| Страници в темата: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8] > | KudoZ per-day asking limits - good or bad? Автор на темата: Henry Dotterer
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Kim Metzger 
Мексико
Local time: 23:39
Немски на Английски
| KudoZ per-day asking limits | Sep 25, 2005 |
Sam Berner wrote:
At the risk of sounding very elitist, which I admit I am, are we on Proz to maintain quality or to enhance quantity. I have read this comment on a few of the "contra" postings, and I am probably missing some point here.
Then again, maybe I am too hard on some. But for me Proz stands for Professionals, and I would like to see that maintained. It takes time and effort to be one. For less than that, I can go for a stubby to the local truckie pub. Sorry for my Australianisms.
Sam, you are a scholar and a lady. And don't worry about the elitist charge. Many think it only has a pejorative meaning, but elitists are also "the best or most skilled members of a group. Example: the football team's elite."
Kim
| | | | | I'll support this | Sep 25, 2005 |
Elisabeth Toda-v.Galen wrote:
The remedy to thoses complaints of Kudoz answerers is quite simple : all they have to do is stop answering, there will always be people to answer in their place. This is where everybody's freedom comes into the picture.. We also had the possibility to sqhash the question in case of site abuse.
I still do not understand the problem, all means are available: not answering, squashing, email settings, settings that allow you to specify which questions you will see, settings that allow you to exclude people from the listyou will see etc.
What do we need the limits for?
My explanation is, that this is a very "human" thing, to:
protect our hunting ground / territory
keep others out
show that we are more professional
demonstrate our power
Can't we just use the options we have to protect us individually and preserve the maximum freedom to everybody.
I mean why not, create a voluntary "Diamond category" that will allow people only to post a limited number of questions and marks their profiles with a small diamond. This will allow them to demonstrate that they belong to the "Guild" that never needs to ask more questions.
I know, another one of my cynical remarks, but IMO the quality of the questions has not increased and neither has the quality of the answers, and I liked the kids asking "How do you translate "Können wir uns wieder vertragen?"".. They were never competitors and they were never annoying. I found it rather sweet.
From sunny Freiburg
Siegfried
| | | | | The diamond view | Sep 25, 2005 |
sarmb wrote:
not answering, squashing, email settings, settings that allow you to specify which questions you will see, settings that allow you to exclude people from the list you will see etc.
These options merely help us avert our eyes away from the porblem. By filtering out certain questions, we become intentionally blind to them. They no longer bother us, because we cannot see them anymore, but they are still there, and the abuse they represent does not go away just because we are not looking.
sarmb wrote:
What do we need the limits for?
Good question. We need limits in order to protect KudoZ from being used as an alternative to:
- adequate competence in both source and target languages
- adequate subject-matter familiarity
- adequate translation tools (dictionaries, grammar books, style manuals, etc.)
- adequate terminology research (dictionary look-up, usage corroboration search, etc.)
- best practices (e.g., compiling personal glossaries)
If we allow KudoZ to be used as an alternative to knowledge, skill, experience, tools, and best practices, rather than a unique supplent to all of these, will will hurt our profession. We will let people with no adequate language skills assume that they can take any translation job posted and expect the world-wide translation community do it for them, free of charge and in no time. Even if you filter the questions out, others will not. We must not allow KudoZ to be a tool for such abuse. We are a professional community, and must uphold our standards.
sarmb wrote:
this is a very "human" thing, to:
protect our hunting ground / territory
keep others out
show that we are more professional
demonstrate our power
This is human indeed, and it is a very good thing. Translation is our territory. Everyone is invited to join us as a fellow professional, not as an abuser. Everybody is welcome, but abuse must be kept out. We are professional, and that should be a source of pride, not ridicule. And as a team, we have the power to protect our profession, and we have a responsibility to use this power.
sarmb wrote:
preserve the maximum freedom to everybody.
Preserve optimal freedom for everybody: the freedom to share knowledge and expertise in a collegial, professional manner.
sarmb wrote:
why not, create a voluntary "Diamond category" that will allow people only to post a limited number of questions and marks their profiles with a small diamond. This will allow them to demonstrate that they belong to the "Guild" that never needs to ask more questions.
