Linguo - Making Freelance Translation in a Trustless Environment a Reality

After the success of Kleros Escrow in securing freelancing transactions, the Kleros team announces the coming of Linguo, a fully decentralized and trustless translation application.

Translation is a special sub type of freelancing, where the customer receives a service, but cannot easily verify its quality. Since the customer lacks knowledge of the language, how can she or he verify that the translation was done properly?

Up to now, the hard-to-verify nature of this type of work was solved by hiring trusted translators. Knowing someone who has significant knowledge of the target language or a professional in the field meant that you would use their services. Otherwise, the customer would have to turn to a certified translator, which is a more expensive option.

Then again, the customer still needs to trust the certifying authority (be it a government or a company) and assume that the certified translator did an efficient job in order to protect their reputation and livelihood.

But, is there a better and trustless way to handle translation work?

Enter Linguo, a Trustless Translation Dapp

To fully overcome any obstacle in having a perfect translation, we are developing Linguo, a trustless app for customers to hire translators. Linguo relies on the working logic of the Kleros Escrow, which guarantees the security of all transactions between two parties that do not trust each other.

Alice decides that she wants a book chapter translated from English to French. She opens Linguo and specifies the translation level as at least C1. She also specifies translation deadline, and a minimum of 1.03 ETH and maximum of 5.16 ETH she is willing to pay.

Alice needs to submit the request by escrowing the maximum payment amount and wait for a translator to take the job. The task first goes live with a promised 1.03 ETH fee. While she waits, the price linearly increases as the deadline draws near, to a maximum of 5.16 ETH.

Bob is an experienced translator between English and French. He spends some time every day looking for translation work on Linguo. He just noticed a 2 ETH promised payment for Alice's task. He escrows a stake as collateral and picks up the translation.

After Bob finishes his translation, he submits it for a review. All translations are open for review for a time and anyone who notices mistakes can challenge the translation and get rewarded the translator's stake.

Since Bob did an excellent job, no one challenges his work and he is rewarded with a payment of 2 ETH. Alice gets the rest of her funds (5.16 ETH - 2 ETH = 3.16 ETH) back.

But let's imagine that Bob did not manage to do a good translation. Eve, another regular use of Linguo, notices mistakes in his work and believes it doesn't meet the requirements. She challenges the translation by escrowing a stake as collateral and the dispute goes to Kleros. Depending on who Kleros says is right, either Eve gets Bob's stake and Alice gets refunded or Bob gets Eve's stake and gets his regular payment from Alice.

In a case where the translation is not submitted in time, Alice receives Bob's stake as payment for time lost.

The basic idea behind the Linguo project is simple, as it is genius - crowdsource wisdom to help create a more efficient and seamless process of communication across borders and continents. Everything done in a trustless environment, where the written word gets the respect and attention that it needs.

Linguo is currently in development and is set to come out during 2020, so stay tuned for the next generation of freelance translation!

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