evolving environment (which has doubled in size since December), I have begun blogging in German. The German group members are mostly familiar with my appalling written German from the ProZ forums, so I'm unlikely to shock anyone with mangled prepositions. And there I don't have to deal with any flaky moderators who seem to think that offering to work for less all the time is a strategy with a future. The atmosphere is thankfully free of the barrel bottom scraping nonsense I've found elsewhere lately. It's nice writing for a more limited group with a lot of the colleagues I've come to know and respect over the past decade. Maybe I'll repost the occasional German piece here from time to time, especially choice essays for Mr. Hinterberger :-)