Forums about proz.com » KudoZ »
It is now possible to "flag" KudoZ answerers
Track this topic

Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5] >

User

Thread poster: Enrique

It is now possible to "flag" KudoZ answerers

Katalin Horvath McClure

United States
Local time: 22:09

Member (2002)
English to Hungarian
+ ...

Such a tool is prone to abuse - I would scrap it from public use

Mar 15, 2009

I also had some Orvellian thoughts when I saw the announcement...
If I think hard, I guess I can come up with a few positive uses of such feature, but those would be outweighed by the possibility of the abuse such a tool offers.
It is really like cyber-stalking, getting notifications when a certain person contributes to KudoZ... Without the knowledge of the person that is being "watched"... I do not know any website, or online community that offers such a function to its members, and I dare to say I would be very surprised if any reasonable website would...

The only acceptable use of it at ProZ is perhaps as a special tool for Moderators. Mods work under different conditions, including being bound by agreements on handling user information and they have (and should have) access to tools and information that otherwise not public, in order to do their work. Especially now, with the reduced number of Moderators, it may be reasonable to help them with such a tool.

However, I fail to see the reason why such "policing" should be available to any user of the site. You don't even have to be a member, it is enough to register, and as we all know, anybody can register at ProZ.

I would go further than offering an opt-out, I would scrap it from public use altogether.
(The fact that it is implemented already is not a reason for keeping it - see yellow star "feature".)

Katalin
[Edited for typo.]

[Módosítva: 2009-03-15 21:35 GMT]

Özden Arıkan

Germany
Local time: 04:09

Member
English to Turkish

OK, point taken

Mar 15, 2009

Henry D wrote:

Özden Arıkan wrote:
Without going into the merits and/or vices of this new feature...

With respect, I would ask that you stick to the merits and/or vices of the feature in question. (Discussing whether or not something has been discussed sufficiently is the sort of thing that can muddle an otherwise results-oriented discussion.)

Next time I'll post it as a separate topic:

...how much sense does it make to implement a suggestion that obviously has not received much attention, not properly discussed with its pros and cons, and has received only 3 people's support? Just a question, without going into the topic of many suggestions that have received far greater member support having been discussed with pros and cons, that have been repeated time and time again, and that may be waiting in the ToDo list or not...

Özden Arıkan

Germany
Local time: 04:09

Member
English to Turkish

Seems I underestimated this

Mar 15, 2009

Katalin Horvath McClure wrote:

Such a tool is prone to abuse - I would scrap it from public use

I have to confess that I tended to see this as a not-so-necessary discussion on a not-so-necessary feature. Thank you for your message above Katalin, which has been a great eye-opener for me. Now I can see in what ways a public implementation of such a feature could be abused.

I agree that it should be removed. But at the very least, the default should be "don't allow tracking". If the reverse was made default ("allow tracking"), then it could be an active invasion of the privacy of many people who are not even aware of this feature.

[Edited at 2009-03-16 01:28 GMT]

Christel Zipfel

Local time: 04:09

Partial member
Italian to German
+ ...

Totally seconded

Mar 15, 2009

Katalin Horvath McClure wrote:

However, I fail to see the reason why such "policing" should be available to any user of the site. You don't even have to be a member, it is enough to register, and as we all know, anybody can register at ProZ.

I would go further than offering an opt-out, I would scrap it from public use altogether.
(The fact that it is implemented already is not a reason for keeping it - see yellow star "feature".)

Katalin

I don't have the slightest doubt that the poster who proposed this idea in the original thread acted certainly in bonafide and had excellent reasons.

But the more I think about it, the more I fear this feature is indeed likely to be abused. There could be revengeful people flagging you because once they got a disagreee from you and now they are awaiting their chance to pay you back... (Just the first thing that came into my mind).

And anyway, I will immediately opt out. Thanks for this possibility, at least. I certainly would not like the idea, like Giuliana said, that someone is informed by mail if I *go out for dinner* or whatever.

Özden Arıkan wrote:

Considering all of the above, how much sense does it make to implement a suggestion that obviously has not received much attention, not properly discussed with its pros and cons, and has received only 3 people's support? Just a question, without going into the topic of many suggestions that have received far greater member support having been discussed with pros and cons, that have been repeated time and time again, and that may be waiting in the ToDo list or not...

