| Σελίδες για το θέμα: < [1 2 3] > | Politically correct answers Αποστολέας σε συζήτηση: blomguib (X)
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Robert Forstag 
Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες Αμερικής
Local time: 04:14
Ισπανικά σε Αγγλικά
+ ...
| Rules of decorum make sense and it is impractical to impose restrictions | Dec 13, 2009 |
As Sheila implies, if an "anything goes" approach were taken to behavior in the Kudoz forum, then it could--and likely would--quickly degenerate into a nasty hellhole. I think that this would be worse than dealing with abusive/unnecessary/contextless/just-plain-dumb questions, clueless answers, poor answer selection by the asker, and all of the other admittedly undesirable behavior that has been discussed here..
@Paul:
The site in general, and the Kudoz forum specifical... See more As Sheila implies, if an "anything goes" approach were taken to behavior in the Kudoz forum, then it could--and likely would--quickly degenerate into a nasty hellhole. I think that this would be worse than dealing with abusive/unnecessary/contextless/just-plain-dumb questions, clueless answers, poor answer selection by the asker, and all of the other admittedly undesirable behavior that has been discussed here..
@Paul:
The site in general, and the Kudoz forum specifically, is an open forum. For reasons you yourself have acknowledged, this is not going to change. I personally don't think it is desirable that it change. After all, everybody has to begin somewhere, and many of us, even with considerable experience and the best of intentions, are not in the happy position of working exclusively in fields where we already know everything there is to know, have a coterie of colleagues who can offer effective help on a moment's notice, or an Alexandria Library of resources covering every field where we might called upon to translate a page or paragraph. Who exactly would function as the monitors and judges as regards who is deemed to have crossed the line, or who must be drummed out of the core forthwith? Is it practical or desirable to set up such a system? I don't think so.
The system currently offers the following ways to deal with the kinds of problems discussed in this thread:
1. If an answer is stupid and senseless, then offer one that is smart and sensible. It is not usually the case that the entire body of contributors to a language pair is so benighted and incompetent that they won't recognize the difference and give feedback accordingly.
2. [In the case of "ridiculous answers"]: Give linguistically related feedback within the rules of the system. This is, after all, allowed.
3. [In the case of abusive asking patterns]: Ignore questions by askers who demonstrate abusive patterns. Ditto re those who display "poor citizenship" by closing questions, choosing responses that aren't correct, show insufficient appreciation, etc.
4. If even the sight of a posted question by someone you disapprove of is enough to ruin your day...then use the feature that allows you to block your being able to see postings by such offenders.
There is also nothing to stop anyone from finding other resources for help, creating closed forums where participation is restricted to those meeting specific criteria, etc.
One can only waste so much time and energy baying at the moon because this or that thing doesn't perfectly meet one's expectations. I can personally think of battles that are far more important than waging a frontal assault on "Dumb Answers and Questions and Rudeness on the Kudoz forum."
[Edited at 2009-12-13 03:41 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Rings round it | Dec 13, 2009 |
blomguib wrote:
nobody wants to do somebody else´s work....especially not if that somebody else is arrogant, demanding, and visibly (at least for those who DO understand what they are talking about) doesn´t have a clue what is going on....
I think you are asking for the impossible. This site operates on the basis of traffic: the bottem line is the highest number of askers plus the highest number of askers. It's quantity of Q and As, not quality.
| | | | Brian Young
Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες Αμερικής
Local time: 01:14
Δανέζικα σε Αγγλικά
| To answer or not to answer | Dec 13, 2009 |
I agree with Robert.
I think the KudoZ Forum has been abused. I was once set up to get the daily email of questions in my language pair, Danish-English. I finally had to disable it, and now rarely visit the Forum. Occasionally there would be a "sensible" question; a rare, archaic, or very esoteric word or phrase. But for the most part it seemed to be people who had only a very limited knowledge of the language who were asking questions that any competent translator would either know the an... See more I agree with Robert.
I think the KudoZ Forum has been abused. I was once set up to get the daily email of questions in my language pair, Danish-English. I finally had to disable it, and now rarely visit the Forum. Occasionally there would be a "sensible" question; a rare, archaic, or very esoteric word or phrase. But for the most part it seemed to be people who had only a very limited knowledge of the language who were asking questions that any competent translator would either know the answer to right off, or be able to quickly find on the internet. There are almost endless resources on the internet for that language pair, and I could not understand why so many people were asking such simple questions. Translation by proxy? I just don't bother with it anymore. It could have been an exciting part of this website. Either deal with it as it is, or turn it off.
