Forums about proz.com » KudoZ »
GBK answers "specialization" barrier
Track this topic

User

Thread poster: Albana Dhimitri

GBK answers "specialization" barrier

Albana Dhimitri

Greece
Local time: 20:50
Greek to Albanian
+ ...

Oct 29, 2009

Yesterday I was trying to post some answers to GBK questions, when I just found out that I was not entitled to do so due to my "lack" of specialization in the respective fields. And, strangely enough, these "foreign" (so to speak) fields were quite few (maybe, I just got unlucky yesterday).

I am just wondering why should there be such barriers and targeting of translators (which I have also noticed happening in regular KudoZ) and not let anyone suggest an answer, when the discarding of unprofessional (let's say) - or, at least, not best - answers is guarded by the peer voting and comments, which are - after all - the final criterion of grading and choosing one answer as "THE answer".

Or am I wrong?

I had some very good answers (it seemed to me, of course, and it would be up to my colleagues to determine) which I was not allowed to share due to this requirement to be "specialized in filed" and it just felt uncomfortable yesterday. So, I would really appreciate your opinions about it. Has anyone else experienced it, or is it that I am overreacting?

Thank you for your time and sharing!
Albana

Milan Djukić

Serbia
Local time: 19:50

Member (2009)
English to Serbian
+ ...

Agree

Oct 29, 2009

In my language combination EN-SR there are lot of unanswered or still open GBK questions.
Oposite of regular KudoZ, for GBK you can not just enter your answer/translation (often without any explanation or sources to confirm it), but to do some research, find definition in target language, example sentences, sources... That is the reason why many regular KudoZ answerers do not care for GBK or dare to answer the questions.

So, I agree with you Albana - GBK rules are exact, there are criteria for defining good and applicable answer and also for grading it - and I think GBK team should reconsider limitations and requirements.

Regards,
Milan

Lesley Clarke

Mexico
Local time: 12:50

Partial member (2005)
Spanish to English

What is GBK?

Oct 29, 2009

Excuse my ignorance, but what does GBK mean?

Milan Djukić

Serbia
Local time: 19:50

Member (2009)
English to Serbian
+ ...

GBK meaning

Oct 30, 2009

Lesley Clarke wrote:

Excuse my ignorance, but what does GBK mean?

Glossary-building KudoZ (GBK) terms
The GBK network enables the ProZ.com community to find the best translation of a given term into a given language and to incorporate it into an authoritative glossary.

Regards,
Milan

Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Post removed by poster

Anna Haxen

Denmark
Local time: 19:50

Member (2005)
English to Danish
+ ...

Thank you for bringing this up

Dec 9, 2009

I've been considering raising this question for some days. In my pair (En-Da) there have been and are some quite simple questions, which I am not allowed to answer.

For instance 'leave without pay', which virtually any Dane who has been employed anywhere in Denmark and who knows a bit of English could probably answer. It had already been answered, but I wasn't even allowed to agree, because that right is reserved for translators who have reported a specialty level in Human Resources. Very frustrating.

And now: 'linear regression', and, recently: 'porosity'. Both terms that someone familiar with scientific terms in general could answer, but I can't because I haven't reported mathematics or geology as my specialties.

Changing or adding to you areas of specialization to be allowed to provide answers to GBK seems too silly, and it's a problem for the smaller language pairs that so few questions are answered, and, when they are, it takes very long to get sufficient agrees/disagrees to reach a verdict.

Andrea Re

United Kingdom
Local time: 18:50

Member (2005)
English to Italian
+ ...

Same here...

Dec 9, 2009

Anna Haxen wrote:

And now: 'linear regression', and, recently: 'porosity'. Both terms that someone familiar with scientific terms in general could answer, but I can't because I haven't reported mathematics or geology as my specialties.

Indeed, I could have answered these questions, but didn't bother. I mean, pretty much everybody would know the answer and if they didn't they could find out easily enough and if they couldn't find out... well, perhaps that's just as well:)
So... what is the point of the exercise?

Andrea

Cedomir Pusica

Serbia
Local time: 19:50

Member (2009)
English to Serbian
+ ...

Agree

Dec 9, 2009

What irritates me the most is that many of the terms are not that "specialist", but quite general.

My suggestion is to change the system by simplifying it altogether or, as you suggested, invalidating the "specialization" requirement, at the least.

Ron Willems

Netherlands

Member
English to Dutch

Drop specialization requirement after 1 week

Jan 23, 2010

I certainly sympathize with all comments made here about fairly simple, general questions that somehow are only reserved for specialists.

Although there may be valid reasons for requiring specialization, in the vast majority of language pairs there simply aren't enough specialists around for most of these quetions.

A proposal for a simple solution:

Drop the specialization requirement if a GBK question is still open after, say, 1 week.

This way questions for which specialists exist, will be answered by them; and if no specialist provides an acceptable answer within the time limit, others can contribute as well (both by agreeing or disagreeing to the existing answers and by providing new answers).

The average quality of the answers wouldn't suffer much and the percentage of closed qustions would rise greatly.

Christel Zipfel

Local time: 19:50

Partial member
Italian to German
+ ...

Strange!

Jan 23, 2010

I too wondered, like Lesley, what GBK questions are. I never ever have come acrosse one, and yet I didn't check "Ignore glossary-building questions" in my settings.

Would you mind explain further - maybe there are special requirements to see them? Thank you.

Enrique

Argentina
Local time: 15:50

Member (2006)

SITE STAFF

There are plans to do as you suggest

Jan 24, 2010

Ron Willems wrote:

I certainly sympathize with all comments made here about fairly simple, general questions that somehow are only reserved for specialists.

Although there may be valid reasons for requiring specialization, in the vast majority of language pairs there simply aren't enough specialists around for most of these quetions.

A proposal for a simple solution:

Drop the specialization requirement if a GBK question is still open after, say, 1 week.

This way questions for which specialists exist, will be answered by them; and if no specialist provides an acceptable answer within the time limit, others can contribute as well (both by agreeing or disagreeing to the existing answers and by providing new answers).

The average quality of the answers wouldn't suffer much and the percentage of closed qustions would rise greatly.

Thanks Ron,

There are plans to allow the participation in GBK without filtering by field of expertise, ten days after the question was published. This way, as you suggest, priority will still be granted to specialists and a wider participation will be allowed for questions that remain open.

Regards,
Enrique

Enrique

Argentina
Local time: 15:50

Member (2006)

SITE STAFF

GBK questions

Jan 24, 2010

Christel Zipfel wrote:

I too wondered, like Lesley, what GBK questions are. I never ever have come acrosse one, and yet I didn't check "Ignore glossary-building questions" in my settings.

Would you mind explain further - maybe there are special requirements to see them? Thank you.

Hi Christel,

You may find out about GBK questions at http://www.proz.com/faq/4333#4333

GBK questions are currently asked from English into another languages (42 language pairs so far). This may explain why some members working in other pair have not been exposed to GBK.

Regards,
Enrique