I just saw a machine-translated text that was given to a translator I know for "post-editing". Basically you have to delete everything that the machine translated and do it all over again.
If you want to offer that for 1 cent per word you are going to get exactly what you are paying for. 90% of qualified translators are bad enough that I would never let them translate anything for me. I cannot imagine the remaining 10% will work for 1 ct/word.
I don't really care about Karma on this site (mine or other people's). If I did I certainly would have checked this comment earlier ;)
If people post for Karma instead of for content, IMHO it is their problem. It won't make the site much better, but it won't make it much worse, either.
I would never work with anyone who even proposes such terms. Not because I don't want to pay on time (we always do) but because those terms are unprofessional, to put it mildly. If you want to be treated like a pro, act like one.
Update: Having looked at your resumé, I probably wouldn't work with you anyway.
True. And I think the way Groupon handles this is unjustifiable. I still think that you should be able to work "out of pockets" for at least 3 months. If you can't do that, why start a business? Seems very risky...
I think he wasn't very good. He was obviously underprepared, or he would have had a couple of nicely phrased questions in his head. For a media professional, he was just too inarticulate.