To all our helpful KudoZ answerers...

English translation: Answer

10:07 Sep 16, 2000

French to English translations [PRO]

French term or phrase: To all our helpful KudoZ answerers...

Hi all,

I'm the moderator for the French to English community on ProZ, and, along with congratulating you on all the fine work you do on KudoZ, I'd appreciate some feedback from you on:

(1) any "success stories" (or tales of woe...) you have related to KudoZ: I'll be meeting with the Site Manager, Troy, and the ProZ founder, Henry Dotterer, while I'm at the ATA next week, along with any other ProZ moderators who are there. I'd like to be able to pass along any info from you to the full-time ProZ folks.

(2) any "bugs" in the KudoZ system, and recommendations you might have to improve the system. For instance, I notice that the first choice, in the Field drop down menu on the "request" page, is "tech/engineering", which, I suspect, is why we get so many of those questions from kids labeled "tech/engineering". Similarly, the top choice for the "level of difficulty" drop down menu is "pro," rather than "easy." I've suggested that these two windows give, as their top choices, "other" and "easy," to help reduce this kind of mislabeling of questions. Suggestions for any and all improvements would be welcome–you're the ones with the experience. ;-)

(3) any of you who might be attending the ATA–how about contacting me, and maybe we can get acquainted in the flesh? I'll be staying at the Grosvenor Hotel, catty-corner to the Wyndham Palace, from the evening of the 19th to the morning of the 24th.

Best regards to all of you,

Yolanda Broad
Moderator, ProZ French to English Community
[email protected]

Yolanda Broad KudoZ activity Questions: 41 (1 open) (3 without valid answers) Answers: 3084 United States
Local time: 21:14

English translation:Answer

Explanation:
Dear Dr. Yolanda Broad,
I am a new entrant to ProZ and am immensely pleased by the experience. KudoZ is going to fetch me my second job within three weeks of joining the site. The first I got through bidding.
Can I ask for more?

I think KudoZ must be systematized. And proper guidelines be framed. Your efforts are much appreciated. The number of words an asker asks should be limited.

Please come up with more ideas to make ProZ an even bigger success!

Best Wishes.

I am in India and am not an ATA member, so I wouldn't be there.

Regards,
Roomy Naqvy.
P.S. I am the English<>Gujarati moderator.

Selected response from:

Roomy Naqvy
India
Local time: 06:44

Grading comment

Since KudoZ is built so I have to give a grade to someone, I decided to give points out on the arbitrary basis of
first-come, first-served. I'd still like more responses, so I'm going to be reposting this request for today (I'm leaving
tomorrow afternoon, so won't be able to collect any more answers after this evening). If you wandered on after I
"accepted" the answers, by all means, either write to me at my e-mail address (see end of my message), or answer
the new posting.

Thanks to everyone who answered on KudoZ and privately. I have already passed on your messages, along with some
more recommendations of my own, and will also be discussing this with Henry Dotterer and Troy when I see them in a
couple of days.

Best regards,

Yolanda Broad, Ph.D.
ProZ Moderator, French to English
[email protected]
4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer

Summary of answers provided

Answer

Roomy Naqvy

Dear Ms. Broad

Márcio Badra

Kudoz question

john rock

Observation and query

Heathcliff

categories

Nikki Scott-Despaigne

Answers

10 mins

Answer

Roomy Naqvy
India
Local time: 06:44
Native speaker of:

Hindi
PRO pts in pair: 16

Grading comment

58 mins

Dear Ms. Broad

Explanation:
- Much of the questions in KudoZ are more related to the specific usage in the source language than to a suitable translation itself. And many times the person who can clarify the question does not acknowledge it because it's not posted in her/his specific pair of languages.

- I have noticed that many times people needing a short translation post a job offer and ask the translation needed as a sample. I understand that is very hard to track all the offers posted and identify the misuse of this feature, but may be the site could provide a field where we could complain about this kind of things. Also the pros would be warned about this kind of behavior and instructed to report it to the site administrator.

- I dare to suggest that proz create regional sub-communities, for example Brazilian portuguese and continental portuguese. Some times the continental portugues sound funny to Brazilians and, most of the time Brazilian portuguese sounds barbaric to Portuguese people. I'm sure that is the case with most of the languages spoken in diferent parts of the world.

Have a nice trip,

Márcio

Márcio Badra
Brazil
Local time: 22:14
Native speaker of:

Portuguese

1 hr

Kudoz question

Explanation:
Dear Yolanda:
No translator begrudges the time and effort spent helping fellow translators. However judging by the extent of some of the questions, or alternatively their triviality, and the flood of kudoz questions which fill the email every day, the system is being abused.
It goes without saying that translators should not be translating material they do not understand. Further, even when they do understand the material; they should not be using kudoz as a substitute instead of providing themselves with the correct dictionaries and reference material for their translation work.
See you at the conference.

Regards

John

john rock
United States
Local time: 21:14
PRO pts in pair: 7

13 hrs

Observation and query

Explanation:
Hi, Yolanda --
I've been wondering whether it might not be a good idea to set up separate queries categories for "Law" and "Patents." The current "Law/Patents" area seems to have quite a lot of postings in the areas of business and commercial law, insurance, contracts, and so on, but relatively few relating specifically to patent law (oppositions, infringement litigation, additions, the filing process, etc.). Meanwhile, questions addressing the "innards" of patent specifications and claims would lie more logically in the technical areas of chemistry, mechanical engineering, and electronics.

Collegially yours,
H.B.J. Clifford

Heathcliff
United States
Local time: 18:14
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in pair: 953

1 day 2 hrs

categories

Explanation:
Along the same lines as Heather, I think that an extension of the range of categories could be justified. Some overlap is inevitable. Any given text naturally covers a number of fields. Here are a few suggestions for separate fields :

Law
Patents
Insurance
Engineering
Physics
Chemistry
Biology/Life Sciences
Computing/Internet/Multimdeia

I have applied that well-known lawyer's trick of asking for more than you really think you are likely to get on the basis that some of it might get through.

In particular, although it is difficult for me to judge, as I have only been on PROZ for a few weeks, there does seem to be a real demand for the last category of questions. All of us are increasingly concerned by this specificity and we need to pick all the brains out there that we can!

All the best,

Nikki

Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Local time: 03:14
Native speaker of:

English
PRO pts in pair: 4638

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