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Thread poster: Rolf Sunde
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expressisverbis
Portugal
Local time: 20:22
Member (2015)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
| My views about KudoZ and ProZ | Sep 30, 2022 |
I have been a more active member on Kudoz than I am now. I have enjoyed the atmosphere of Kudoz more than I do now. I have used Kudoz help more than I do now...
I try to help colleagues when I have some time free for it and when the question fits my field of work and/or expertise only. I'm curious, I like to learn and help.
I still visit Kudoz Help Network because, fortunately, I can still find good old colleagues with whom I can exchange a few pleasant words and be helped.
I ... See more I have been a more active member on Kudoz than I am now. I have enjoyed the atmosphere of Kudoz more than I do now. I have used Kudoz help more than I do now...
I try to help colleagues when I have some time free for it and when the question fits my field of work and/or expertise only. I'm curious, I like to learn and help.
I still visit Kudoz Help Network because, fortunately, I can still find good old colleagues with whom I can exchange a few pleasant words and be helped.
I can rely on some of them not only because I know they are professional, but because they are friendly.
Those who are not so friendly, I have been learning how to deal with little by little. As we get older, we get a certain "immunity" against it, because after all, life is too short.
That type of "discrimination" is not one of the "problems" only that we see in the terminology forum, there are many more and all of us who participate there know that very well.
A very wise colleague told me once Kudoz is a great source for identifying the personality and behavioural characteristics of its participants. This is true.
I also never thought that Kudoz points would help a translator to be more easily found by a client: it's not a top position in a list that makes a translator more professional.
What makes him/her more professional is his/her behaviour/attitude, his/her answers in the terminology forum and his/her opinion on certain subjects in the general forums.
If I were a client relying only on ProZ, that is what I would look for in a linguist, and I would know very well who I would select. I would ignore the Leaders List or whatever it is called.
I know there is another world beyond Proz where clients come to us, either through our websites, references, or recommendations from colleagues and/or from other professionals.
On the other hand, for me ProZ's website is just one more useful tool, available to us, and that we can all benefit from... but, by playing fair and by showing how professional/human we are.
[Edited at 2022-09-30 11:06 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
| KudoZ 2: Electric Boogaloo | Sep 30, 2022 |
Lieven Malaise wrote:
But you can't know that without references. It's nice to read something like "I have been working for over 20 years in the field and I know that you should translate term X as translation Y", but objectively that's of no use to you if you can't find any confirmation of it.
I don’t think I’ve made myself clear. Allow me to elucidate my previous post.
Of course, one should not blindly adopt a KudoZ answer given by a rando on the internet, especially if they didn’t provide any reference whatsoever. And no, it’s never nice to see an attitude like “I have been working for over 20 years in the field. Therefore, my statement is infallible.” However, when a trustworthy colleague with that much experience can provide a solid reference to back their answer, then it’s not wrong to consider it as a valid solution.
Please note that by colleagues, I didn’t necessarily limit the scope of definition to fellow translators. I’m still in contact with people in the culinary and hotel industries, so I can consult them about certain terminologies when I need to.
Lieven Malaise wrote:
One of the booby traps, by the way, is googling a term, finding a link to a proz kudoz question and assuming it's a correct answer.
Some did provide great answers, complete with credible references.
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Samuel Murray wrote:
I'm not familiar with the WWA system that you're talking about. AFAIK, only outsourcers can get a WWA ranking from 1 to 5. Translators can only get a non-numbered WWA entry, i.e. without any rankings. This means essentially that when a translator gets a WWA, it is worth 4 or 5 points, always. Clients who want to give translators a poor review can't use the WWA system to do it.
So, one translator might have 5 WWAs and another translator might have 10 WWAs, but all we can deduce from that is the the second translator worked for more clients who are willing to give WWAs and that the second translator may have impressed more agencies with their professionalism than the first one.
I was referring to this (relevant part underlined).
ProZ.com FAQs wrote:
10.8 - Is yes the only possible response to the willingness to work again question asked to outsourcers?
When the function was first created, it was decided to ask site users to make entries only for those translators and interpreters with whom they would work again. In other words, it was not possible to make no and maybe entries in response to the question, Would you work again with this person?
In recent years, the option to leave star ratings, from one to five stars, has been added. This option is only available to signed-in outsourcers with no active administrative actions or open non-payment issues.
By default, WWA entries are visible only to the person on whose behalf they are entered. There will never be an obligation to make WWA entries or ratings public.
It sounds very much like LWA on the BB. But unlike LWA, the WWA star rating is less likely to be (ab)used for blackmailing, since individual freelancers wouldn’t have the muscle to do that. It does give more ways for outsourcers to denounce a translator, which can be uncalled for.
[Edited at 2022-09-30 16:25 GMT]
| | | | IrinaN
United States
Local time: 14:22
English to Russian
+ ...
| Elena, I really want to be objective but | Sep 30, 2022 |
With full and sincere understanding of the situation in Russia and on the Russian market...
