| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6] > | Is making random answers in many pairs acceptable, or KudoZ spam? Thread poster: Tomas Mosler, DipTrans IoLET MCIL MITI
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We are not allowed to speculate on people's intentions. Perhaps these people genuinely feel they are helping..........
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I know that this person does not have any bad intentions, but only pure intention to help the asker.
Sorry, but IMHO this is not tenable. If their pure intention is to help, then the best help they can provide is to sustain providing apparently wrong answers out of their working pairs.
They are quessing or providing MT-like answers, they have to be aware of that as part of their action, so how much pure intention to help that can be? That is as if I go giving a lecture about Finnish-Svahili translations!
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We are not allowed to speculate on people's intentions.
Speculations are prohibited, but spamming is not?
Apart from that, the rule is not about intention to help, but about help. Apparently this is not the case here - whatever are his intentions (which we don't know), the actions and results (which we do know) are NOT helpful.
Perhaps these people genuinely feel they are helping..........
Erm, with this you can justify about anything I'm afraid. That's just like if I say an offense and then declare I felt I'm being nice. (Besides, isn't this comment of yours a speculation? )
| | | | | That's the difficult part to distinguish | Apr 19, 2011 |
Tomas Mosler wrote: I know that this person does not have any bad intentions, but only pure intention to help the asker. Sorry, but IMHO this is not tenable. If their pure intention is to help, then the best help they can provide is to sustain providing apparently wrong answers out of their working pairs. They are quessing or providing MT-like answers, they have to be aware of that as part of their action, so how much pure intention to help that can be? That is as if I go giving a lecture about Finnish-Svahili translations!
I totally understand what you mean, but I have a different perspective. Talking from my experience, this incident which this topic is based on, we experience the same thing in our own working language pairs where most of the answerers and askers are native speakers or in their working language(s). Every now and then, we have people who give completely off-track answers (to be honest with you, I've made that same mistake and still do sometimes, of course, not intentionally), and I'm sure we should all be guilty for making mistakes. And the reason for giving an off-track answer is because the answerer does not specialize nor work in that field, or has misinterpreted the question itself. This happens, since we are all humans and nobody is perfect. And the sad part is that the answerer does not realize until somebody disagrees with his/her answer(s).
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| Playing devil's advocate, not speculating at all | Apr 19, 2011 |
Tomas Mosler wrote: We are not allowed to speculate on people's intentions. Speculations are prohibited, but spamming is not? Apart from that, the rule is not about intention to help, but about help. Apparently this is not the case here - whatever are his intentions (which we don't know), the actions and results (which we do know) are NOT helpful. Perhaps these people genuinely feel they are helping.......... Erm, with this you can justify about anything I'm afraid. That's just like if I say an offense and then declare I felt I'm being nice. (Besides, isn't this comment of yours a speculation? )
But it is true that speculation on intentions is not allowed
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Of course, but then such an answerer can stand corrected and stop putting his nose into things he/she don't understand, and he is not spamming all around to "help" with every question; or at least it is possible to explain to him shortly what is wrong (but how do you want to explain to a Turkish speaker translating into English the basics of Czech grammar in the first place?).
[Edited at 2011-04-19 10:42 GMT]
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But it is true that speculation on intentions is not allowed
Well IMHO it is possible to speculate about anything (or do we have a rule against this??), but as I wrote, this is NOT about intentions, but about (no) help.
So, whatever are his intentions, is he giving help? I say no.
And if that is not considered a violation of 1.1 (also given the scope of his activity), then I would like to hear from staff why not.
| | | | Paul Stevens 
Local time: 20:49
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Interpretation of "giving help"? | Apr 19, 2011 |
Tomas,
At the end of the day, unfortunately, the interpretation of "giving help" is never going to be clear-cut as it is a subjective thing, so, IMO, it is sadly impossible to say categorically that he is not giving help.
Having said that, I fully agree with where you're coming from and feel that the site staff should be looking at taking action against answerers who regularly answer questions in language combinations for which they clearly have no qualification, irres... See more Tomas,
At the end of the day, unfortunately, the interpretation of "giving help" is never going to be clear-cut as it is a subjective thing, so, IMO, it is sadly impossible to say categorically that he is not giving help.
Having said that, I fully agree with where you're coming from and feel that the site staff should be looking at taking action against answerers who regularly answer questions in language combinations for which they clearly have no qualification, irrespective of whether their answers use MT or not.
[Edited at 2011-04-19 10:50 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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| blah relativism :) | Apr 19, 2011 |
Thanks for agreement - anyway:
the interpretation "giving help" is never going to be clear-cut as it is a subjective thing
Well then the rule 1.1 - or the part about help - should be removed? Or how could the staff possibly objectively decide on violation of that rule?
so, IMO, it is sadly impossible to say categorically that he is not giving help.
I would like to hear from the staff what kind of linguistic help is he providing with his series of off-track off-language answers - this kind of continuous activity (compared to random mistakes in KudoZ anyone does) is not what I would consider part of "a professional resource" as the site labels itself.
