| Pages in topic: [1 2] > |
The glossary issue - a referee system Thread poster: Lia Fail (X)
|
|---|
Lia Fail (X) 
Spain
Local time: 23:47
Spanish to English
+ ...
There are many imperfections, as far as I'm concerned, in the Kudoz system, including the confidence function.
And just like poor answers are often backed up by a totally unwarranted confidence rating of 5, so wrong answers are awarded points or - possibly worse - entered in the glossary (worse, I say, given the faith some people have in the word 'glossary' -- and the WWW is full of facile and totally unreliable glossaries).
That said, I have found the glossary - as i... See more There are many imperfections, as far as I'm concerned, in the Kudoz system, including the confidence function.
And just like poor answers are often backed up by a totally unwarranted confidence rating of 5, so wrong answers are awarded points or - possibly worse - entered in the glossary (worse, I say, given the faith some people have in the word 'glossary' -- and the WWW is full of facile and totally unreliable glossaries).
That said, I have found the glossary - as is - to be very helpful, not in the strict sense of a source word/term= target term/word equivalence, but when I weigh up a number of entries and their questions/answers (for example, for a word like 'planteamiento' in Spanish, which sometimes is a bit unpindownable, with no equivalent:-).
So given what I see as the impossible task of actually editing the glossary (who, what, when, how...?), can't we have a section to contest closed questions?
I already have done this occasionally in the ASK ASKER section after the question is closed, when I'm pretty sure the answer chosen is pretty wrong, but the problem is that I only have a limited space in which to post my argument, and have to keep ASKing ASKER to post more data.
Why can't we include a section for commenting on chosen answers AFTER they are closed? Given that most of us use the glossary as I have indicated (weighing and balancing answers, and not just just blindly accepting the glossary entry, which is often wrong).
To avoid forum-length discussions, this could be limited to answerers plus a maximum (say 3-5) of other contributors. These 'referees' could contest the chosen answer by providing evidence of the wrongness of the chosen answer and in favour of their/an alternative.
Since there would be no points involved, it's likely to attract only those who have an immediate interest (i.e. they answered the Q) or those who feel they are capable of putting forward a good and - most importantly - an objective argument.
And glossary entries could perhaps, be eventually edited -- although I see that as an impossible task (who, what when, how....) -- but, as a start, at least maybe a system of marking entries could be applied that referred one to 'polemical' entries that were contested.
[Edited at 2006-12-04 01:19]
[Edited at 2006-12-04 01:19] ▲ Collapse
| | | |
Henry Hinds
United States
Local time: 15:47
English to Spanish
+ ...
In memoriam
I see the problem and certainly it must be a big one. The best answer I can come up with is that all that seek wisdom must themselves be wise enough to figure out what to accept and what to reject.
Nothing is provided to you on a silver platter.
| | | |
Hipyan Nopri
Indonesia
Local time: 04:47
Member (2005)
English to Indonesian
+ ...
Lia Fail wrote:
Why can't we include a section for commenting on chosen answers AFTER they are closed?
And glossary entries could perhaps, be eventually edited -- although I see that as an impossible task (who, what when, how....) -- but, as a start, at least maybe a system of marking entries could be applied that referred one to 'polemical' entries that were contested.
It is often the case that the asker awards a point to an inappropriate answer. The section would be really useful to correct the mistake.
I support your idea to edit the glossary entry.
However, what about the point that has been awarded to a certain answerer? Should it be cancelled and transferred to the editor/reviser? Or should the point remain to be awarded to the previous answer?
In my point of view, as a logical consequence of editing the glossary entry, the point awarding should be edited too.
[Edited at 2006-12-04 04:33]
[Edited at 2006-12-04 04:35]
| | | |
ErichEko ⟹⭐
Indonesia
Local time: 04:47
Member (2007)
English to Indonesian
+ ...
| Dont Let Them Through Before Reviews | Dec 4, 2006 |
Lia Fail wrote:
There are many imperfections, as far as I'm concerned, in the Kudoz system, including the confidence function.
And just like poor answers are often backed up by a totally unwarranted confidence rating of 5, so wrong answers are awarded points or - possibly worse - entered in the glossary (worse, I say, given the faith some people have in the word 'glossary' -- and the WWW is full of facile and totally unreliable glossaries).
