| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | How much direct crowdsourced aid is compatible with professional practice? Thread poster: Robert Forstag
|
|---|
Phil Hand 
China
Local time: 12:33
Chinese to English
| Collaboration is good, trust is needed | Oct 12, 2015 |
I think the points made above about different styles are right. Tapping into good resources is the thing which marks out a good translator, and if your resources happen to be a bunch of people on the internet, so be it. That said...
Personally, I ask Kudoz questions very rarely because I never get satisfactory answers, and I don't expect them. There is no cohort of trustworthy answerers in my pair - there are about three, and they aren't always online. But in the more popular pairs,... See more I think the points made above about different styles are right. Tapping into good resources is the thing which marks out a good translator, and if your resources happen to be a bunch of people on the internet, so be it. That said...
Personally, I ask Kudoz questions very rarely because I never get satisfactory answers, and I don't expect them. There is no cohort of trustworthy answerers in my pair - there are about three, and they aren't always online. But in the more popular pairs, perhaps some people treat Kudoz like chatting with colleagues? And perhaps they get the inspiration they need (not necessarily answers, but inspiration), and can have faith in the quality of at least some answerers...?
So I try to adopt a judge-not attitude, but there's no doubt that it looks odd to see people asking dozens of questions a week. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Daryo
United Kingdom
Local time: 05:33
Serbian to English
+ ...
Dani Karuniawan wrote:
I assume, a person asks a question(s) because he does not know the answer(s). Oddly enough, he, in fact, judges the answers provided by other translators and choose which is the true answer.
Here is the hole of Proz's kudoZ: The "truth" is set by an "ignorant" asker.
So, will I believe in a person who put many trusts in Proz's "holed" KudoZ? No. At least, I will doubt him.
[Edited at 2015-10-09 05:01 GMT]
That is a fundamental flaw/problem with Kudoz, for sure, but it's not so simple.
Some askers take on texts where they out of their depth - those will certainly not have any real means of recognising the right answer even if it was staring at them in the face (some have even been boasting of their ignorance, but that's another problem)
But there also askers who do understand the ST, but stumble occasionally on a term they are not familiar with or they are not sure of - those are perfectly capable of recognising the right answer.
As for the motivations of those asking and those answering - it probably even more varied and impossible to present in a simplified way.
| | | | | Monetize it? | Oct 13, 2015 |
It would be interesting to see what would happen if Kudoz were partially monetized. It would probably make more sense for Proz.com than the translators answering the question (I don't think $1.00 per question would entice many more good answers), but if you're in the 'Kudoz questions should be limited' camp, charging per question once a monthly quota is reached would certainly ensure that Kudoz users think carefully before asking questions, while also giving them a source to turn to if they ran ... See more It would be interesting to see what would happen if Kudoz were partially monetized. It would probably make more sense for Proz.com than the translators answering the question (I don't think $1.00 per question would entice many more good answers), but if you're in the 'Kudoz questions should be limited' camp, charging per question once a monthly quota is reached would certainly ensure that Kudoz users think carefully before asking questions, while also giving them a source to turn to if they ran into a tough project/are frequent askers.
For example, you could limit users to 10 free questions per month, after which additional questions are charged at 1.00 per question. In an ideal world, this could even turn into a win/win for all, as Proz.com could use money from this arrangement to lower membership costs. (yes, I know that's unlikely to happen)Proz could even make things more interesting by allowing paid questions to be asked anonymously, which would partially resolve the problem of damage to one's 'reputation' when asking questions.
Update: OR, we could go even further into fantasy land, monetize Kudoz as above, and then make it exciting/philanthropic. Each language pair could donate half of all money earned from Kudoz questions to charity, and then randomly award the rest of the money in a lump sum during the holiday season to one of the users who answered a question successfully. Say there were 300 $ 1.00 questions asked in my language pair during the year--awarding $150 to a charity, and then having a drawing for the rest would really make Kudoz a bit more fun/rewarding.
[Edited at 2015-10-13 00:53 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Andy Watkinson
Spain
Local time: 06:33
Member
Catalan to English
+ ...
| Very reasonable | Oct 13, 2015 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
You seem to be fixated on "240 questions per month", but that number is simply a result of mathematics. The real limit is not 240 per month, but 15 per day, which I think is perfectly reasonable.
Samuel, so the "real limit" is not 240 a month but 15 x 30 = 450 questions a month.
What's your point?
I have always taken it as a given that KudoZ is designed for those situations in which you're at the end of your tether and seppuku is starting to seem like a more agreeable option than admitting to the client that you've no idea what the original is rabbiting on about.
