Der neugierige getDigital Kunde hat sicherlich schon die Buttons zum Umschalten der Sprache auf der Website entdeckt. Neben Leet-Speak, Hexcodes und Binären Zahlen gibt es aber auch die Möglichkeit Produktinfos auf Englisch abzurufen. Die Texte übersetzen wir selbst ins Englische, aber weil einem als Nicht-Muttersprachler doch öfter mal Fehler unterlaufen, lassen wir diese nochmal korrigieren. Dies wird durch einen Online-Service übernommen, der in der ganzen Welt Mitarbeiter beschäftigt, die dann ganz anonym von zuhause aus arbeiten (herrlich!).
Im Laufe der Jahre haben wir einen editor gefunden, der ganz besonders ist, denn er teilt unsere Begeisterung für Gadgets, Technik und ist vor allem großer Pac-Man-Fan ;). Wir sind ihm jetzt schon lange treu und obwohl er gar nicht fest bei uns angestellt ist, wir ihn noch nie gesehen haben und sein richtiger Name ein großes Geheimnis ist, gehört er doch irgendwie zum Team. Er korrigiert nämlich nicht nur einfach Fehler, sondern fügt eigene Ideen und Witze hinzu. Theoretisch müsste er das gar nicht, aber es macht ihm selbst soviel Spaß, dass er es auch nicht sein lassen kann.. ;).
Damit auch ihr die Chance habt, den Nerdinator (waschechter Brite übrigens) mal kennenzulernen, haben wir mit ihm ein Interview geführt. Warum er so heißt, welche Qualifikationen er im Bereich Gaming vorzuweisen hat und ob er überhaupt echt oder doch nur ein vom Google Translator gezüchteter Cyborg ist, erfahrt ihr hinter dem Cut.
We call you the ‘Nerdinator’. What’s the story with that?
Well right there shows how you guys and I blend. You decided to call me ‘nerditor’ as a combination of ‘nerd’ and ‘editor’, LOL. I thought that was good. But, being the geek I am, I decided I should sound cooler, so I revised it to ‘nerdinator’ – sort of a combination of nerd + editor + terminator = nerdinator.
Come with me if you want to write…
Do you remember the first text you did for us? What were your first thoughts on this?
Crikey! With MY memory…? Next…
Seriously, I had to look it up: the first thing I ever edited for you guys was way back in July 2010, and it was a simple text for the ‘Any Key’ thing you can put onto your keyboard. You know, “Press any key to continue”. I thought the joke was silly but fun in a ‘here’s a little present for your birthday’ that makes your friends smile :)).
I wasn’t the only editor working for you guys back then, as I think you’d only recently hooked up with Scribendi. Other editors were taking on product texts too. But as you began to give us more texts, I would quickly grab them for myself as I knew the product would always make me smile :)). I have a marketing background, before I got into editing and copywriting, so after I’d begun to get a good feel for your site, the kind of guys you are, the kinds of products, and the kinds of customers (basically that we’re all geeks together!), I began taking a few more liberties with the texts, inserting some more humour (yeah, a lot of the silly stuff you read in the product texts you can blame me for!). I guess you guys liked what I was doing, because when April Fool’s Day rolled around in 2011, I was asked to revise a spoof product text. And that’s the text I always remember from the ‘early’ days! You guys called it ‘EXbox’ and it was SUPPOSED to be something you plugged into your PC and it would stop you using terms like ‘LOL’ and ‘WTF’ and ‘IMO’ as they were being newly ‘copyrighted’ by the EU!! You could almost believe it from the EU!
From then on, I’ve been working on all your new product texts. Haven’t I…? You’re not cheating on me with anyone else are you…?!
Now, how old are you? Or in terms of games, what was the first game you played?