[Edited at 2006-12-04 01:19]
[Edited at 2006-12-04 01:19]
Yes, quality of KudoZ glossary is questionable. Although we are supposed to think, not to accept things readily, it is still sickening when a reference used by people of all levels of intelligence is so full of errors and mistakes; worse still, misleading. It's just like reading an English-English dictionary definitely defining red is green and green is yellow.
I propose that people are barred to post anything into public glossary from now on, but allow them to post into their own private glossary. Anything posted to public glossary is automatically sent to a pending-review database. Only after a to-be-defined review procedure is done upon a posting then will it be let through.
| | |
|
|
|
| I never use the glossary as such, | Dec 4, 2006 |
but I find ProZ.com term search useful.
Like Lia, I weigh up the entries and their questions/answers.
IMHO, having the perfect glossary is simply utopic - like the perfect dictionnary. Isn't our job crossing and double-checking multiple resources to find the best possible answer in a given sentence/text?
ProZ.com search is one among many resources, and not bad as it is. I don't see how it could ever be complete or even 'right'. I does aggravate me when I see asker... See more but I find ProZ.com term search useful.
Like Lia, I weigh up the entries and their questions/answers.
IMHO, having the perfect glossary is simply utopic - like the perfect dictionnary. Isn't our job crossing and double-checking multiple resources to find the best possible answer in a given sentence/text?
ProZ.com search is one among many resources, and not bad as it is. I don't see how it could ever be complete or even 'right'. I does aggravate me when I see askers chosing 'wrong' answers, but when I'm using the search feature, I find it much more interesting and enlightning to read all the answers than to see which one was selected.
Henry summed it up perfectly: "all that seek wisdom must themselves be wise enough to figure out what to accept and what to reject." Exactly.
Have a nice week,
Marie-Christine ▲ Collapse
| | | |
tazdog (X)
Spain
Local time: 23:47
Spanish to English
+ ...
| already exists | Dec 4, 2006 |
Lia Fail wrote:
Why can't we include a section for commenting on chosen answers AFTER they are closed? Given that most of us use the glossary as I have indicated (weighing and balancing answers, and not just just blindly accepting the glossary entry, which is often wrong).
If you are talking about the glossary (not the term search), this possibility already exists. If you go to Kudoz > Kudoz Open Glossary, and then select the language pair and the subject you want, you'll get a list of all the terms in the glossary. The third column is "Comments," and each entry in the glossary has an "Add Comment" link. If you click on this, another window opens up where you can add your comment.
Once a comment has been added, a small number appears to show that there is a comment. I have only seen my own comments (this feature is apparently not used much at all), which have disagreed with the entry, so I only know what the negative comments look like: a small red "-1". I imagine that this works like the agree/disagree feature in the Kudoz questions, so that "agrees" would be "+" rather than "-" and maybe blue rather than red. (Maybe someone who actually knows this for sure can enlighten us.)
If you want to see how the comments look (I think you have to click on the "add comment" link itself, rather than the number, to see the comment), go to Spanish > English, Construction/Civil Engineering, and look at the entry for "pilotadoras" (for example).
I always use the term search feature rather than the glossary (I find the glossary slow and unwieldy) and always, always look at the questions and all of the answers provided, and especially WHO provided the answers, before I make up my mind. I often add disagrees to answers I know are wrong, and have even added my own answer even though the question was closed a long time ago, just for the record.
| | | |
Lia Fail (X)
Spain
Local time: 23:47
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Hipyan Nopri wrote: Lia Fail wrote:
Why can't we include a section for commenting on chosen answers AFTER they are closed?
And glossary entries could perhaps, be eventually edited -- although I see that as an impossible task (who, what when, how....) -- but, as a start, at least maybe a system of marking entries could be applied that referred one to 'polemical' entries that were contested.
It is often the case that the asker awards a point to an inappropriate answer. The section would be really useful to correct the mistake. I support your idea to edit the glossary entry. However, what about the point that has been awarded to a certain answerer? Should it be cancelled and transferred to the editor/reviser? Or should the point remain to be awarded to the previous answer? In my point of view, as a logical consequence of editing the glossary entry, the point awarding should be edited too. [Edited at 2006-12-04 04:33] [Edited at 2006-12-04 04:35]
Hi Hipyan
There are many people who disagree with the points system anyway, and it's probably partially responsible for poor quality answers.