Absolutely agree, too.
So many features have been requested a long time ago, and a lot of people - not only 4 or 5 - agreed. How useful it would be if we could for example finally "bookmark" a thread or a question or whatever. I remember everyone was in favour and noone contrary. So why bother about features instead that nobody (or only a handful of people) wants or needs?

It would be nice if there were a kind of priority list, too. The oldest suggestions with most supporters are implemented first, something like that. I increasingly get the impression that those instead fall into oblivion forever.

[Bearbeitet am 2009-03-16 18:34 GMT]

anisco

Germany
Local time: 04:09

Member (2003)
English to German
+ ...

I fully agree with you

Mar 16, 2009

Katalin Horvath McClure wrote:

I would go further than offering an opt-out, I would scrap it from public use altogether.
(The fact that it is implemented already is not a reason for keeping it - see yellow star "feature".)

Katalin
[Edited for typo.]

[Módosítva: 2009-03-15 21:35 GMT]

Another scenario:
Customers could register with ProZ.com and flag their translators...

I think this "feature" is another good example that what is technically feasable is not always desirable or allowed in all jurisdictions. Data protection and privacy is taken very seriously - at least in Germany.

Stéphanie Soudais

France
Local time: 04:09

Member (2006)
English to French

agree

Mar 16, 2009

Christel Zipfel wrote:

There could be revengeful people flagging you because once they got a disagreee from you and now they are awaiting their chance to pay you back... (Just the first thing that came into my mind).

This is the first thing I tought of when I read the initial thread suggesting this feature!

It would be nice if there were a kind of priority list, too. The oldest suggestions with most supporters are implemented first, something like that. I increasingly get the impression that those instead fall into oblivion forever.

Agree too. I, for one, made a suggestion in November regarding Kudoz search in the glossary. The moderator replied "yes good idea, I'll ask the staff if this can be implemented". Last week I sent a support ticket asking about my suggestion and the reply was that the suggesttion is still on the list of things to be evaluated.

So why are some suggestions evaluated and implemented within a few weeks while others are not?

[Edited at 2009-03-16 08:36 GMT]

Attila Piróth

France
Local time: 04:09

Member
English to Hungarian
+ ...

Agree with Katalin, Aniello and others

Mar 16, 2009

The scenario outline by Aniello is particularly unsettling.

I agree with Katalin that the opt-out possibility may not be enough.

One of the reasons for this is that many KudoZ participants never post in the forums, so it is plausible to assume that some of them do not read the forums either. At the moment of writing this, the present thread has had 1435 views, and I think it can be safely divided by a factor between 3 and 10, as many users tend to come back to read this thread. (On a side note: it would be interesting to have the number of viewers, too, not just views.) These KudoZers would not be aware of this new possibility, so they will simply not know if someone is watching their KudoZ activity.

Aniello's scenario makes sense. I don't consider it at all as a conspiration theory: if such a tool is given to a PM, he/she may feel that it is a great way to get better informed about the translators' skills, unaware of the issues raised in this thread. (Incidentally, the same is true for the "Flag asker" option, and Aniello's scenario may apply even better to this case.) Obviously, adding a link to the "Flag answerer" feature that would point to this thread is a possibility -- but that would change the dashboard quite radically.

An opt-in feature would help to eliminate the problem of being insufficient information. But even if each tracking request is to be approved by the answerer, I feel that a great part of the reservations put forward by my colleagues would apply to this case, too.

Since there are other, non-automated channels to see answerers' answers through their profile page, would it be possible to suspend this tracking feature (currently available at http://www.proz.com/dashboard?sp_mode=kudoz&sp_kudoz_mode=answerer_flags) for some time, when a more informed decision can be taken?

One more side note: this thread appeared Friday evening (European time), and received the first answer on Saturday. By Monday morning, it was no longer listed among the most recent forum topics on the home page (note that I am using the default configuration, like, I suppose, most users). Would it be possible to reserve a few places among the 20 places for such topics? I realize that this question may deserve a separate thread.

Kind regards,
Attila

anisco

Germany
Local time: 04:09

Member (2003)
English to German
+ ...

