[erlang-questions] translating random (?) erlang.org pages...is this a scam?

[Ulf Wiger]

Could it be Duolingo, as described in this <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/luis_von_ahn_massive_scale_online_collaboration.html">TED talk</a>?

http://duolingo.com/

BR,
Ulf W

On 17 Sep 2012, at 14:50, Matthias Lang wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I got the mail below. Its style is faintly spammy. On the face of it,
> some student wants to translate part of the Erlang FAQ into
> Serbo-Croatian. No reason for me to say no (I wrote most of the FAQ),
> they seem to give proper attribution to the source.
> 
> But...this makes no sense. Why is a computer science student translating
> seemingly random stuff? Some increasingly odd examples:
> 
>   http://science dot webhostinggeeks dot com/anglogold-ashanti
>   http://science dot webhostinggeeks dot com/aaron-ova-pc-podrska
>   http://science dot webhostinggeeks dot com/zasto-je-greengeeks-dobar-za-vas-po-trey-evim-
> 
> the last one is a (faithful?) translation of an ad for a web hosting
> company. Huh?
> 
> I feel like I'm looking at a scam. Can someone tell me how it works?
> 
> I've slightly mangled the URLs and mail addresses.
> 
> Matt
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 12:56:00 +0200
> From: Jovana Milutinovich <jovanam at webhostinggeeks.com>
> To: matthias@REDACTED
> Subject: Re: Permission to translate your article at http://www.erlang.org
> 
> Dear Sir,
> 
> 
> I have sent you my request for permission to translate your article a week
> ago and it was unclear whether your organization had time to take a look at
> it. It would be highly appreciative for my objects towards connecting ex
> Yugoslavian people with your article and information in it, if your website
> can take into consideration my proposal. I hope that you will find the time
> to review it.
> 
> 
> Yours sincerely,
> 
> Jovana Milutinovich
> 
> On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 2:31 PM, Jovana Milutinovich <
> jovanam at webhostinggeeks.com> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Dear Sir,
>> 
>> My name is Jovana. I found your article extremely interesting and would
>> like to spread the word for people from Ex Yugoslavia.
>> 
>> Here's the URL of your article: http://www.erlang.org/faq/**
>> introduction.html <http://www.erlang.org/faq/introduction.html>
>> 
>> Would you mind if I translate your article to Serbo-Croatian language and
>> post it on our site?
>> My purpose is to help people from Ex Yugoslavia better understand some
>> very useful information about computer science.
>> 
>> Some quick info about myself:
>> I was born in Yugoslavia, Europe. Former Yugoslavia consisted of now
>> totally independent states like Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia &
>> Hercezovina, Slovenia and Macedonia, which are all united by Serbo-Croatian
>> language.
>> I'm currently studying Computer Science at the University of
>> Belgrade,Serbia.
>> 
>> 
>> With Kind Regards,
>> 
>> Jovana Milutinovich
>> http://science dot webhostinggeeks dot com
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Ulf Wiger, Co-founder & Developer Advocate, Feuerlabs Inc.
http://feuerlabs.com