Telegram Translator shows how machine + people blockchain-powered TMN-incentivised translation solution could look like.
(the image was created by me by combining TranslateMe logo (by TranslateMe owners' permission) with flags from Pixabay (thanks to GDJ))
Let’s start with the bonuses.
The 1st one comes from TranslateMe. TranslateMe is about to launch a competition where the user/s with the top correction contributions and the best voting results will be rewarded with 1 BTC. There’re some requirements to be qualified for the competition. It’s not everything clear yet (like whether it’s just 1 user who is going to be rewarded with 1 BTC or it’s the top contributors for each language who are going to get part of the 1 BTC). I’ll present details in one of the next posts.
(source)
Earn TMN and help us build better Russian machine-translated solutions. You could even win one entire Bitcoin! Details coming soon.
(source)
Note that the competition is not just for Russian speakers. There’re the same pics for other languages.
As for the 2nd bonus (1000 TMN bonus), you’ll find 2 questions somewhere in this post (without question words or “?”, so that it won’t be easy for you to find them with “Ctrl+F”). The first user/s with the right answer (left in the comments section) will be rewarded with 500 TMN for each one (will ask the winner/s to provide Neo-address).
Intro
It’s been a while since I published my last post about TranslateMe version of Telegram (web-version at that time) and TranslateMe in general. TranslateMe made a great progress since that time in spite of the current economic/health crisis. In this post I’ll present you some information about these topics again (Android version of TranslateMe Telegram Translator this time).
It’s important to understand that TranslateMe Translator Unofficial Telegram is just an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)/prototype to demonstrate how decentralized TMN-powered translation done by machines + people could look like.
In other words, TranslateMe is in the proof of concept stage.
And the concept is to combine AI with human power (incentivised with TMN for their contributions (corrections and voting for the best translation results)) accompanied by the benefits provided by Neo blockchain like security, privacy, and transparency.
You can find more information about TranslateMe benefits on their official web-site.
TranslateMe has already released several versions of its API for French and German (+ web-interfaces to test them).
“German is now live on our test UI. We have also made a free API for developers to test our service.”
(source)
And this API could be ultimately used by Discord, VK, Hive, Twitter or any other social platform, chat application or web-site.
TranslateMe is not just about translation solutions for social platforms. For example, TranslateMe Menu is to help hotels and restaurants with translation of their menus. There’re also TranslateMe Docs and TranslateMe Freelancer. You can find more details on https://translateme.network/products/
Well, personally I have a hope that TranslateMe will also help to solve “lost” (due to language barrier) science problem.
But these are topics for the next posts.
In this post I’m going to focus on the recent improvements done with TranslateMe Telegram Translator.
Tutorial on how to use the app
So, basically this unofficial version of Telegram is the same as the official one but with translation feature enabled and an opportunity for your to earn TMN for your contributions. Currently (September, 2020) it is available for Android on Google Play (iOS version exists, but you need to contact TranslateMe admins on their Telegram group to get access to it).
Until recently users could be rewarded with TMN for their contributions (providing corrections, leaving messages with the app enabled) by using the app in any group/chat on Telegram. This helped TranslateMe to spread the word about the project and was used to test/tune the validation pipeline.
However, now TranslateMe has moved to the next phase and you can only be rewarded for corrections done on the “Suggest and Vote” page.
Thank you to all that have come to support our rewards algorithm, we are excited to report that the validation pipeline is now fully functional. This means the old legacy contribution method will now stop issuing tokens as we switch to the next phase of our proof of concept.
(source)
So, we can still see the option ("Rate and Earn TMN" button) for us to provide corrections and vote for them in the groups, but it’s obsolete now. I guess it will be removed soon in one of the next updates.
(the screenshot was taken by me)
Once you got the app installed on your smartphone, you can register with your phone number and give the app some permissions required. Then you’ll be presented with tutorial on how to use this version of Telegram.
To enable translation feature for Telegram groups/chats, you just need to set incoming (“First Language” section; this is the one the app will translate the messages left by other people in groups/chats to) and outgoing (“Translate to” section; this is the one the app will translate the messages left by you in groups/chats to) languages (click a hamburger button (top right; (a))) and choose “Change language” in the menu (c))) and click the button located right before the aforementioned one (b)):
(the screenshot was taken by me)
You can set different languages in different groups.