Argh! Don’t make me answer this!! Well, OK… Let’s just say I can remember when Space Invaders came out back in 1978-79. I didn’t really get into that, but then I discovered Pac-Man. OMG! That little guy sucked me dry… er, can I say that? I mean coin after coin from my pocket! By the mid-80s, I was real good at it. I was actually Pac-Man champion at my university, holding the title for a couple of years (well, OK, not that there was ever an actual ‘championship’). Then one day, they hauled the machine out of the student bar… And… And I don’t wanna talk about it, OK? Sob, sob :((.
You’re actually a real person, right? I can imagine you being a scientific experiment… like a computer with a human head… or just a programme on the Scribendi website! :O EXPLAIN!! (Or I will exterminate you!)
All of the above! An actual person, although I am donating myself to science when my game is over. And – no joke – I do actually have a Dalek outfit! So if there’s any exterminating to be done, you guys had better do as I say.
Can I tell you a quick story about that? I found the Dalek outfit on the Amazon.co.uk website (you guys weren’t stocking it, alas), and I put it on my ‘wish list’ for Christmas 2011… as a joke – you know, to get my wife and my family thinking WTF???!!!! Only, they surreptitiously turned the tables on me and actually bought it! So, Christmas Day, I unwrap this large present and… OMG, it’s that fracking Dalek outfit! Now, this is a one-note joke, but as they say on Gallifrey ‘in for a penny in for a Pond’, so I put it on. Cue loud laughter and clicking pictures and videos on mobile phones… Right, I thought, I’ll show you guys. So I waddled off to and out the front door – Christmas Morning, don’t forget – and waddled next door in the outfit, amid hoots of laughter from my family “OMG, he’s actually going next door!” I ring the doorbell of the neighbours, who I don’t actually know, as this my sister’s house, and wait… The door is opened by a 12-year-old girl. “H-a-pp-y Chr-iiiiist-maaaas” I say in my best Dalek voice. “Er… Dad…? There’s some– er, something at the door…” is her stunned reply. Her dad comes over, “Er…. Can I help you?” “Yes, you will be exteeeeeeerrminated,” I warble through hoots of laughter behind me. “Fair enough,” he replies, “can we wait till after Christmas dinner? Only I’m a bit hungry.” Cue bursts of laughter and giggles. But here’s the real punchline: Turns out my sis had fancied this girl’s dad for a while, and it took a Dalek to break the ice; and they’ve been together over a year – my sis and the guy, I mean… The Dalek is out of the picture!
What have you done pre-editing on Scribendi that made you so excellent at correcting and revising texts?
Well, after a short stint in sales, I got into marketing – went back to school part-time and worked for a small marketing services agency in London. I handled client accounts, and more & more often found myself checking texts on brochures, ads and things, and often rewriting parts of texts. I found I was better at it than most of the copywriters we paid. Which is where I got into copywriting and editing.
I’ve been working for Scribendi for a few years now. What’s great is we work for clients all over the planet (and few others, but I’m sworn to secrecy about that), on all kinds of texts, like novels, scripts, articles, dissertations, reports, resumes, letters, essays, and still my favourite – product texts! So the variety and number of texts I get to edit has helped me almost to the point that I know what I’m doing (sometimes).
What kind of texts do you usually correct?
All kinds, really. I love marketing-oriented texts, of course, and I love helping writers with their creative writing. I’ve worked on novels, short stories, and radio, TV, and movie scripts (though I don’t think any of the scripts have been picked up yet).
What were your favourite products so far?
That’s a hard one, there have been so many! I’ll never forget the ALIEN facehugger plush. You guys used a picture of it with people sitting on a plane with the facehuggers on. LOL or what!! Text-wise, I’ll go for the Star Trek and Star Wars products. It’s just a lot of fun finding and inserting quotes, especially when I can change them around a bit to fit the product :)).
The funniest error we did in a translation?
Well, sorry for saying this, but you did once say ALLEN instead of ALIEN. I kind of wondered what the heck an Allen facehugger was for a minute, until I realized. I thought it was some toy that hugs and kisses: ‘Allen the Facehugger’. In a sense tho, I guess that’s correct!