Brian Young ▲ Collapse
| | | | David Wright
Αυστρία
Local time: 10:14
Γερμανικά σε Αγγλικά
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| Let's remain civilised | Dec 13, 2009 |
My experience (OK a bit limited so far) is that it is very easy to tell that someone is abusing the system (a series of rather obvious queries). Surely the answer is to ignore them. I think it is important that KudoZ does not degenerate into a slanging match, and personally I also know I have submitted a couple of wrong answers cos I didn't look at the text close enough and was glad that the replies were not nasty or patronising. Having said that, it is important that answers that are plainly wr... See more My experience (OK a bit limited so far) is that it is very easy to tell that someone is abusing the system (a series of rather obvious queries). Surely the answer is to ignore them. I think it is important that KudoZ does not degenerate into a slanging match, and personally I also know I have submitted a couple of wrong answers cos I didn't look at the text close enough and was glad that the replies were not nasty or patronising. Having said that, it is important that answers that are plainly wrong don't end up in the glossary, since that would become a mockery. Let's remain civilised! ▲ Collapse
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Geraldine Oudin (X)
Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο
Ιαπωνικά σε Γαλλικά
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David Wright wrote:
My experience (OK a bit limited so far) is that it is very easy to tell that someone is abusing the system (a series of rather obvious queries). Surely the answer is to ignore them.
I agree that we shouldn't let things degenerate, however for one person ignoring a "too obvious" question, there are always 4 or 5 ready to answer because they are just interested in the kudoz points...
I think that voting the question "non-pro" is a first step in showing the asker that his questions are too easy. Maybe someone could be prevented to post pro questions for a while after a certain number of his questions have been voted non-pro?
| | | | Dan_Brennan
Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο
Local time: 09:14
Ρωσικά σε Αγγλικά
+ ...
| points no longer mean prizes | Dec 13, 2009 |
Geraldine Oudin wrote:
David Wright wrote:
My experience (OK a bit limited so far) is that it is very easy to tell that someone is abusing the system (a series of rather obvious queries). Surely the answer is to ignore them.
I agree that we shouldn't let things degenerate, however for one person ignoring a "too obvious" question, there are always 4 or 5 ready to answer because they are just interested in the kudoz points...
I think that voting the question "non-pro" is a first step in showing the asker that his questions are too easy. Maybe someone could be prevented to post pro questions for a while after a certain number of his questions have been voted non-pro?
I no longer feel that there is professional kudos in KudoZ, given that the jury of ones peers is often more like a kangeroo court; and seeing as the value of KudoZ points as a proxy currency has been seriously diluted, I can't really understand this desperate chase to accumulate as many as possible these days.
| | | | blomguib (X)
Local time: 06:14
Αγγλικά σε Φλαμανδικά
+ ...
ΞΕΚΙΝΗΣΕ ΤΟ ΘΕΜΑ
Robert Forstag wrote:
One can only waste so much time and energy baying at the moon because this or that thing doesn't perfectly meet one's expectations. I can personally think of battles that are far more important than waging a frontal assault on "Dumb Answers and Questions and Rudeness on the Kudoz forum."
[Edited at 2009-12-13 03:41 GMT]
First of all; I am not waging a frontal assault. I am trying to keep a system alive that I have found useful and pleasant in the past. Secondly, I don´t bay at the moon because the moon doesn´t live up to my expectations. I don´t like being passive, that´s all....and I take my responsabilities....and the problem IS there, wether you like it or not....whole countries go to waste because a majority of people in it "don´t want to be caught baying at the moon" (which by the way I find a condescending expression)....
If I have to draw a conclusion up until now, I am sorry to say that based on the opinions of proz users who actually agree that there is a problem (and don´t really see an exit), as well as on the opniions of those who continue to stubornly puth their hand in front of their eyes and keep shouting that "the world is just fine as it is", I am more and more inclined to leave kudoz for what it is....I would love to be convinced of the contrary...but convinced with arguments not by saying that there are morE important battles to fight....
| | | | Laurent KRAULAND (X)
Γαλλία
Local time: 10:14
Γαλλικά σε Γερμανικά
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| OT: not only KudoZ | Dec 13, 2009 |
As blomguib puts it, there IS indeed a problem, which is limited to KudoZ for the moment. But, and from my point of view, the quality of ProZ.com fora is also at stake - right now! And I wonder where some "good" posters have gone those days (sorry, the explanation about workload comes a little bit short AFAIAC).