Elena Doroshenko wrote:
> You have very good chances to be found by clients, not only because of KudoZ points.
I could pay triple for the membership and have a million Kudoz points but I'll always be discriminated by 0.04 rates. I bet my last skirt that 90% of good clients of the high-end translators have materialized years and years ago.
Not like I'm looking for anything here or eager to polish/update my lousy profile
Maybe we should eliminate rates from the profiles altogether.
I'm too busy to play with it now but I promise to set an experiment some time before the end of the year. I'll do just that - polish my profile to make it impeccably written and drop-dead impressive (all true), and remove the rates. I'll let you know about the number and the quality of offers.
Please believe me that I'm not pointing any fingers, only maybe at life:-) but there is no point in doing so anyway:-) I can't change Southeast wind blowing as I write. Just a matter of fact and today's state of affairs.
[Edited at 2022-09-30 15:44 GMT]
| | | | | Yes, points per answer would be a better indicator | Oct 1, 2022 |
Ice Scream wrote:
So ideally KudoZ score should be weighted by average points per answer.
[Edited at 2022-09-27 08:15 GMT]
But we've been discussing this on and off for 20 years, to zero avail. (Some threads on this topic seem to have disappeared.)
This site wants traffic, visitors. Quality plays a secondary role at most, though I don't understand why one must rule out the other.
I agree that "points per answer" would be a better indicator than "total points". Newcomers to the site can easily be misled. And who gains from that? C'est la ProZ vie.
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Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 21:22
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Points per answer | Oct 1, 2022 |
Cilian O'Tuama wrote:
I agree that "points per answer" would be a better indicator than "total points".
Sure, but then many translators won't answer KudoZ questions unless they're sure they'll get 5 points.
| | | | Kevin Fulton
United States
Local time: 15:22
German to English
| Once upon a time | Oct 1, 2022 |
Cilian O'Tuama wrote:
I agree that "points per answer" would be a better indicator than "total points". Newcomers to the site can easily be misled. And who gains from that? C'est la ProZ vie.
In the early days of this site, a well-intentioned gentleman in the German > English section repeatedly offered answers in many areas based largely on intuition and a general dictionary rather than real subject matter expertise. I might also indicate that he was a native speaker of neither German nor English. Many inexperienced askers selected his faulty suggestions, which led to him becoming one of the first to achieve 1000 Kudoz points, which of course increased the likelihood of his responses being selected.
| | | | | You can never be sure | Oct 2, 2022 |
Samuel Murray wrote: Cilian O'Tuama wrote:
I agree that "points per answer" would be a better indicator than "total points". Sure, but then many translators won't answer KudoZ questions unless they're sure they'll get 5 points.
But even if your answer is 100% correct, you can never be sure you'll be awarded the points.
So how would that change anything in terms of answering behaviour?
Member A answers 5 Qs and earns 25 points.
Member B answers 25 Qs and gets 25 points.
Who's probably more reliable? Why not indicate that somewhere?
But we've been through this before - it's a dead end apparently.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 21:22
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Cilian O'Tuama wrote: Samuel Murray wrote: Cilian O'Tuama wrote: Ice Scream wrote:
So ideally KudoZ score should be weighted by average points per answer. I agree that "points per answer" would be a better indicator than "total points". Sure, but then many translators won't answer KudoZ questions unless they're sure they'll get 5 points. But even if your answer is 100% correct, you can never be sure you'll be awarded the points. So how would that change anything in terms of answering behaviour?
Exactly.
With the current system, it doesn't matter if your answer earns only 4 points. Getting lots of "4 point" rewards doesn't currently make your KudoZ score any worse. But if an "average points per answer" metric were used, then getting anything less than 5 points for an answer would be disastrous for the translator (e.g. it might cause you to drop several places in the directory, just because one person disagreed with you). This would mean that not participating is safer than participating. It would then be in translators' best interests to answer only questions that have easy, simple or straight-forward answers. Ultimately, this will make KudoZ less useful for people who really need assistance with difficult questions.
[Edited at 2022-10-02 07:34 GMT]
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Kay Denney
France
Local time: 21:22
French to English
Samuel Murray wrote:
This would mean that not participating is safer than participating. It would then be in translators' best interests to answer only questions that have easy, simple or straight-forward answers. Ultimately, this will make KudoZ less useful for people who really need assistance with difficult questions.
Yeah. Basically, Proz needs a robust kudoz section because that means the website shows up in searches for certain terms etc.
They can't get us to spend time on it without offering us an incentive. They've decided that quality answers should help us be more visible in the directory.
But then again, the suggestion of a "points per answer" rate would probably ensure that people will only give answers if they are sure of being right, and therefore Kudoz answers would be far more reliable.
I dunno, I never post questions in Kudoz but if I did, I'd prefer to get one good answer than ten dodgy answers.
So I take it that Proz prefers quantity over quality.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 21:22
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Kay Denney wrote:
I dunno, I never post questions in Kudoz but if I did, I'd prefer to get one good answer than ten dodgy answers.