[Edited at 2011-04-19 16:10 GMT]
| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 21:49
Spanish to English
+ ...
Yes, this pair (and others, not always offering answers either but asking questions too) are pretty well known by most regular users. I think most serious translators will have got their measure by now, and my initial ire having tempered, I now even find them quite amusing and give a little round of applause when our Hellenic chum occasionally gets one right. We shouldn't be too harsh, they likely think they are helping out with their two cents, even though it's only funny money...
| | | | | Contact a moderator or submit a support request | Apr 19, 2011 |
Tomas Mosler wrote: Rule 3.7 is there to protect them. Yeah, but what about the rule 1.1 to protect US? "Help" and glossary-building KudoZ are provided only for terms help and glossary building respectively. Use of the platform for advertising, discussions, or purposes other than getting or giving help with terms is prohibited. His answers are apparently exactly as much help as getting spam, I say. Could any moderator / admin express the ProZ standing on this kind of behaviour?
Some time ago now, when I was a moderator, we had a person in the Danish community who tried to 'introduce a little fun' as she put it, and use KudoZ for blogging and discussions. She did not keep to Danish either. I am afraid I chickened out, because I discovered that she had connections in the small town where I live, but staff and another long-standing moderator took action, and it worked in the end.
Collect a list of the troublemaker's answers and ask for help. You can mention names and give links in an support request, which you are not allowed to do in the forums. It is not always easy to see the picture across several language pairs, so staff may not be aware of the problem. It is certainly worth a try, and I hope you succeed.
Otherwise, block them and ignore them as neilmac suggests.
| | | | | Our polyglot friend | Apr 19, 2011 |
I used to think well, he provides some harmless amusement, and he does have an impressive (if very sketchy) knowledge of many languages.
But then, in an unguarded moment, he admitted that he gets his answers from Google Translate! So he just sits there all day feeding questions into Google Translate and entering the answers into KudoZ, even if they make no sense. It seems like an exercise in total fuitility to me, and he obviously has masochistic tendencies because he gets more dis... See more I used to think well, he provides some harmless amusement, and he does have an impressive (if very sketchy) knowledge of many languages.
But then, in an unguarded moment, he admitted that he gets his answers from Google Translate! So he just sits there all day feeding questions into Google Translate and entering the answers into KudoZ, even if they make no sense. It seems like an exercise in total fuitility to me, and he obviously has masochistic tendencies because he gets more disagrees than anyone else on this site. ▲ Collapse
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| No instance of rule violation | Apr 19, 2011 |
Hello all,
Please note that answering KudoZ questions in as many languages one feels comfortable with does not violate any site rule, http://www.proz.com/rules/ , neither does using external tools to build up an answer.
The KudoZ network provides a framework for translators and others to assist each other with translations or explanations of terms and short phrases. So, anyone is invi... See more Hello all,
Please note that answering KudoZ questions in as many languages one feels comfortable with does not violate any site rule, http://www.proz.com/rules/ , neither does using external tools to build up an answer.
The KudoZ network provides a framework for translators and others to assist each other with translations or explanations of terms and short phrases. So, anyone is invited to provide help through the KudoZ platform.
If you think a KudoZ answer is not correct, simply use the peer agreement feature to express your disagreement.
Also, if you observe any form of rule violation, please contact a moderator or site staff via the support system, http://www.proz.com/support
Finally, please let me remind you that commentary on KudoZ askers or answerers, and their postings or decisions to post, is not allowed, http://www.proz.com/siterules/kudoz_answ/3.7#3.7 . Thanks!
Lucía ▲ Collapse
| | | | | bad intentions | Apr 19, 2011 |
But then, in an unguarded moment, he admitted that he gets his answers from Google Translate!
Fabulous! So no good intentions to help. Now only to have a link to that.
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Nice to see some "official" answer, anyway I would like to hear what is considered HELP and what not (as per rule 1.1)? What would have to happen that answering out of a hat would not be considered as providing help? Or if any batch misleading answers are acceptable, then why is this part about help not removed completely? Because if such misleading answers in whatever volume, range and pairs are allegedly "help", then anything can be hidden behind that.
The KudoZ network provides a framework for translators and others to assist each other with translations or explanations of terms and short phrases. So, anyone is invited to provide help through the KudoZ platform.
Yes, as you say exactly, provide help - please could you give one reason why Proz staff thinks that an answerer who repeatedly and consciously provides machine or misleading translations as answers (and in addition out of their language pairs so they cannot evaluate the accurracy) is providing help?
Also, if you observe any form of rule violation, please contact a moderator or site staff via the support system, http://www.proz.com/support
Will do that promptly.
I'm not sure if I understand this correctly, but that point is part of "Kudoz - Rules for answering and making peer comments" only, not of general rules or forum rules. Bitter irony if the mis-users should have more protection than those discussing their dubious activity (anonymously).
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