(I also believe that lying somewhere in the Kraken-like depths of Proz there is a "rule" to this effect - i.e. doing your homework before relying on others).
One concern is immediately apparent and is pointed out in the following "exchange".
Charlie B: "A notorious kudoz poster reached the milestone of her 7,000th question this weekend. She's been a member here not quite ten years. She also posts questions on TC."
Giovanni: "does it look bad if you've asked lots of questions? Personally, I think it does..."
Giovanni is discreet enough to say that it appears so only to him.
I suggest it appears so to everyone. To us and to their clients. Especially their clients.
Robert sums it up well:
"After all, proz.com saw fit to impose its current (absurdly permissive) limits in the first place because it realized that certain levels of posting were incompatible with a site ostensibly designed for professionals. "
If you need to ask 450 questions a month, well: do you consider yourself a professional......?
| | |
|
|
|
Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 06:33
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Andy Watkinson wrote: Samuel Murray wrote:
You seem to be fixated on "240 questions per month", but that number is simply a result of mathematics. The real limit is not 240 per month, but 15 per day, which I think is perfectly reasonable. Samuel, so the "real limit" is not 240 a month but 15 x 30 = 450 questions a month. What's your point?
There are various limits that apply crosswise. There is no hourly limit, but there is a daily limit (in other words, you can ask 15 questions in a single hour, but then you can't ask any more questions until 23 hours have passed). There is no specific monthly limit either, but there is a weekly limit, namely 60 (for paid members). So... the daily limit is 15, but the weekly limit is 60. If a month has exactly 4 weeks in it, then you could argue that the "monthly" limit is 240. However, you can't ask all 240 questions in the first week of the month, so there is really no "monthly" limit, except on average.
Throwing these large numbers around make it seem like the limit is very liberal, and yes, there is really the potential for a translator to ask this many questions, but how often does that happen? Saying that the monthly limit is 240 make it sound like any paid member can ask 240 questions at any time during the month (e.g. if he's a weekend translator, then it makes it sound as if he can ask 60 per weekend, which is not true).
I have always taken it as a given that KudoZ is designed for those situations in which you're at the end of your tether...
That seems to be Robert's view, too.
If you need to ask 450 questions a month, well...
How uncertain are you allowed to be about your translation and still call yourself a professional, ethical translator? Should we aim to make our translations flawless, or just more or less correct?
Some people in this thread no doubt would say: only if you deliver a translation that you're very uncertain about, will you have crossed that line, but if you deliver a translation that you're moderately uncertain about (i.e. not so uncertain that you would have had to resort to KudoZ), then you're still acting professionally and ethically.
If you need to ask 450 questions a month, well...
Yes, but what if you don't need to ask 3000 questions per year, but you want to anyway?
The only way that a lone translator-at-home can learn from his peers (including: learn their opinions about something that he himself already has an opinion) is if he communicates online. This goes beyond asking questions, but also seeing questions and formulating one's own answers, or reading the answers of others.
[Edited at 2015-10-13 08:35 GMT]
| | | |
Andy Watkinson wrote:
Giovanni: "does it look bad if you've asked lots of questions? Personally, I think it does..."
Giovanni is discreet enough to say that it appears so only to him.
I hope I'm not having hallucinations...
[Edited at 2015-10-13 11:39 GMT]
| | | | | Indicative of everything wrong with modern society | Oct 13, 2015 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
Yes, but what if you don't need to ask 3000 questions per year, but you want to anyway?
Screw that, frankly. If you want to chat about terminology options, go on Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo! and probably other places. I'm not on FB, but I've seen professional cud-chewing on the other two. Which is fine, everyone knows what they getting into.
But the premise of Kudoz is a last resort when you're stuck (like some of the others, I think this used to be rule, it might just be a guideline now). One of my objections to the high limits was that professional people who need genuine help see their questions vanish in a flood of queries from incompetent nitwits with no business being members of a site for professionals.
And now you'd like to see the genuine questions also swamped by people who just fancy a bit of a natter, or want their hand held? Double screw that with knobs on.
| | | | Jean Lachaud
United States
Local time: 00:33
English to French
+ ...
| Kudos to your balls | Oct 13, 2015 |
Charlie:
You've said it, and said it well. There's nothing to add!
Similar things can also be said about what I'll call "professional answerers," who often have absolutely no idea of the actual terminology used in the applicable field, and who seem to have absolutely nothing else to do but spend their days coming up with terms they seem to fish from hats containing random words.
Charlie Bavington wrote:
Screw that, frankly. If you want to chat about terminology options, go on Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo! and probably other places. I'm not on FB, but I've seen professional cud-chewing on the other two. Which is fine, everyone knows what they getting into.
