Partners Sites in Foreign Language

dotSilver Network Partner Support Forum / Partnership Discussions / Partners Sites in Foreign Language

Author	Message
Rui Member	Posted: 4 Nov 2005 18:59:00 I am a fairly new partner, I manage a DotSilver site in Portuguese language and would like to offer some comments based on my experience so far. It would be nice if potential customers who sign up at partners sites in foreign language be afforded the chance of having their profiles translated into English before they are turned down by DotSilver administrators. In my case, I don't mind translating these profiles for free because I'm not generating traffic to the point that it would become an inconvenience. On the other hand if I didn't have the spare time to do it, I suppose I could charge a small fee for the service. And yes, I have posted a warning on my site indicating this option to potential registrants. However, there seems to be no reporting system for dotsilver partners that clarifies the reasons why a potential customer's profile has been turned down, so there could be more than just this problem... In my case, I deal with Western Europeans and I think the registration fees at DotSilver are reasonable and not outside of their reach. I think that everyone that registers on a partner's site needs to be reported in the partner's account, whether or not the profile was approved. And if it was disapproved, specify the reasons. How else can a partner monitor behavior and improve on his/her site, or develop more effective marketing strategies? But back to the standard of profiles in English.. Since user administration is beyond the partner's reach, I believe that a potential customer who submits a registration in foreign language, from a site in foreign language, and then is turned down for not submitting a profile in English, in a message written in English... goes away feeling that the site where he/she registered is a bait and switch scam. I also think that it is highly discriminating for overseas users not to be able to post profiles in their own language, since many foreign nationals prefer to date/marry within their ethnic, national, cultural, religious, or racial groups and may only be looking for like minded individuals outside of their immediate community. We need to give people what they need, or they won't buy it. Sites like FriendFinder, for example, allow registration and posts in foreign language. Granted that they are structured differently; there is a FriendFinder for nearly every major ethnic or national group out there. DotSilver on the other hand (not a personal attack or anything..) seems to be promoting ethnocentrism, if not global pluralism... That's how I see it from my angle. We are not being tolerant enough of these potential members. Although I will continue to compensate for this questionable standard, I vote for profiles in foreign language and for the ability of responsible partners with foreign language skills to monitor the quality of these profiles to ensure that they meet a given DotSilver criteria.
.silver Admin	Posted: 5 Nov 2005 06:46:48 Hi Rui. We agree with you about the clarification of the reasons a potential customer was suspended for. You will see the reasons of suspention of the profiles at monday. Regarding the international languages. At this point we cannot accept it because we cannot be responsible for their identity. Only our employees can verify them. We cannot accept it until we have native speakers. The member can use any language while talking to another one. We want only the profile was in English and nothing else, that we can see that the profile is genuine. We have our own methods of verifying the profiles. And we can immediately react and suspend the profile. Thanks.
.silver Admin	Posted: 5 Nov 2005 07:38:38 In fact, holding members with profiles in other languages is possible. It's subject to decide if they are going to be in the same database or in separate ones. But as said, we need native speakers to approve those profiles, first of all. This can be our employees because approving profiles needs to be performed to meet our developed standards (long list of instructions actually) and dealing with company trade-secret and members private non-disclosable information. This makes it impossible to allow non-English profiles at this time in our eyes. Thank you and feel free to discuss.
Rui Member	Posted: 5 Nov 2005 17:04:25 If the reasons why customers are suspended are clarified, then it might be possible to ameliorate the language barrier by improving on the website. Aside from these concerns, I have only good comments to make about the DotSilver program. From a webmaster's stand point I appreciate the amount of creativity that I am afforded. I conclude from your replies that future improvements to the program will be more tolerant of the needs of non-English speakers. Thank you for addressing my comments.
.silver Admin	Posted: 6 Nov 2005 21:55:58 We are looking forward to our further cooperation.
Rui Member	Posted: 12 Nov 2005 06:12:05 I need to reopen this issue because, unfortunately, things are not yet clear for me. Concerning the reasons why profiles are not approved, one of the admin stated above: "We agree with you about the clarification of the reasons a potential customer was suspended for. You will see the reasons of suspention of the profiles at monday. " That was posted on Nov 5, Monday came and passed and today (12th) there is still nothing posted in my partner report. One of four signups I'm wandering about dates back to about 30 days. Additionally I noticed that "some" messages sent to me from members get removed from my the mailbox in my silver account, while others don't get removed. While I understand that this is an account for test purposes and that if I am not a paying member it might be improper to contact the members through the dating system, I still feel that my privacy is being invaded. Also... I'm really curious to know why some messages get removed and others don't? What is the rationale there? I happened to have read the messages and there was nothing offensive in the content. Perhaps there is some documentation on the use of silver accounts for partners that I missed reading... please advise. Anyway, more important is still the first question. Please let me know how I can keep track of what's going on because the way things are doesn't make me happy. Until I understand how the system works I'm not spending any money on advertisment and promotion of the sites, and if it takes too long to understand I might as well cancel.
.silver Admin	Posted: 13 Nov 2005 23:23:13 Hi Rui. 1. We have added the reason of member suspention for partners long time ago. Go to parner's home, open suspended user's profile and there you will see the reason of suspention under the photos, if they were uploaded. 2. Regarding the messages removing. Maybe that were the scammers profiles, in that case all their messages are deleting with the deleting of the profiles, in order to not let them to send scam and spam. If you think, that were not scammers, and something is wrong, just write the nick names of these profiles, and we will investigate what was the reason of the deleting.