Then just click “Translate” button to get the messages translated.
At the time of writing (September, 2020), the app provides us 28 language:
Turkish (TR), Urdu (UR), Uzbek (UZ), Vietnamese (VI), Thai (TH), Spanish (ES), Russian (RU), Romanian (RO), Portuguese (PT), Polish (PL), Persian (FA), Malay (MS), Korean (KO), Kannada (KN), Japanese (JA), Italian (IT), Indonesian (ID), Hindi (HI), Hebrew (IW), German (DE), French (FR), Filipino (FIL), English (EN), Dutch (NL), Chinese (ZH), Catalan (CA), Bengali (BN), Arabic (AR).
Note that there’re some quite rare language presented like Catalan and Hebrew (4 and 5 million of native speakers correspondingly).
This (rare languages) is where TranslateMe especially has good chances to beat traditional machine translation services, when it comes to translation quality (but I believe TranslateMe has good chances to beat them with widely spoken languages as well ;)). It’s because they lack the data for such languages (to see what I’m talking about, go to https://translateme.network/), and TranslateMe with its potential worldwide community incentivized with TMN will have a chance to collect data for any language (as long as the users have Internet access and are aware about TranslateMe (this is what its community could help with)). There’re currently 7,117 languages detected in the world.
However,
It is estimated that about 96 per cent of the languages are spoken by only 3 to 4 per cent of the people. 2,000 of the world’s languages have less than 1,000 native speakers.
(source)
Activities done by TranslateMe community will help to preserve our languages diversity which is extremely important (you can read in detail why in my post here (“ … ”)). language TranslateMe has built its API for/the language TranslateMe was primary working with (one word). In short, according to linguistic relativity theory, the languages we speak shape the way we think. Hence, every time we lose a language, we lose a potential way of thinking/world view/cognition type. And
We're losing about one language a week, and by some estimates, half of the world's languages will be gone in the next hundred years.
(Lera Boroditsky)
Plus, thinking in different languages on scientific topics could help to make more discoveries (because thinking in different languages helps to look at our problems from different perspectives) (for more information, you can read "StemGeeks contest: #2 TranslateMe (or Decentralization meets Translation industry). Part 2. The “missing puzzle piece” of scientific ecosystem. General overview”).
Back to the app.
Then you can specify your Neo-address (this is where TMN for your contributions will come to) by clicking another hamburger button (top left) -> “Earn TMN” tab - > “Suggest and Vote” page. Then just click on the field to specify the address.
(the screenshot was taken by me)
You can use Neon wallet of others (https://neo.org/wallets) to create your Neo-addresses.
That’s it. You’re all set to go to use, earn, and enjoy with TranslateMe Telegram version.
Note that initially you are given a “Free Subscription Plan” with 100,000 characters available for translation. kind/type of token TMN is (one word). To unlock advanced features like “Automatic translation” and “Remove Ads”, you can upgrade your plan to Pro (-> “Earn TMN” tab - > “Subscription Plan” page):
(the screenshot was taken by me)
As far as I understand, you can also just buy additional characters (even with TMN). You can see the characters left in the “Remaining…” tab of the main menu.
How to earn TMN
a) Making corrections
On the “Suggest and Vote” page (click “Earn TMN” tab) you’ll be presented with a menu with “Referral Code”, “Suggest Translations”, “Vote Translations” and “Languages” options. Well, I guess the names are pretty intuitive and speak for themselves. Just choose “Suggest Translations” option and you’ll get to the “Suggestion” page with the source and target messages (translation version created by machine), click in the “Suggest a better translation” field and provide your own (improved) version of translation (by retyping the entire sentence in your first language).
(the screenshot was taken by me)
You can use machine-generated version as a basis, but provide corrections only if you can improve it (and it’s enough to know just 1 language to do this (you don’t need to be a highly-skilled translator)). There’re some rules for making corrections:
- submit corrections only in your first/native language and if you can improve a sentence (don’t copy/paste);
- your suggestions should be a sentence (there needs to be at least 5 words);
- don't repeat your suggestions, each suggestion needs to be NEW and UNIQUE;
Otherwise, your TMN claim will be rejected (and future claims will most likely be rejected as well). Graphical guideline can be found here and here.