I know, another one of my cynical remarks
You may think that is cynical, but this actually contains the kernel of an excellent idea: why not award one "diamond" a year to the profile of every platinum member whose total questions asked did not exceed 15 questions in that year?
sarmb wrote:
the quality of the questions has not increased and neither has the quality of the answers
Actually, the quality of the KudoZ experience has made a big leap. The serializing of complete translation projects, sentence by sentence, is largely gone. I believe addtional tightening is still necessary to prevent multiple asker identities.
sarmb wrote:
and I liked the kids asking "How do you translate "Können wir uns wieder vertragen?"".. They were never competitors and they were never annoying. I found it rather sweet.
I like kids as much as the next guy, but they should play in their own sand box. How about nonProZ.com?
| | | | | I do not feel abused, and I need nobody to tell me that I need protection | Sep 25, 2005 |
I do not feel abused, and I need nobody to tell me that I need protection.
I want to be professional, and skilled. I want to have adequate tools. I need to learn where my limits are and I need help in doing so. I want to answer the questions I want to answer, and I want to ask the questions I want to ask.
Protecting territories in such a way in combination with pride, has started wars and will start wars, small and large.
And as a team, we have the ... See more I do not feel abused, and I need nobody to tell me that I need protection.
I want to be professional, and skilled. I want to have adequate tools. I need to learn where my limits are and I need help in doing so. I want to answer the questions I want to answer, and I want to ask the questions I want to ask.
Protecting territories in such a way in combination with pride, has started wars and will start wars, small and large.
And as a team, we have the power to protect our profession, and we have a responsibility to use this power.
Sentences like the above make me shiver. "We do have the power to protect what we believe we must protect. And we have a responsibilty to use this power".
10,000 years of human history should have told us what the possible results are.
My way is different. I am not proud to be translator. It is just my job, and I like it very much. I am sometimes proud about a certain translation I produced, if a customer gives me a good feedback. But I am not proud to be: Male, German, Caucasian, Christian, living in a democracy etc.
I do not like it, if somebody uses the word "abuse" to often to describe what other people are doing. This often opens the door that "abusers" are excluded, punished etc.
If you define "abuse" of Proz, lets also define "correct use" of Proz.
What is in your opinion the correct use?
How do you use it? And are all people that do not use it your way "abusers"?
Siegfried ▲ Collapse
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| Fair question | Sep 25, 2005 |
sarmb wrote:
What is in your opinion the correct use?
How do you use it?
I never thought you would ask.
The correct way to use KudoZ is to start by seeing it for what it is: a place where you consult with collieages about parts of your work that pose a daunting challenge. Consulting with a colleague is something we do all the time, but we do itas a supplement to all the traditional translation resources we use, not as an alternative. That is the theory.
In practice, you start with a realistic assessment of your current capabilities. You accept jobs that you can realistically perform at a professional level and deliver on time, given the knowledge you have of the languages and subject matter involved, the tools in which you have invested, and the research techniques you have mastered. You decline jobs that invlove a language or terminology for which you are not adequately prepared.
Having established and followed this exacting standard, you will still encounter, in almost every job you tackle, some terms and expressions that give you pause. To handle these, you may have to:
- look up the terms in a printed or online dictionary (including the ProZ.com glossary);
- take a look at a related glossary you have compiled;
- take a look at a previous, similar translation you have done;
- Google the term to see how it is used in context;
- when all fails, consult with a colleague who may have worked on a similar job. This is where KudoZ comes in. In the past, you may have telephoned a close friend or sent him an email asking for help. Now, with KudoZ, you have a chance to simultaneously solicit help from the whole world-wide translation community.
Before KudoZ was invented, you made sure that your consultation calls to your fellow translators were kept few and far in between. You did not want to abuse their friendship and generousity, and, more importantly, you wanted to make sure that you did your own work. You took professional pride in your work, and you found incomparable joy in the very activity of researching your work. Now, with KudoZ being the medium for such consultations, you maintian the same ethic, the same professional pride, and the same joy.
