Too many easy J to E question Thread poster: Brian Lottino (X)
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Brian Lottino (X)
Japanese to English
I\'ve been tracking the JapaneseEnglish Kudoz questions for several months now. And to my disgust I found that approximately 80-85% of the questions asked are from people trying to use Proz.com translators as their personal dictionaries. Recently someone wanted to know how to say \'Michelle\' in Japanese. We are incesantly asked how to say \'I love you\', and things like \'food\', \'bathroom, and \'kick\' are commonplace too. I don\'t think that is what KudoZ is for. Just today, some anonymo... See more I\'ve been tracking the JapaneseEnglish Kudoz questions for several months now. And to my disgust I found that approximately 80-85% of the questions asked are from people trying to use Proz.com translators as their personal dictionaries. Recently someone wanted to know how to say \'Michelle\' in Japanese. We are incesantly asked how to say \'I love you\', and things like \'food\', \'bathroom, and \'kick\' are commonplace too. I don\'t think that is what KudoZ is for. Just today, some anonymous jerk wanted to know what \'Wang Chung\' is in English. THAT\'S NOT EVEN JAPANESE. And what\'s worse, somebody attempted to answer the question, and got it backwards at that. Instead of \'Wang Chung\' > English, they explained how to write it in Japanese. Even citing various website that use way of writing it. I, for one, can\'t take it anymore so I am going to withdraw completely from participating in this -potentially- wonderful website. ▲ Collapse
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and fully agree. Whoever is in charge of purging or \"moderating\" should be more sensitive to this issue. \"NO MORE I LOVE YOUs\", they can go to freetranslation.com.
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Hi Brian,
Easy questions such as \"food\", \"kick\", etc. are not frowned upon (pls. check the site\'s policy at http://www.proz.com/kudoz/). As to Wang Chung, if it\'s not Japanese, you can contact your language pair moderator (the link is at the bottom of every question\'s page) and ask them to change the language pair for the question. Repeated questions (\"I love you\", \"Merry Christmas\", etc.) h... See more Hi Brian,
Easy questions such as \"food\", \"kick\", etc. are not frowned upon (pls. check the site\'s policy at http://www.proz.com/kudoz/). As to Wang Chung, if it\'s not Japanese, you can contact your language pair moderator (the link is at the bottom of every question\'s page) and ask them to change the language pair for the question. Repeated questions (\"I love you\", \"Merry Christmas\", etc.) have been discussed a number of times. Here are some links on the mater of easies:
http://www.proz.com/?sp=bb/viewtopic&eid_c=3087&topic=65&forum=13&19
http://www.proz.com/?sp=bb/viewtopic&eid_c=3087&topic=48&forum=23&12
http://www.proz.com/?sp=bb/viewtopic&eid_c=3087&topic=797&forum=23&start=15
If you decide to stay with ProZ, you\'re welcome to join the discussion... 
Cheers,
Andrea ▲ Collapse
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| friendly advice | Oct 8, 2002 |
human beings have that wonderful quality of ignoring things that annoy them. I suggest you exercise that privilege and get on with it.
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Elías Sauza 
Mexico
Local time: 01:21
Member (2002)
English to Spanish
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| According to my experience | Oct 8, 2002 |
In the English to Spanish forum only a negligent percentage is represented by that annoying type of questions. KudoZ keeps being mostly a proZ tool.
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| You should not be having that problem | Oct 8, 2002 |
I understand your feeling--most J to E questions are \"easy\" and uninteresting. However, we have provided a way to steer clear of the easy questions. Since you are only set to receive notifications of PRO level questions, here are the translations of the last 14 terms you would have seen:
- camera-ready artwork
- extrusion products
- tribological property
- erosiveness
- critical strain
- polyvinyl chloride blend/halogen sub... See more I understand your feeling--most J to E questions are \"easy\" and uninteresting. However, we have provided a way to steer clear of the easy questions. Since you are only set to receive notifications of PRO level questions, here are the translations of the last 14 terms you would have seen:
- camera-ready artwork
- extrusion products
- tribological property
- erosiveness
- critical strain
- polyvinyl chloride blend/halogen substituted styrene
- bare and palletized cargo
- a decrease in product yield
- reaction between a phenolic compound and a carbonate precursor, such as phosgene
- ocean container freight, seaborne containerized cargo, sea container cargo
- wholesale rate
- gull wing
- stethoscopic rod
- idle timeout
These are not easy.
Therefore, I am surprised by your posting. Yours used to be a frequent complaint, but the way we have things set up now, you need never be forced to even look at the easy questions...do you really see them without going out of your way to do so?