I think one of the more interesting aspects of a 'refereed' answer should be that it would not be for points.
1. The wrongly awarded points in teh first place, so what? We're here to help and be helped, not to win or lose points. The points should remain awarded to the original chosen answer, simply becuase refereeing is not about points but about the opportunity to contest an answer (and see 2).
2. If an answer was to be potentially refereed, it would in fact, make people more responsible for the answers they choose, as they would be shown up if the answer they accepted was contested. And they would have committed an injustice to a colleague. So these would act as disincentives to hasty and unconsidered decisions as to answers.
Finally, it's not about editing glossary entries or correcting answers. To set up such systems would be very difficult, as they would have to be extremely objective, which is pretty much impossible (as I mentioned, who, what, how, etc would do these tasks?).
I'm proposing a way for people to contest wrong answers. The people likely to contest are answerers who feel their answer was correct/more correct, or who are certain the chosen answer is the least right. It's sometimes actually easier to argue against a wrong answer than it is to propose a right answer.
And the system should allow a few others who might be genuinely interested in/provoked by what they perceive to be a wrong answer to provide arguments against the chosen (wrong) answer.
The ultimate idea is that when others come across this answer, they will have additional information about the Q. To date, a chosen answer is closed, full stop, no further discussion.
How many times have you searched in Proz and found 2 or 3 postings, contrasted them, compared them with your own research, and felt that you could add some information to each of those answers that might help others in the future?
As an example, one of those rather grey areas in ES--> EN medical translation is 'esfuerzo':, which could be translated as 'effort' or 'stress', it depends on specific context. I contested the chosen answer (stress angina) as follows, but I had to ASK ASKER 6 times to post my arguments:
Lia Fail: I'm afraid I disagree. First there are 54,500 hits on Google for 'effort angina' compared to 728 for 'stress angina'. Second, there are 498 hits in Google for "stress angina" + "exercise stress test" compared to .........
Lia Fail: Sorry, start again! ..... 498 hits in Google for "effort angina" + "exercise stress test" compared to 37 hits for "stress angina" + "exercise stress test". Thirdly, if I include the "American Journal of Cardiology" in the search ............
Lia Fail: ...there are 3 times more hits for 'effort angina'. Finally if I enter 'effort angine' plus AMA for American Medical Association, the FIRST 4 hits are AMA publications, whereas if I do the same for 'stress angina', ......
Lia Fail: ...the 1st hit is a medical site for the general public- not for doctors, the second one is a Portuguese site, the 3rd one opens with "Dear Friend: At Last: We Can Now Cure Pain and Prevent Disease -- Naturally -- At No Cost", and the 4th one is..
Lia Fail: ... a list of CD-ROMs. Finally, to contest XXXXX, a patents site is not the place to look for medical vocab, nor even Wiki (even though it's a fab place for general knowledge). Also the definition provided is of cardiac stress ...........
Lia Fail: ...which is not effort angina (also referred to as stable angina). See http://heart.healthcentersonline.com/noninvasivecardiactest/... versus http://heart.healthcentersonline.com/cholesterol/angina.cfm
| | | |
Lia Fail (X)
Spain
Local time: 23:47
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | providing additional info | Dec 4, 2006 |
Henry Hinds wrote:
I see the problem and certainly it must be a big one. The best answer I can come up with is that all that seek wisdom must themselves be wise enough to figure out what to accept and what to reject.
Nothing is provided to you on a silver platter.
Hi Henry
You are obviously an experienced translator and not likely to make mistakes to the same degree as someone less experienced. However, all translators have to start somewhere, and in the interest of KudoZ not misleading translators with less experience (who might easily fall into the trap of accepting that the term is 'stress angina' and not 'effort angina' - see my reply to Hipyan), we should have a way to contest all wrong answers we happen upon:-)
And actually, it's not just about inexperienced translators, sometime I make mistakes becuase, for whatever reason, I'm not alert to something, or happen not to see the wood for the trees.