Likewise, in the past, when a fellow translator asked you a question, you went out of your way to help them, share your knowledge with them, and nurture them to excel. But if you noticed that one particular translator was calling you every day with terms that they should instead be looking up in a dictionary, or terms that belong to a specialized area outside of thier range of expertise or involve a language that is not one of their translation languages, you would probably add their email address to your spam list, not just because they are being a nuisance, but because their behavior is a form of professional abuse. It is unprofessional, not just annoying, to accept jobs that substantially exceed one's capability.
The abuse such people commit when using KudoZ is not directed at one particular translator, but at the whole community and at the site itself. Therefore, it is not enough that individual translators filter them out in their email preferences. These abusers need to be filtered out of the site altogether.
sarmb wrote:
are all people that do not use it your way "abusers"?
All people who accept a translation job they are not adequately prepared to do, assuming that others wil do it for them at the rate of more than 15 questions a day are abusers, not just of the site, but of the profession.
All people who are not professional linguists but who use KudoZ as entertainment are abusers of the site. They need to find a permissive, unabashedly nonprofessional chat room where they can kill the time they need to kill and have the human interaction they lack in their lives. That is why I suggested nonProZ.com for such tormented souls.
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Maria Karra has conveyed to me that the last paragraph has been read by many individuals in a manner that I never intended, namely that "All people who are not professional linguists" (without the important restrictive qualifier that follows) are abusers of the site. Although I have posted a clarificataion of my real view below, I feel called upon to apologize here and directly to all who read my poorly written paragraph in that manner. I take full blame and responsibility for the misunderstanding. I should have re-read my writing several times before posting it. If I had done so, I might have been able to see how easily it could be misunderstood. I do not blame anybody other than myself for this inexcusable blunder.
Another point that Maria has graciously tried to get through my thick skull is that some people might take my outlandish ideas and suggestions as representative of the site, just because I am a moderator. I believe that most participants in these forums must know by now that my wacky views are mine alone. In fact, most other moderators think me mad and and a pain to boot, with good justification. My ideas are so out of the mainstream I never thought anybody would think that they even remotely represent anybody else's views, let alone the sane veiws of the administration of this site.
Some have even suggested that I hide my posting that has caused offense, but I do not believe in hiding my transgressions. I believe that the posting should be open for all to see, with its good parts, the part that I take back, and my apology to all.
[Edited at 2005-09-27 04:13]
[Edited at 2005-09-27 04:48]
| | | | | Your language is not professional | Sep 25, 2005 |
Fuad Yahya wrote:
All people who are not professional linguists but who use KudoZ as entertainment are abusers of the site. They need to find a permissive, unabashedly nonprofessional chat room where they can kill the time they need to kill and have the human interaction they lack in their lives. That is why I suggested nonProZ.com for such tormented souls.
Now you are really making me angry, I am not a linguist at all, I am a medical doctor, and I know my profession. I would never call translators in the medical field abusers, just because they do not have a medical degree and ask questions. And I would not call other people tormented souls in such a context.
You might call yourself a professional linguist.
In my opinion is your use of language not okay.
Have a nice day
Kind regards
Siegfried
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Немски на Испански
+ ...
| Thank you, Siegfried | Sep 25, 2005 |
[quote]sarmb wrote:
I do not feel abused, and I need nobody to tell me that I need protection.
I want to be professional, and skilled. I want to have adequate tools. I need to learn where my limits are and I need help in doing so. I want to answer the questions I want to answer, and I want to ask the questions I want to ask.
I totally agree with your comments. It is really frightening to read some colleagues (?)opinions.
I wonder if I should change my job,because although I translate > 50.000 words/month, the average texts I use to translate seem to be too difficult for my amateur skills, I suppose. Because normally the texts I translate have legal elements ( I am not a lawyer), technical elements ( I am no an engineer)and maybe there are also scientific and medical elements in the same technical, legal text. But as I am not a scientist, what shall I do? I know lots of experts in many fields of expertise, the problem is they normally don't know much about languages and they can't do my job. On the other hand, the outstanding agencies I work for, astonishingly dont care about my lack of expertise because they still want me to translate legal on Monday, literary on Tuesday, medical on Wednsday etc.. But I am just a translator, words are my only speciality.
