Four pages ... how much is that?

Image via Wikipedia

Again and again I get job offers through a number of translator sites like Proz.com etc., like this morning, where the offer sounds like this:

"We are looking for some one to translate around 4 pages from Japanese to English. Please let us know let us know the cost and turn around time of the translation."

However - and I DO NOT think I need to mention this to ANYONE actually "working" in the field -

"translate around 4 pages from Japanese to English"

can mean a lot of things: from hand written pages with only a few characters per page to fine print patent specifications, where "4 pages" would be 15 pages of translation. Naturally, both costs and turn-around time will be different.

So, what would I supposed to offer this outsourcer?
I have seen similar job offers over the past 15 years (since working via the web has become fashionable) countless times and am really wondering, if the outsourcers placing these job offers are incapable of understanding the significance of being SPECIFIC in their offer, when they want a SPECIFIC (cost, time) answer.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties
than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to
control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by
deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks
will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up
homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Thomas Jefferson, 1802

Related articles

• CAT tools - are they really helpful??? (nyuwa.wordpress.com)
• Beware this scammer (translationmusings.com)
• Beware the Blue Board (translationmusings.com)