If I came across, in my research, a Kudoz answer and saw that it had been contested, then I would be alerted to a problem and would be sure to read the arguments against the answer.
| | |
|
|
|
Lia Fail (X)
Spain
Local time: 23:47
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | glossary reviewing | Dec 4, 2006 |
Erich Ekoputra wrote:
Anything posted to public glossary is automatically sent to a pending-review database. Only after a to-be-defined review procedure is done upon a posting then will it be let through.
But that's the problem, noone knows how to set up an objective peer-review procedure for the glossary. And I would still be suspicious of such a glossary, I'm afraid.
| | | |
Lia Fail (X)
Spain
Local time: 23:47
Spanish to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Qs not entered in the glossary | Dec 4, 2006 |
Cindy Chadd wrote: Lia Fail wrote:
Why can't we include a section for commenting on chosen answers AFTER they are closed? Given that most of us use the glossary as I have indicated (weighing and balancing answers, and not just just blindly accepting the glossary entry, which is often wrong).
If you are talking about the glossary (not the term search), this possibility already exists. If you go to Kudoz > Kudoz Open Glossary, and then select the language pair and the subject you want, you'll get a list of all the terms in the glossary. The third column is "Comments," and each entry in the glossary has an "Add Comment" link. If you click on this, another window opens up where you can add your comment. Once a comment has been added, a small number appears to show that there is a comment. I have only seen my own comments (this feature is apparently not used much at all), which have disagreed with the entry, so I only know what the negative comments look like: a small red "-1". I imagine that this works like the agree/disagree feature in the Kudoz questions, so that "agrees" would be "+" rather than "-" and maybe blue rather than red. (Maybe someone who actually knows this for sure can enlighten us.) If you want to see how the comments look (I think you have to click on the "add comment" link itself, rather than the number, to see the comment), go to Spanish > English, Construction/Civil Engineering, and look at the entry for "pilotadoras" (for example). I always use the term search feature rather than the glossary (I find the glossary slow and unwieldy) and always, always look at the questions and all of the answers provided, and especially WHO provided the answers, before I make up my mind. I often add disagrees to answers I know are wrong, and have even added my own answer even though the question was closed a long time ago, just for the record.
Hi Cindy
The reason I don't know this option is becuase I never use the glossary. When I seacrch ProZ, it's through Google, and I go directly to the Qs.
I almost never make entries to the glossary either, unless I'm 100% certain and there's a perfect equivalence between the source and target.
So, it's not about contesting glossary entries, as not all Q/As enter the glossary. Apart from my own arguments above about why I personally don't enter items, there's also the simple fact that certain Q/As don't lend themselves to being glossaried.
What I would like is a way to contest Qs directly, irrespective of whether they are/are not entered with an A in the glossary. As illustrated in the answer to Hipyan, there is an option of ASK ASKER, but the space is too small.
Finally, you say: " I always use the term search feature rather than the glossary (I find the glossary slow and unwieldy) and always, always look at the questions and all of the answers provided, and especially WHO provided the answers, before I make up my mind. I often add disagrees to answers I know are wrong, and have even added my own answer even though the question was closed a long time ago, just for the record."
So we agree:-)... But imagine if - as well as all your own checks and balances - each closed Q/A page had an additional section in which someone - theoretically disinterested (no points involved) - had put forward (theoretically) well considered arguments in relation to teh Q/A.
[Edited at 2006-12-04 13:42]
| | | |
| glossary issue | Dec 4, 2006 |
I would like to say that I am entirely with Henry Hinds and Marie-Christine who point out the limitations of a 'glossary' which is maintained by translators all over the world.
As a professional translator, I know that the KudoZ-Glossary can only be one of many resources, that I can consult, for guidance, if a have to find the answer to a tricky terminology question, but that, ultimately, it is I who makes the decision and carries the responsibility for the translation that I provi... See more I would like to say that I am entirely with Henry Hinds and Marie-Christine who point out the limitations of a 'glossary' which is maintained by translators all over the world.
As a professional translator, I know that the KudoZ-Glossary can only be one of many resources, that I can consult, for guidance, if a have to find the answer to a tricky terminology question, but that, ultimately, it is I who makes the decision and carries the responsibility for the translation that I provide to my customer.