But the premise of Kudoz is a last resort when you're stuck (like some of the others, I think this used to be rule, it might just be a guideline now). One of my objections to the high limits was that professional people who need genuine help see their questions vanish in a flood of queries from incompetent nitwits with no business being members of a site for professionals.
And now you'd like to see the genuine questions also swamped by people who just fancy a bit of a natter, or want their hand held? Double screw that with knobs on.
| | |
|
|
|
Erik Freitag
Germany
Local time: 06:33
Member (2006)
Dutch to German
+ ...
Charlie Bavington wrote:
But the premise of Kudoz is a last resort when you're stuck (like some of the others, I think this used to be rule, it might just be a guideline now).
It still seems to be a rule, but it is formulated in a way that can lead to misunderstandings:
KudoZ site rule 2.9:
"Help" KudoZ should be used for requesting terms help after having searched the KudoZ term search and other resources. When asking a question, sufficient context should be provided. Even when there is no other context, the subject area and type of document should be indicated.
The use of should, which in this context I prefer to understand as a polite way of saying must (please correct me if I'm wrong) may be difficult to understand by users with other source languages than English. In the German version of the site rules for example, "should" has indeed been translated as "sollte", which backtranslates as "if conveniently possible".
| | | | | Professional? | Oct 14, 2015 |
Charlie Bavington wrote:
One of my objections to the high limits was that professional people who need genuine help see their questions vanish in a flood of queries from incompetent nitwits with no business being members of a site for professionals.
Absolutely. But then it isn't a site for professionals. I really ought to spend my tea breaks doing something more constructive like surfing for porn.
| | | | | it started as a site for ProfezionalZ... | Oct 14, 2015 |
hence the name... not so sure now... 
| | | | | I remember when this was all fields | Oct 14, 2015 |
Chris S wrote:
Absolutely. But then it isn't a site for professionals.
Giovanni's right, back in the day, it used to be. Perceived abuses of the kudoz system were a factor in its decline. I'm not the only one who thought the original limits set were too high, and that was, what, 8 or more years ago? Given the amount of information out there now in internetland, which is expanding at a rate of 4 billion pages every nanosecond or something, I fail to see why anyone working in a field they know and understand in a common language pair would need to ask more than a couple of questions a week at most.
| | |
|
|
|
Richard Foulkes (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 05:33
German to English
+ ...
| It is monetised... | Oct 14, 2015 |
Preston Decker wrote:
It would be interesting to see what would happen if Kudoz were partially monetized. It would probably make more sense for Proz.com than the translators answering the question (I don't think $1.00 per question would entice many more good answers), but if you're in the 'Kudoz questions should be limited' camp, charging per question once a monthly quota is reached would certainly ensure that Kudoz users think carefully before asking questions, while also giving them a source to turn to if they ran into a tough project/are frequent askers.
The function of Kudoz from proz perspective is that Google searches for terms appearing in Kudoz appear highly in Google rankings, thus acting as clickbait to generate ad revenues. And many people who pay proz good money to be a member generate the clickbait for proz by asking and answering questions - you've got to hand it to them really!
| | | |
Charlie Bavington wrote:
Giovanni's right, back in the day, it used to be. Perceived abuses of the kudoz system were a factor in its decline.
I've actually used the site on and off for far longer than I care to remember (and quite a bit longer than my current profile suggests; I think I must've deleted my original one in a hissy fit at some point), and I'm convinced that in my language pairs there used to be way more questions in the old days.
Things have really tailed off in the last couple of years, and I'm not so sure it's a decline in standards so much as most questions now having been answered already...
| | | |
I'm in still n. 34 in the ranking of all time KudoZ answerers, EN>IT... that tells you something... I registered in April 2001... haven't answered any KudoZ questions in years... ok, maybe the odd one, when I knew the person in question and his/her professionality. And the question was a serious one.
| | | | | Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » How much direct crowdsourced aid is compatible with professional practice? | Anycount & Translation Office 3000 | Translation Office 3000
Translation Office 3000 is an advanced accounting tool for freelance translators and small agencies. TO3000 easily and seamlessly integrates with the business life of professional freelance translators.
More info » |
| | Trados Studio 2022 Freelance | The leading translation software used by over 270,000 translators.
Designed with your feedback in mind, Trados Studio 2022 delivers an unrivalled, powerful desktop
and cloud solution, empowering you to work in the most efficient and cost-effective way.
More info » |
|
| | | | X Sign in to your ProZ.com account... | | | | | |
Login to reply/comment 
Translation news
