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Should points be awarded for Easy Kudoz questions?
xxxJon Zuber
United States
Spanish to English
+ ...
A moderator has announced that points will cease to awarded for easies. Dec 20, 2001

See www.proz.com/kudoz/124568



I am curious about why there has been no announcement of this to all and sundry in the fora.


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Maya Jurt  Identity Verified
Switzerland
Local time: 16:55
Member (2002)
French to German
+ ...
Ask Glossary first Dec 30, 2001

KudoZ or Brownies or no reward, it is all the same to me. But I do mind questions popping up over and over again. Therefore, my question:



Could it be possible to direct askers to the glossary first? Lots of requests would already be in the glossary, especially the simplistic ones. We would not have 10 people worrying simoultaneously how to translate \"Merry Christmas\" or \"I love you\". Even more complicated terms (recent example: SKU) can be found. I often remember when a term is already in the glossary, and I tell the asker. Other pros do not remember or have not seen that question. They spend time searching for it, or for a reference, and loose precious time.

Directing the question to the glossary before putting it up would be a good idea, I believe.



Regards

Maya


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Rick Henry  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 09:55
Italian to English
+ ...
That would be a great idea... Dec 30, 2001

That would be a great idea if, whether the question was entered via another site or directly, a search could first be done through the glossary, and if there were no entries there, the question would be asked in the kudoZ forum (Well, at least for the easy questions). Probably substantial to implement though.



R.

==

Quote:


On 2001-12-30 12:45, mayagyan wrote:

KudoZ or Brownies or no reward, it is all the same to me. But I do mind questions popping up over and over again. Therefore, my question:



Could it be possible to direct askers to the glossary first? Lots of requests would already be in the glossary, especially the simplistic ones. We would not have 10 people worrying simoultaneously how to translate \"Merry Christmas\" or \"I love you\". Even more complicated terms (recent example: SKU) can be found. I often remember when a term is already in the glossary, and I tell the asker. Other pros do not remember or have not seen that question. They spend time searching for it, or for a reference, and loose precious time.

Directing the question to the glossary before putting it up would be a good idea, I believe.



Regards

Maya



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Aida Alvarez
Mexico
English to Spanish
Grade it easy or pro? Jan 31, 2002

If a person is asking a question, and does not know the meaning of a word? How does that person rate it? Like, literary=easy, and medical=pro?

I\'m a translator living in Mexico, I live in a city considered a border with the U.S., and even though I\'m proficient in English, I\'ve stumbled with some words. The Kudos and Brownies system works, let\'s leave it as it is. I really like your thoughts on this, Bertha Sousa.


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Paul Dixon  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 11:55
Member (2009)
Portuguese to English
+ ...
KudoZ system May 28, 2011

One possibility that I envisage would be to award 1 to 4 KudoZ points for pro questions and 1 to 2 for easy questions. The easiness of a question would depend on the language: if an EN/PT translator asked how to translate "cat" into Portuguese it would be easy, but if a Kazakh to Quechua translator asked the question (e.g. the word "cat" could appear in the middle of a KZ/QU job) then it would not be easy. Also the meaning plays a part in this, hence the importance of context: "cat" in "not big enough to swing a cat" seems to have a different meaning. (One suggestion could be to introduce a rule that all KudoZ questions must have context or at least a sample sentence).
[This fascinating aspect of English (I assume this happens in other languages too) is something to be considered. A simple word like "down" can be a noun (swan's down), preposition (I'm going down the road), adjective (the down train) or verb (He downed the beer in a matter of seconds).]


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Ambrose Li  Identity Verified
Canada
Local time: 10:55
Member (2011)
Chinese to English
+ ...
Easy vs pro May 29, 2011

I have been on the site for a few months, but the more time I spend here, the less sure I’m about what’s easy, what’s pro, and whether I will give a correct answer when I answer a question.

There was this question about translating the name of a hotel. The asker categorized it as easy. I thought it was easy too, until I found the hotel’s web page and realized that they have two different hotels (with two easily-mixed-up names) sharing the same address. I wouldn’t call it pro, but now you got to be careful.

So is non-pro even the same as easy? I don’t really even know.

Sometimes, these so-called easy questions are even harder than some of the so-called “pro” questions (“pro” as categorized by the asker).


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Nicole Schnell  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 07:55
Member
English to German
+ ...
I agree with Ambrose May 29, 2011


Ambrose Li wrote:
So is non-pro even the same as easy? I don’t really even know.

Sometimes, these so-called easy questions are even harder than some of the so-called “pro” questions (“pro” as categorized by the asker).


Example: Ask for the proper German translation of the noun "bearing". Can be found in any dictionary, right? Unfortunately you will find 31 (!!) different translations*, all of which are correct, depending on the machine, the location of this thing in a machine and its purpose. I also know 12 different ways of translating "I love you" into German, because you can absolutely not address your grandma or your sibling the same way you would address your lover or your spouse. Recently I posted KudoZ-questions about the best translation of the simple words "job" or "story" in a particular context. It turned out to be quite difficult.


*http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&lang=de&searchLoc=0&cmpType=relaxed§Hdr=on&spellToler=&search=bearing


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Ambrose Li  Identity Verified
Canada
Local time: 10:55
Member (2011)
Chinese to English
+ ...
Glossary May 29, 2011


Maya Jurt wrote:

KudoZ or Brownies or no reward, it is all the same to me. But I do mind questions popping up over and over again. Therefore, my question:



Could it be possible to direct askers to the glossary first? Lots of requests would already be in the glossary, especially the simplistic ones.


Missed this in my last reply somehow.

Anyway. This is a great idea in theory. And I would have agreed—except that glossary search does not actually work.

I have recently filed a bug report documenting a few different ways it could fail (not being able to find anything even if something is in the glossary, finding different things depending on search options you have selected that should not affect your results, finding (literally) more than 1000 irrelevant results, etc.). And it turned out that they already knew about these problems.

Unless glossary search can be fixed, this is unrealistic.

[Edited at 2011-05-29 03:10 GMT]


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Should points be awarded for Easy Kudoz questions?






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