[Edited at 2009-12-13 13:24 GMT]
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Paul Cohen
Γροιλανδία
Local time: 07:14
Γερμανικά σε Αγγλικά
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| Out of sight out of mind? | Dec 13, 2009 |
Robert Forstag wrote:
If even the sight of a posted question by someone you disapprove of is enough to ruin your day...then use the feature that allows you to block your being able to see postings by such offenders.
I wasn’t aware that there was such a feature. As far as I know, it is only possible to flag users, meaning that if you receive email notifications, questions by those users will not be included. I don’t think it’s possible to literally blend out KudoZ offenders so that they are no longer visible on my screen. If this is possible, will somebody please give us a blow-by-blow description of how it is done? Offhand I can think of about three dozen people who I would like to ban from my sight on the site.
Dan Brennan wrote:
I no longer feel that there is professional kudos in KudoZ, given that the jury of ones peers is often more like a kangeroo court; and seeing as the value of KudoZ points as a proxy currency has been seriously diluted, I can't really understand this desperate chase to accumulate as many as possible these days.
Right, the points are next to meaningless these days, but is there a disclaimer to that effect on the directory? No. Have there been attempts to rescue this troubled currency by emphasizing each translator’s KudoZ acceptance rate instead of just the overall number of points? No. It’s quantity that counts here, so the more questions the merrier! The “desperate chase” continues.
Most outsourcers are completely in the dark about what goes on at the “kangaroo court” and, frankly, I don’t think they care about endless squabbles over terminology or all our rules or whether a translator has been a “good citizen” on the site and been honored with a gold star or a “P” next to his or her name. Our potential customers want to locate the best of the bunch. Period. Abandoning KudoZ to its fate is doing them a grave disservice, ergo the occasional calls on ProZ for a blacklist of appallingly bad translators, many of whom have oodles and oodles of KudoZ points.
| | | | | Trivialising the concerns won't make the prob go away | Dec 13, 2009 |
blomguib wrote:
Robert Forstag wrote:
One can only waste so much time and energy baying at the moon because this or that thing doesn't perfectly meet one's expectations. I can personally think of battles that are far more important than waging a frontal assault on "Dumb Answers and Questions and Rudeness on the Kudoz forum."
[Edited at 2009-12-13 03:41 GMT]
First of all; I am not waging a frontal assault. I am trying to keep a system alive that I have found useful and pleasant in the past. Secondly, I don´t bay at the moon because the moon doesn´t live up to my expectations. I don´t like being passive, that´s all....and I take my responsabilities....and the problem IS there, wether you like it or not....whole countries go to waste because a majority of people in it "don´t want to be caught baying at the moon" (which by the way I find a condescending expression)....
If I have to draw a conclusion up until now, I am sorry to say that based on the opinions of proz users who actually agree that there is a problem (and don´t really see an exit), as well as on the opniions of those who continue to stubornly puth their hand in front of their eyes and keep shouting that "the world is just fine as it is", I am more and more inclined to leave kudoz for what it is....I would love to be convinced of the contrary...but convinced with arguments not by saying that there are morE important battles to fight....
I agree with blomguib. Trivialising the concerns and shooting/belittling the messenger won't make the problem go away.
There are lots of pro translators who are very troubled by recent developments in Kudoz. When I first joined in 2002, I saw that translators were able to convey their concerns to Askers who asked series of questions, the answers to which could be found in any dictionary or with a few minutes of www research. Likewise people who continuously answered by shooting from the hip were also told off and ridiculous answers were simply ignored. People were firm but polite and only became annoyed with 'serial' abusers. Mods even joined in (they were part of the community back then) and all the rules applied (although they were not used as weapons) for both Askers and Answerers. In fact, it was normal to post a rule to remind an Asker or Answerer about Kudoz etiquette.
This system worked well and why it was changed to what it has become is something I'll never understand.
Now people are silent or silenced on Kudoz questions and the only outlet to vent frustrations is to open a forum thread. But there have been many, many threads and nothing changes. People mentioned private forums for questions, but what private terminology forums? On Proz? Afaik, they are only for people with teams or people who belong to the hidden site-within-the-site. Which means no remedy for the majority of Prozians.
| | | | Dan_Brennan
Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο
Local time: 09:14
Ρωσικά σε Αγγλικά
+ ...
Paul Cohen wrote:
Robert Forstag wrote:
If even the sight of a posted question by someone you disapprove of is enough to ruin your day...then use the feature that allows you to block your being able to see postings by such offenders.
I wasn’t aware that there was such a feature. As far as I know, it is only possible to flag users, meaning that if you receive email notifications, questions by those users will not be included. I don’t think it’s possible to literally blend out KudoZ offenders so that they are no longer visible on my screen. If this is possible, will somebody please give us a blow-by-blow description of how it is done? Offhand I can think of about three dozen people who I would like to ban from my sight on the site.