But otherwise, you guys are really good getting from German to English. And way better than my English to German could ever be!
Sometimes a product leaves me speechless. So I guess, it’s the same with you. Where do you get your inspiration?
Oh, the inspiration always comes either from the product or from something you write about the product. The key thing is to make sure the readers understand what the product is and does. But I’ve always loved how getDigital is so much about the FUN of the product, however useful or silly it is! And that’s why I love working with you guys. Adding the fun into the FUNky products. Like the Enterprise pizza cutter. I mean WTF?! But there’s just so much opportunity for fun: ‘There’s pizza on the starboard bow, Captain!’ ‘It’s worse than that, it’s burnt Jim!’ ‘Ya cannae change the laws of pizza!’ ‘Scotty, slice me up!’ And then when you have a Star Wars product, it’s hard to stop myself from writing everything in Yoda-speak! Mmm… So much fun that is; always do it I wish I could. “The future… Unclear it is. Always in motion…” (thank goodness some editor didn’t’ get their hands on that line!)
If you could be a gadget, what would you be?
Hmm… Very Freudian, I’m sure! Well, lemme think a moment… OK, can I say ‘Galaxy Ace’? Because that sounds like the name of a space hero from those old 1930s Saturday morning black & white movie flicks; you know, like ‘Buck Rogers’ and ‘Flash Gordon’! Galaxy Ace in ‘Terror of the Product Texts’. Yeah, cool!That’s me :)).
Something from the store…? Maybe the facehugger… I like a bit of close face time! Perhaps the Yoda bobblehead – people say look a bit like him I do.
Your Top 5 of games?
Games: 1) Pac-Man, 2) Pac-Man, 3) Pac-Man, 4) Pac-Man, 5) Pac-Man. What… there are other games…? When did that happen?
What three things would you take to an isolated island?
Three…? THREE…?! You gotta be kidding! OK… er… My wife… Oh, she’s not a thing, right? (She’s not, is she?) Gotta have my Samsung netBook – he’s my best buddy! Besides, through him I can cheat and get music, video, communication, work (and Pac-Man!). Last but not least, a TARDIS so I can get off the island when I want :)).
If you had to become part of (or better, to really live in) a game/movie/series/book, what would you choose?! And… why!? ;)
That’s easy. I’ll be Luke Skywalker. Well, maybe Luke Earthwalker as that sounds a little less dangerous and I’ve got this height issue. Anyway, once I’ve kicked my dad’s ass and chucked the old emperor down a convenient large, bottomless chute, then I’ll be the baddest ass in the galaxy. Or the goodest… whatever. Then I can use my Jedi mind tricks in the café, like I need 2 free doughnuts with that coffee. ‘You need 2 free doughnuts with that coffee.’
As a Brit, you should choose Doctor Who over anything. But what about Doctor Who vs Star Trek?
How come these questions get harder?! Can’t I just have both? I remember Doctor Who from the 60s when I was just a ‘small edit on the page of life’. I always loved the monsters – Daleks, Yeti, Cybermen. Frighteningly cool! Then in 1969, Star Trek came to the UK, and I was like wow! COLOUR! Yeah, baby, this Kirk guy rocks and kicks ass! I always wanted a real phaser so I could go around and stun anyone who did bad things, like parents making me eat my vegetables or teachers making me do my homework.
Today, I love the new Doctor Who (and the current doctor is the best ever for me!), and still love me a bit of Trek a couple of times a week.
Working with us is so great, isn’t it? It must be or you wouldn’t have given us so much excellent feedback. So, what’s the best thing about working with getDigital?
All the free products you’re gonna send me… right? You ARE gonna send me crate-loads of stuff, aren’t you…? Hey…! HEY!!! Hello…?
Yeah, er… thanks Mr. Nerdinator (aka ‘Ace Galaxy’! Get real!!) we have to stop now.. (Free products – what the heck is he thinking!? *mumbles*).
Hailing frequencies closed.
Kristin