OT	Mar 16, 2009

Attila Piróth wrote:

One more side note: this thread appeared Friday evening (European time), and received the first answer on Saturday. By Monday morning, it was no longer listed among the most recent forum topics on the home page

Kind regards,
Attila

Hi Attila

if you mean "Most Recent Posts":
I submitted a support request 4 weeks ago, and the answer was that ProZ developers are still working on some improvements to the 'Most recent posts' forum. The improvements may take some time to be implemented.

Just to let you know.

gad
United States
Local time: 22:09

Member
French to English

Yes, this can be used to "stalk" someone

Mar 16, 2009

Katalin Horvath McClure wrote:

It is really like cyber-stalking, getting notifications when a certain person contributes to KudoZ... Without the knowledge of the person that is being "watched"...

Katalin

I already know of one person who must have me "flagged", who I swear must be obsessed with just finding things to pick on about my questions. I even had this person follow me to another language pair where I hadn't ever posted previously, and that language pair is also NOT one of that person's language pairs. The person showed up and made a snide comment about my question. I don't find this person's input to be the least bit constructive, and if there were such a thing as blocking someone, this person would be on my short list of users/members to block. Instead, this person gets to show up wherever and give me a hard time for daring to use the site without asking his/her permission first.

I can imagine, since this person also has posted negative and/or snide remarks about how my answers are apparently not good enough either, then now with this new feature I would experience much the same thing. That certainly doesn't give me an incentive to answer questions, honestly.

[Edited to add]: BTW, I don't blame the site for the above-described situation. I blame that person, since I don't believe that the site actually intended "flagging" for a stalking-type purpose.

[Edited at 2009-03-16 15:25 GMT]

Stéphanie Soudais

France
Local time: 04:09

Member (2006)
English to French

.	Mar 16, 2009

gad wrote:

I already know of one person who must have me "flagged", who I swear must be obsessed with just finding things to pick on about my questions. I even had this person follow me to another language pair where I hadn't ever posted previously, and that language pair is also NOT one of that person's language pairs. The person showed up and made a snide comment about my question.

But in this topic we are talking about flagging answerers, not askers.
Out of curiosity I've checked your KudoZ board, and it appears that you haven't asked/answered any questions since February. Does it mean that the flagging feature works retroactively?

gad
United States
Local time: 22:09

Member
French to English

Yes, I realize that we're talking about answerers

Mar 17, 2009

Stéphanie Soudais wrote:

No, why would it be retroactively? I didn't say it happened yesterday or today. It has happened in the past.

I know that we are talking about answerers but my post had to do with the "cyber-stalking" that can result from flagging. Not sure why whether it has to do with askers or answerers makes a difference at all.

[Edited at 2009-03-17 02:35 GMT]

Stéphanie Soudais

France
Local time: 04:09

Member (2006)
English to French

Ok Gad, sorry

Mar 17, 2009

I must have misunderstood you...

Personally I 've always wondered what was the point of flagging (either askers or answerers)...

Giuliana Buscaglione

Austria
Local time: 04:09

Member (2001)
German to Italian
+ ...

When will an OPT-OUT option be developed (approximately)?

Mar 22, 2009

hi again,

over a week has passed and I was wondering how things were doing.

When can we - approximately, of course, have the promised opt-out option? (And the undoing of all previously set trackings?)

Thank you

Giuliana

Paul Cohen

Greenland
Local time: 00:09
German to English
+ ...

Opens the door to cyber-stalking

Mar 23, 2009

Katalin Horvath McClure wrote:

I also had some Orvellian thoughts when I saw the announcement...

Same here.

I initially thought the idea was that askers could "filter out" answerers who they wanted to avoid. But I now see that it has more to do with tracking certain answerers. In my opinion, this opens the door to cyber-stalking.

The only way I could imagine this feature working is for the tracker and the trackee to sign an agreement allowing one person to track another. Such an agreement could then be cancelled at any time by the trackee (the person being tracked).

Yaotl Altan

Mexico
Local time: 21:09

Member
English to Spanish
+ ...

Paranoia

Mar 23, 2009

Paul Cohen wrote:

I initially thought the idea was that askers could "filter out" answerers who they wanted to avoid. But I now see that it has more to do with tracking certain answerers. In my opinion, this opens the door to cyber-stalking.

...

That smells like paranoia. I don't see the link between real-life cyber-stalking and this useful function.