Moreover, we have a kudoz client coming soon that will further isolate you from those annoying easy questions. Stick around and try it, it should be out in about two weeks.
Henry ▲ Collapse
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kbamert
Local time: 09:21
French to German
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| Affiliate questions are always ranked EASY | Oct 8, 2002 |
To avoid questions from affiliate sites, refrain from turning on notification of EASY kudoz questions. (Notification is off by default.)
(By the way, I don\'t like the wording of the last site either, and will write to the agency to get it changed. But if it is any consolation, that agency has been responsible for at least 18 paid ProZ.com job postings, of up to 40,000 words each.)
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kbamert
Local time: 09:21
French to German
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| by citing this message it was not my intention to have scolded this agency | Oct 8, 2002 |
Hello
quote:...and will write to the agency to get it changed.quote
I think it\'s funny and I think there might be, for some of us, a little truth in it...
But, thank you anyway for your attention to this kind of questions...
Best regards
Kurt
P.S. I am advocate of liberty of expression...
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Dave Greatrix
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:21
Dutch to English
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| Brian, quiz questions are only easy when you know the answers. | Oct 8, 2002 |
Would you know how to give the answers to these easy terms in Dutch??
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Clarisa Moraña
United States
Local time: 02:21
Member (2002)
English to Spanish
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| Two things... | Oct 8, 2002 |
Brian, how do you know that \'Wang Chung\' is not Japanese? Because you know Japanese... A few months ago I asked a question Chinese-Spanish, and Chinese-English, and you know what? People who knew told that may question was Tibetan, not Chinese...
Second, why don\'t you deactivate your e-mail preferences so you don\'t \"easy\" Kudoz questions? About a year ago I did the same complaint, I was annoyed because of the many \"easy\" questions I received in my pair (English>Spanish), and ... See more Brian, how do you know that \'Wang Chung\' is not Japanese? Because you know Japanese... A few months ago I asked a question Chinese-Spanish, and Chinese-English, and you know what? People who knew told that may question was Tibetan, not Chinese...
Second, why don\'t you deactivate your e-mail preferences so you don\'t \"easy\" Kudoz questions? About a year ago I did the same complaint, I was annoyed because of the many \"easy\" questions I received in my pair (English>Spanish), and someone told to deactivate my e-mail preferences... It\'s easy.
Regards,
Clarisa
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| After having blown fuses myself over a "Tech/Engineerg" ques to translate 1,2,3 into Swedish... | Oct 8, 2002 |
And being gently chided to further reflection upon my reaction, I have come to the conclusion that superdumb KudoZ questions make ready lightning rods for other frustrations of the workday and that it is humbler to ignore them and humblest to answer them.
[addsig]
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Brian Lottino (X)
Japanese to English
TOPIC STARTER | Apparently I was mistaken... | Oct 10, 2002 |
I made the statement that I was upset that people were trying to use us as their personal dictionaries, but according to most of your responses, it seems you want it that way. Where I was thinking that Kudoz was a place for people doing translation as a job (or on their way to becoming a translator) to get help, apparently it\'s just another online dictionary. I was thinking Proz was a more focused, specialized resource, but by it\'s being so open to the public that becomes more difficult to s... See more I made the statement that I was upset that people were trying to use us as their personal dictionaries, but according to most of your responses, it seems you want it that way. Where I was thinking that Kudoz was a place for people doing translation as a job (or on their way to becoming a translator) to get help, apparently it\'s just another online dictionary. I was thinking Proz was a more focused, specialized resource, but by it\'s being so open to the public that becomes more difficult to see through all the clutter.
Some people didn\'t like what I said about the asker of \'wang chung\' in kudoz, and I can understand that, assuming that the asker didn\'t know what language that came from then they could not really be blamed for asking based on their best guess. But keep in mind that as I mentioned above I was thinking this site was a translators resource in which case the possibility that that person was serious becomes very low.
As far as avoiding the repeated easy questions by having my email settings to PRO, there is a new problem. I have no clue what most of that stuff is in Japanese. I am not fluent. So why am I so bothered by those people asking questions that I may have asked just a few years ago? Again I must refer to my previous understanding of this website. If this site is a collection of translators, then that implies the overall level of competency is well above beginner. So an easy kudoz would be difficult relative to the level of a beginner.
So to sum it up, I think this site used to be more specialized, but as it openned the flood gates to the public domain, it\'s specialization became blurred by the enormous number of true beginners asking questions and so forth. That is to say, all my complaints were based on a misunderstanding of this website\'s purpose. If everyone is happy being the world\'s personal dictionary, great, have fun, I was just hoping for a \"translator\'s\" website not a \"translation\" website. There are already plenty of those. ▲ Collapse
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