Dan Brennan wrote:
I no longer feel that there is professional kudos in KudoZ, given that the jury of ones peers is often more like a kangeroo court; and seeing as the value of KudoZ points as a proxy currency has been seriously diluted, I can't really understand this desperate chase to accumulate as many as possible these days.
Right, the points are next to meaningless these days, but is there a disclaimer to that effect on the directory? No. Have there been attempts to rescue this troubled currency by emphasizing each translator’s KudoZ acceptance rate instead of just the overall number of points? No. It’s quantity that counts here, so the more questions the merrier! The “desperate chase” continues.
Most outsourcers are completely in the dark about what goes on at the “kangaroo court” and, frankly, I don’t think they care about endless squabbles over terminology or all our rules or whether a translator has been a “good citizen” on the site and been honored with a gold star or a “P” next to his or her name. Our potential customers want to locate the best of the bunch. Period. Abandoning KudoZ to its fate is doing them a grave disservice, ergo the occasional calls on ProZ for a blacklist of appallingly bad translators, many of whom have oodles and oodles of KudoZ points.
Agree with every word of that Paul. But watch your back: if you start muttering about blackists again, you'll risk getting this thread moderated into oblivion
| | | | | ProZ.com has not blocked your ability to answer KudoZ | Dec 13, 2009 |
Zong Yang Yu wrote:
I am lucky no longer answering dumb questions as I have been banned from answering any question in Kudoz since 2 years ago, for which reason I have got no clue yet, though I asked the site staff without any anwser.
ProZ.com has not blocked in any way your ability to answer KudoZ.
You did ask staff abaut this in a support request sent on October 16 and you were informed that same day that the access to KudoZ has been blocked by the Chinese government.
Then again you brought the issue to forum thread http://www.proz.com/topic/148712 and got the same answer from a couple of site members.
Regards,
Enrique
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Neil Coffey
Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο
Local time: 09:14
Γαλλικά σε Αγγλικά
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| Blocked by the Chinese government??? | Dec 13, 2009 |
Enrique wrote:
you were informed that same day that the access to KudoZ has been blocked by the Chinese government.
What are they scared of? That we might make their product manual translations intelligible?
| | | | blomguib (X)
Local time: 06:14
Αγγλικά σε Φλαμανδικά
+ ...
ΞΕΚΙΝΗΣΕ ΤΟ ΘΕΜΑ
Enrique wrote:
Zong Yang Yu wrote:
I am lucky no longer answering dumb questions as I have been banned from answering any question in Kudoz since 2 years ago, for which reason I have got no clue yet, though I asked the site staff without any anwser.
ProZ.com has not blocked in any way your ability to answer KudoZ.
You did ask staff abaut this in a support request sent on October 16 and you were informed that same day that the access to KudoZ has been blocked by the Chinese government.
Then again you brought the issue to forum thread http://www.proz.com/topic/148712 and got the same answer from a couple of site members.
Regards,
Enrique
although informative, this has got NOTHING to do with the initial post....please stick to the point....unless this of course is a way of deviating the attention....once again....I am beginning to get really annoyed with "site staff"....
| | | | dianaochoa
Local time: 10:14
Αγγλικά σε Ισπανικά
+ ...
| Role of the moderators... | Dec 13, 2009 |
is not clear, at least to me.. What can they do? Can they quote for jobs? Do they have advantages when compared to the rest of the members?
I raise this question because in Kudoz they seem not to intervene (I emphasize this: seem not to), no matter the questions and the answers.. and, at least one, I have seen a moderator's opinion among the answers.
Has Proz become a highly competitive and chaotic market, or is it a place where every member has the same rights? I read here a lot of ... See more is not clear, at least to me.. What can they do? Can they quote for jobs? Do they have advantages when compared to the rest of the members?
I raise this question because in Kudoz they seem not to intervene (I emphasize this: seem not to), no matter the questions and the answers.. and, at least one, I have seen a moderator's opinion among the answers.
Has Proz become a highly competitive and chaotic market, or is it a place where every member has the same rights? I read here a lot of comments emphasizing the term "community of translators". What are the criteria to choose the moderators? Can the site do something about people who do not respect the rules? Or else, is Proz a site where the law of the "strongest" prevails?
And, the site itself is promoting Kudoz answering as a means to gain recognition from agencies. And IMHO, ruthless competition is ruining what I thought was a very professional site. ▲ Collapse
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