I wonder if all the colleagues who feel potentially abused by the sheer existence of askers whose questions in reality they would never answer, always have the adequate subject-matter familiarity and I also wonder if they get enough texts within their speciality and if they refuse all other texts.
The last text I had problems with was a description of a malting factory written by a mexican mechanic with a very regional vocabulary and very low spanish writing skills. My problem was not technical, legal or medical, it was just a banale human problem, which the mechanic's wife might have solved. But she doesn't know much about malting and conveyors...
Cheers
Janfri
| | | | | Couldn't agree more | Sep 25, 2005 |
Hilary Davies wrote:
This is sound sense - I really wish more people would bear this in mind when clients "beg" them to do jobs. It does happen - in my personal experience about once a week. Only by making the information below clear to agencies and clients will we help to eradicate the view that translation work is easy, and can be done by someone with little to no subject-matter knowledge in double-quick time. The translator (the one with any conscience, at least!) ends up tearing their hair out to try and produce a result worth paying for. The translator without a conscience blithely produces a result not worth paying for. In not following this type of advice and educating agencies, we are only doing ourselves and our profession a disservice.
When you were being begged to take this job, a number of facts needed to be stated explicitly as follows:
- I have no subject-matter knowledge of poker.
- The language used in the material is incomprehensible to me.
- I have no handy reference material to use.
- To learn the subject matter and familiarize myself with the jargon used in both source and target languages, I will need to invest some time using online resources (Googling, reading online how-to material, consulting with online peers who are familiar with the subject matter.
-The deadline is not only unrealistic and needs to be pushed backward, but also needs to be a soft deadline, as the the self-teaching endeavor I will need to undertake is time consuming and its outcome is unpredictable, in terms of both time and quality of translation.
- When all is said and done, the translation will still need to undergo thorough review by someone who is familiar with the subject matter to check for expected blunders. This is no false modesy, but sober realism.
With this caveat emptor, you can post your questions, 15 per day (which is still high, in my opinion) and deliver your project without violating the terms of your agreement.
For many agencies, getting the job done is all that counts. The fact that result may be less than acceptable never matters until and/or unless the client notices. As long as the end-client can't appreciate the difference between a job done and a job done well, this sort of situation will persist. I have also learned to say 'no' no matter how much an agency insists. After all, once the job is accepted, all responsibility shifts to the translator and if the end-client does object to the translation, all you'll hear from the agency will be "well, you accepted the job." Mind you, often enough quality is never an issue with such agencies and/or clients.
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| Only you can decide which job (or career) to accept or decline | Sep 25, 2005 |
Janfri wrote:
I wonder if I should change my job, because although I translate > 50.000 words/month, the average texts I use to translate seem to be too difficult for my amateur skills.
I can't tell you what to do, but if that is your realistic assessment of your skills (and not an instance of sarcasm), then a job change would not be a bad idea. I was once a musician, but I found that the average piece of music I was asked to play was too difficult for my amateur skills, so I made a career change.
Janfri wrote:
the texts I translate have legal elements (I am not a lawyer), technical elements (I am no an engineer) and maybe there are also scientific and medical elements in the same technical, legal text. But as I am not a scientist, what shall I do?
Good question. You should first make sure that the texts you agree to translate do not overtax your capability. Every text presents its own challenges to any translator, not matter how knowledgeable or experienced, but a professional needs to keep a sense of proportion. For instance, I know very little about investing. If a text mentions stocks and bonds, I can handle that. If it includes a few more terms than I already know, I look them up. If my research fails to yield sure results, I may have to resort to asking colleagues on ProZ.com. But if the whole project is about the technical side of investing, it would be unprofessional of me to accept the job, and abusive of me to post the job, one sentence at a time, on KudoZ.
Janfri wrote:
the outstanding agencies I work for, astonishingly don't care about my lack of expertise because they still want me to translate legal on Monday, literary on Tuesday, medical on Wednsday etc..