Principally, I think that once a question is closed it should remain closed. There is the edit function after all to entries made on the KudoZ-Glossary. But I certainly wouldn't want any messing around with points that have been awarded to an answerer. Once they have been awarded, that should be it. It should remain the asker's privilege to award points for the answer that has helped THEM most. That is what KudoZ points should be for - helping other translators, not for making glossary entries - for which the form of reward for this is that they gain exposure.
If other translators are not happy with an entry on the Kudoz-Glossary, they have the opportunity to make an alternative entry in their personal glossaries. ▲ Collapse
| | | |
Mats Wiman
Sweden
Local time: 23:47
Member (2000)
German to Swedish
+ ...
In memoriam | The KOG is uniquely good | Dec 4, 2006 |
Of all glossaries in the world, the KOG (KudoZ Open Glossary) is the only one where the reader gets a lot of guidance as to the quality of answers by the fact that in many cases there is a lively discussion preceding the selection of the 'winning' answer.
Most other glossaries are just list of words without references, name of the source, context or even mentioning of word class, tempus and tense.
There are of course also a lot of doubtful answers in the KOG, but they a... See more Of all glossaries in the world, the KOG (KudoZ Open Glossary) is the only one where the reader gets a lot of guidance as to the quality of answers by the fact that in many cases there is a lively discussion preceding the selection of the 'winning' answer.
Most other glossaries are just list of words without references, name of the source, context or even mentioning of word class, tempus and tense.
There are of course also a lot of doubtful answers in the KOG, but they are often discernable by the quality of the question, the number of answerers, who asked, who answered and how.
The wish that the the KOG should be edited is so far fruitless because there are no free resources to do it, however desirable it might be.
Henry summed it up perfectly: "all that seek wisdom must themselves be wise enough to figure out what to accept and what to reject."
Also remember that the points are there to say 'Thank You' for "the most HELPFUL answer" which is not necessarily identical with the academically most correct answer.
KudoZ is a multifaceted thing:
http://www.proz.com/?sp=bb/viewtopic&topic_id=7722&forum_id=48
[Edited at 2006-12-04 16:38] ▲ Collapse
| | |
|
|
|
marie-christine périé wrote:
but I find ProZ.com term search useful.
Like Lia, I weigh up the entries and their questions/answers.
IMHO, having the perfect glossary is simply utopic - like the perfect dictionnary. Isn't our job crossing and double-checking multiple resources to find the best possible answer in a given sentence/text?
ProZ.com search is one among many resources, and not bad as it is. I don't see how it could ever be complete or even 'right'. I does aggravate me when I see askers chosing 'wrong' answers, but when I'm using the search feature, I find it much more interesting and enlightning to read all the answers than to see which one was selected.
Henry summed it up perfectly: "all that seek wisdom must themselves be wise enough to figure out what to accept and what to reject." Exactly.
My words, agree 100%.
Walter
[Edited at 2006-12-04 16:53]
| | | |
KOG is one of the most valuable and useful tools Proz.com has. However -as happens with any other tool -one should know how to use it.
* To begin with, I search the glossaries. If I find the question has already been made, I read ALL the answers given and the follow-up discusion. The answer that got the points might be the right one for a certain case, context, target audience or time, and might not be so for a different case, context, target audience or time. So, as Henry said, it�... See more KOG is one of the most valuable and useful tools Proz.com has. However -as happens with any other tool -one should know how to use it.
* To begin with, I search the glossaries. If I find the question has already been made, I read ALL the answers given and the follow-up discusion. The answer that got the points might be the right one for a certain case, context, target audience or time, and might not be so for a different case, context, target audience or time. So, as Henry said, it´s up to us to be wise enough to choose.
If I don`t find the proper answer, I post the question and in a few minutes I have several answers to choose from.
* You can always add an agree, disagree or a neutral comment even when the question has already been closed. That may be useful for the colleagues in the future.
* You can also post comments in the glossary.
However, this is not useful since nobody knows your comments are there. I have already suggested several times - in previous threads - to add an icon or something to indicate "this entry has a comment" or "it has 2 negative comments" or whatever. Many colleagues agreed, but no response from staff so far. That is something that should be in the TO DO list.
Coleagues that don`t use KOG don't really know what they`re missing.
[Edited at 2006-12-04 16:54] ▲ Collapse
| | | |
| Pages in topic: [1 2] > |
Login to reply/comment 