(sources: 1, 2, 3)
Once done with your version of translation, click “Submit Suggestion” button, and you’ll see TMN credited to you (currently 10 TMN) on the “TMN Credits” tab (main menu) and page.
(the screenshot was taken by me)
We need to get 1000 TMN to be able to redeem them (”Redeem TMN” button).
We’re limited to make up to 10 corrections per day (but we can increase our limits by submitting the best suggestions).
More info can be found here.
TranslateMe is the work in progress, not everything is perfect yet.
For example, if we provide corrections on the “Suggestion” page and close it, then we need to skip suggestions by clicking “Skip Suggestions” button to get to the one where we stopped the last time. It’d be great for users to start from the suggestion they provided previously (or the next one) and see what sentences they have already provide suggestions for. I suppose TranslateMe will fix this in the web-based contribution portal.
Plus, it’s known that the context (one sentence before and one after the sentence we need to translate, which is important for making high-quality translation) will be displayed on the web-based portal.
b) Voting
As for voting, users with the winning suggestions are going to be rewarded with TMN (it’s not clear how much yet). However, note that there’s no suggestions available for voting for some languages yet. It’s because there’re still quite few users in TranslateMe groups for a number of languages
Voting for a language will show up once enough suggestions are reached for a Particular sentence. For each language we need a minimum of around 50 participants to make sure the pipeline moves to new sentences and then opens new votes.
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(the screenshot was taken by me)
By the way, you can find and join the group for your language here - https://t.me/TranslateMeNetwork/142474
To contribute and earn TMN please join the language that's applicable to you, do not join this group unless it's your primary home language.
(source)
And if you don’t see the group for your language, you could ask TranslateMe admins to create one.
Voting also will help to increase you reputation score.
" This increases your reputation score by voting. Higher reputation means higher payments and opportunities"
(source)
The portion of TMN paid to contributors for voting and providing corrections is not fixed and will most likely be adjusted by the amount paid by customers (source).
c) Referrals
Plus, you can also earn 100 TMN for your referrals (friends will also earn 100 TMN) (you can get your “Referral Code” on “Suggest and Vote” page):
(the screenshot was taken by me)
To get TMN for your referrals, they must be active and use the translation tool.
Only one account is allowed to claim TMN (1000 TMN minimum), otherwise, you will be banned "TMN credits” page".
By my estimates, we can currently earn $4-7 per month, if contribute daily (depends on TMN price, number of your referrals, voting feature availability for your language).
Final thoughts
TranslateMe has moved to the next phase (moving all the tested work (now, when the validation pipeline is ready) from telegram to a web-based contribution portal).
TranslateMe Telegram Translator is the only solution (well, known to me) which provides monetary incentive to the users for their translation contributions. This is what (along with other benefits provided by Neo) should help TranslateMe to ensure high-quality translations. TranslateMe Telegram Translator is just a demo which demonstrates how machine + people blockchain-powered TMN-incentivised translation solution could look like.
In the next posts you’ll find information about translation quality control, the upcoming competition for contributors, and other TranslateMe solutions.
Video-version
In case it's not shown on some tribes:
"3speak.online/watch?v=alexbiojs/xhqwhymo"
Created by me with the help of "AZ Screen Recorder" and "Movavi Video Editor"
Music:
"Perception", by Bensound.com
"License:
You can use this music in your YouTube video as long as you credit us"
source (above)
Useful links:
Official web-site: https://translateme.network/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/translatemenet
Telegram group: https://t.me/joinchat/IH2fQBE5n5baIK2glyAAXQ
TranslateMe Telegram Translator app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.telegram.VicMacmessenger
Medium: https://medium.com/@translateme
Bitcointalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5046399.0
Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/TranslateMe
You can buy TMN on Probit and Switcheo:
https://www.probit.com/app/exchange/TMN-BTC
https://switcheo.exchange/markets/TMN_NEO
All images (without the license specified)/videos are used under the doctrine known in USA as "Fair Use" (similar doctrines are used in other countries). For more information visit the US Gov website.
The image separator was created by me with the help of this set of flags from Pixabay. Thanks to sinisamaric1.
Other posts of this series:
TranslateMe (or Decentralization meets Translation industry).
Introduction.