If you do start using KudoZ again, I think you'll find that 10 answers are more useful than 1 answer, since there is no way of knowing whether that 1 answer is a good answer or a dodgy answer.
With multiple answers, you have greater choice and a bigger chance of getting a translation that is best suited for your specific text. As you know, there is often not just one, single correct answer to a problem. Also, don't forget, other translators can also agree/disagree with and comment on answers, and can post additional comments, which all help you to make the best decision.
In addition, answerers are allowed to indicate whether they are very sure about their answer or only a little sure of their answer, which is also helpful for you to make a decision. (However, if a translator indicates that he is less sure of his answer, it affects how many points he gets, so if getting 4 points or less would be a bad thing, translators who might know the answer but aren't 100% sure of it would simply not post an answer. It's possible to post an answer as a comment instead of an answer, but then it's more difficult for other translators to indicate whether they agree or disagree with it.)
| | | | ph-b (X)
France
Local time: 21:22
Samuel Murray wrote:
The point of using KudoZ for the sort order is that translators with more KudoZ points have "proven" that they know something about that particular language.
It can also mean that they're vey good at using KudoZ, especially its unwritten rules and codes, and at connecting with the right people, all of which have nothing to do with translation. Applied psychology, perhaps?
[Edited at 2022-10-02 13:52 GMT]
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It varies between languages. In mine, it’s generally someone asking about a specific term, and only one answer is given/needed because it is either right or wrong.
In others, it seems to be all about people splitting hairs over almost identical answers to the wording of a phrase, and the best answer is entirely a matter of opinion.
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Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 21:22
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
Mr. Satan wrote:
However, when a trustworthy colleague with that much experience can provide a solid reference to back their answer, then it’s not wrong to consider it as a valid solution.
My point is that when a colleague can find a solid reference, you yourself could have found it too. I see people posting 3 or 4 Kudoz questions in a row. I would say they do that to save time, not because they are not able to find the right or a possible answer.
[Edited at 2022-10-03 05:59 GMT]
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 21:22
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Different people have access to different resources | Oct 3, 2022 |
Lieven Malaise wrote:
When a colleague can find a solid reference, you yourself could have found it too.
Err, no. Even if the resource is available online, we are all in different search engine bubbles, which means that when you use a certain set of keywords to google for something, you're going to get different results than some other people using the same set of keywords. And oftentimes the resource that is found is not the direct result of a search, but a link that was found after following a search result link. Plus sometimes you just need to know what extra information to add to the search terms to get the desired result. And some people are just better at finding information (and don't mind sharing their expertise).
Sometimes a term can be found in a number of sources, most of which are actually trustworthy. In such cases it is useful if a colleague happens to know of a trustworthy resource that also contains the term.
I do agree, however, that there is an aspect of blind trust (and thus an aspect of having to make a decision on whether to trust). If a translator tells you that a translation comes from a dictionary, and you don't have that dictionary, and they don't provide a photograph of the entry in the dictionary, then you're just going to have to trust them. Even if they do provide a photograph, you're going to have to trust that the photo is in fact of the dictionary that they claim it to be from. The same applies to when a translator says that they're an expert in that field and that this is just the term that they would use themselves, then that, too, is useful but you still have to decide whether to trust the person.
And of course I agree that some people are just lazy. (-:
| | | | Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
| KudoZ Remake HD Remaster Director’s Cut Special Anniversary Edition | Oct 3, 2022 |
Lieven Malaise wrote:
My point is that when a colleague can find a solid reference, you yourself could have found it too.
OK, here’s a real-life example. When I started out freelancing, I took on a legal translation request as my first project. I didn’t have a background in law, nor was I familiar with the subject matter. Yet there were a plethora of resources available on the internet for this. So I thought, “Surely I can just slap in the terminologies into the target texts.”
Nope.
Despite having access to what I perceived to be good references, I was still struggling to make a coherent translation. In the end, I felt like I didn't do a very good job. And soon afterwards, I took an oath to never accept any translation jobs outside my fields of expertise, if I can help it. But expecting everyone else to adopt the same path would be unrealistic. They’d be better off asking for advice from fellow translators who a) are experienced in their fields, and b) had proven their competence through, say, their clients’ referrals. These colleagues should be able to provide explanations in layperson’s terms.
And even when you are 100% sure your terminologies were correct, there might be cases when the client or a post-editor flagged them as errors. You cited your references. You kept explaining and explaining, but they just wouldn’t buy it. Whatever should you do? Well, you can ask a KudoZ question to have some colleagues supporting your argument. I’ve seen KudoZ was used in this fashion. It doesn’t have to be utilized in one particular way.
TL;DR – Good references alone wouldn’t help you much if you can’t even make sense of them. But a reputable colleague with real expertise might be able to help you comprehend what you are actually translating.
P.S.
In case I wasn't being clear, I am limiting my argument to complex technical terms which require a deep understanding of the relevant fields.
[Edited at 2022-10-03 15:24 GMT]
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