The agencies do not determine the jobs you accept or decline. You do. If they don't care about your lack of expertise, you should. It is your work, not theirs.
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sarmb wrote:
I am not a linguist at all, I am a medical doctor
In that case, you should add this significant revelation to your profile page. Currently, your profile page states the following:
"I am a fulltime freelance translator (native German). Having lived and practiced medicine in Germany, Switzerland, the UK and the Netherlands, I feel confident to handle the German/Germany, German/Belgium, and German/Switzerland locales."
sarmb wrote:
I would never call translators in the medical field abusers
Neither would I. Have a nice day.
| | | | | moderator moderating | Sep 25, 2005 |
Fuad Yahya wrote:
All people who are not professional linguists but who use KudoZ as entertainment are abusers of the site. They need to find a permissive, unabashedly nonprofessional chat room where they can kill the time they need to kill and have the human interaction they lack in their lives. That is why I suggested nonProZ.com for such tormented souls.
Pardon my slightly off-topic reaction, Fuad, but I feel that the wording you have chosen to express your feelings is not completely in line with your being a moderator.
I do not consider myself a professional linguist: on proz.com I consider myself a member of the community, with all the privileges and duties this entails.
I am a professional only when it comes to business transactions. And kudoz is not a business transaction.
I apologise for the off-topic. D.
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| You are a member of a community of professional language service providers | Sep 25, 2005 |
Daniela Zambrini wrote:
I do not consider myself a professional linguist
Do not sell yourself short, Daniela. Even if you are not a linguist, you are a member of a community of professional language service providers. I looked at your profile page, and everything there seems to confirm that.
The abusers I am referring to are not a figment of my imagination. They are people who stumble upon the KudoZ feature, discover that it is free of charge, and, with nothing else to do, start posting questions that, in themselves, may be harmless, but do not belong on ProZ.com, because their orientation is adolescent chatting, not serious language concern.
The limits on the number of questions was designed to stop this kind of behavior on the site, although, on a different site, the behavior itself may be perfectly acceptable, because it is not intrinsically abusive. It is merely an abuse in view of the orientation of this site and community.
| | | | df49f (X)
Франция
Local time: 07:39
| kudos to Fuad | Sep 25, 2005 |
[quote]Fuad Yahya wrote:
Fuad wrote... many things and words and thoughts on ethics and professionalism and competence and the limits thereof and defending our profession and much more still in this thread, all of immense interest, common sense, insight, logic, relevance and intelligence:
ALL of which I support fully, unconditionnally, unqualifiedly...
So, a million thanks to you, Fuad, for telling it like it is!!
(PS: I've already said that I am all in favor of these restrictions -I am not Platinum but my 5-question/day quota is absolutely NO problem! have only asked 8 questions in the 14 months since I discovered KudoZ, with answers merely confirming my own initial research - had worked very successfully without KudoZ for 19 years before that, without needing it to meet my deadlines, do my research for me or relying on it to get 4-cent/word jobs - and still don't. Anyone needing to ask 15 questions/24h on one job, should consider changing profession, or at the very least should not have accepted that job...)
best regards,
dominique
| | | | | Agree wholeheartedly | Sep 26, 2005 |
[quote]df49f wrote:
Fuad Yahya wrote:
Fuad wrote... many things and words and thoughts on ethics and professionalism and competence and the limits thereof and defending our profession and much more still in this thread, all of immense interest, common sense, insight, logic, relevance and intelligence:
ALL of which I support fully, unconditionnally, unqualifiedly...
So, a million thanks to you, Fuad, for telling it like it is!!
(PS: I've already said that I am all in favor of these restrictions -I am not Platinum but my 5-question/day quota is absolutely NO problem! have only asked 8 questions in the 14 months since I discovered KudoZ, with answers merely confirming my own initial research - had worked very successfully without KudoZ for 19 years before that, without needing it to meet my deadlines, do my research for me or relying on it to get 4-cent/word jobs - and still don't. Anyone needing to ask 15 questions/24h on one job, should consider changing profession, or at the very least should not have accepted that job...)
best regards,
dominique
I think this says it all, really...
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