| Pages sur ce sujet: < [1 2 3 4 5 6] > | Cap on the number of questions a member can ask? Auteur du fil: Robert Donahue (X)
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Kim Metzger 
Mexique
Local time: 14:51
allemand vers anglais
| Cap on the number of questions a member can ask? | May 8, 2005 |
Balasubramaniam wrote:
People can ask as many questions as they like, but only the first five questions asked in a day by the same person will get kudoz. This way compulsive answerers out there and those with an excess of human kindness can continue to help fellow human translators in trouble, but the lure of earning kudoz will not be there to fuel excessive enthusiasm in answering questions.
Hello Balasubramaniam, I think you and writeaway are on to some very good and practical ideas.
writeaway wrote:
"One way to nudge colleagues into slowing up their eagerness to help would be to limit the number of questions that count as PRO (within a certain period or for a certain doc)-after that number, all questions will count as easy. That way someone who really wants to help can continue doing so .. but I think the Asker would end up having to do a large chunk of the work (research etc.) alone."
The goal should be to keep (make?) KudoZ a pleasant (and fun) workplace for translators. I enjoy helping someone who's done his homework and is working in language pairs and subject matter that he understands. Yes, we can just ignore all the questions from abusers but that wouldn't make professionals want to continue making KudoZ an even better workplace.
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These are all some very good points and a lot to digest.
I agree with a lot of them, but the thought keeps creeping up: "I am working on a huge translation, technical/medical/ nautical in nature (my areas). Usually, I first read through the job (so I know almost right away if it would be something way over my head. Doesn't happen often because I usually tend to take assignments in my specialization areas and into my native language) and mark areas for necessary research/rereading... See more These are all some very good points and a lot to digest.
I agree with a lot of them, but the thought keeps creeping up: "I am working on a huge translation, technical/medical/ nautical in nature (my areas). Usually, I first read through the job (so I know almost right away if it would be something way over my head. Doesn't happen often because I usually tend to take assignments in my specialization areas and into my native language) and mark areas for necessary research/rereading prior to doing the translation.
Then I start working. I save things that I have no solution for until the end. Then I go through whatever sources I can find, Internet, etc. and clean up/fill in everything and do a set of preplanned proofreading steps. So far, so good. But what if,
what if, I am left with more than 5 or 10 (whatever the set limit is then) questions to ask on a given day. Then I would be cut off. And I know that I would not like that because I do not see myself as an abuser. I sometimes do not answer Kudoz questions for a while because I am running behind, but try to participate as much as I can.
SO, I would like to keep the unlimited number of questions to be asked but perhaps give the Kudoz point only to the first 5 or 10. Maybe we could just do no points at all and a prominent mention in the site for the top Kudoz answerers in different areas/lang. combinations.
Or even something else. Keep going! I reading this thread with interest.
Happy Mother's Day!
Lucinda ▲ Collapse
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Balasubramaniam wrote:
People can ask as many questions as they like, but only the first five questions asked in a day by the same person will get kudoz.
writeaway wrote:
"One way to nudge colleagues into slowing up their eagerness to help would be to limit the number of questions that count as PRO"
These both amount to pretty much the same thing, since only PRO questions now earn meaningful Kudoz points.
However, for simplicity of programming and understanding, given that the option exists to switch questions to and from PRO level, I'd suggest a simple solution is just to restrict it to 5 questions in 24 hours and, say, 15 over 7 days.
I'd also be in favour of some kind of restriction based on the ratio of questions asked to questions answered (answered meaning an answer was attempted, not necessarily chosen as 'right'), but this may be over complex. Let's do the simple stuff first.
| | | | pidzej
Pologne
Local time: 22:51
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Robert Donahue wrote: My thinking is this, for those who have asked substantially more questions than they've answered, they would lose -4 kudoz points for each 5 or so questions that they ask. So taking the example of some one who has posted 1,300 questions and answered 80 that would mean they'd have as low as NEGATIVE 976 kudoz. This is not a ficticious example either, there are quite a few people out there like that and even worse. Those who are "in the red" would have a different font color for their names, so that their questions could be skipped by those who are opposed to this type of behavior. Or perhaps, taking Writeaway's idea a step further, maybe their questions would no longer count for points. Then there would be less than zero incentive to help them 
Fully concur, if ProZ is a translators community, what are guys with a score of 867 asked vs. 3 answered, or 395/0, doing here? What have these members (they exist, rest assured) given to the community? This count is a better yardstick of their attitude than KudoZ points: they do not even bother to try. Pity there's no points to take away from them. Indeed, if one does not want to answer one question for every 10 or 15 questions he asks himself, he does not belong here IMO.
I am aware the topic started with "questions per day" but I think "career questions" are as, if not more, important. Re the former, and some remarks about ethics and professionalism above, I think somebody can be perfectly competent to translate a legal text, eg., a huge corporate takeover agreement, but in it he will come across a paragraph or two full of strange names of products or processes used by the poor takeover target, and will have to ask 11 or 21 questions in a row. Who thinks it's unprofessional to accept such assignment? I don't, for one.
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| This is not about someone who suddenly has a lot of questions to ask | May 8, 2005 |
Lucinda Hollenberg wrote:
These are all some very good points and a lot to digest.
I agree with a lot of them, but the thought keeps creeping up: "I am working on a huge translation, technical/medical/ nautical in nature (my areas). Usually, I first read through the job (so I know almost right away if it would be something way over my head. Doesn't happen often because I usually tend to take assignments in my specialization areas and into my native language) and mark areas for necessary research/rereading prior to doing the translation.
Then I start working. I save things that I have no solution for until the end. Then I go through whatever sources I can find, Internet, etc. and clean up/fill in everything and do a set of preplanned proofreading steps. So far, so good. But what if,
what if, I am left with more than 5 or 10 (whatever the set limit is then) questions to ask on a given day. Then I would be cut off. And I know that I would not like that because I do not see myself as an abuser. I sometimes do not answer Kudoz questions for a while because I am running behind, but try to participate as much as I can.
SO, I would like to keep the unlimited number of questions to be asked but perhaps give the Kudoz point only to the first 5 or 10. Maybe we could just do no points at all and a prominent mention in the site for the top Kudoz answerers in different areas/lang. combinations.
Or even something else. Keep going! I reading this thread with interest.
Happy Mother's Day!
Lucinda
Happy Mother's Day Lucinda!
No-this is not about how many questions someone posts per se. This is about people who are posting questions day after day. Non-stop. Basic questions about fields that they claim to be experts in. A large percentage of their questions are simple language questions that reveal their lack of skills in the languages and in the fields.
Any of us can suddenly appear with 10 questions or more if we find ourselves with unexpected difficulties in a text. The site is here to help colleagues in just such situations.
The target in this thread are the site abusers, people who are routinely doing all their translations via the site. They often ask questions that can be answered without looking anything up or by one click on a dico or on Google, questions that make the rest of us groan in disbelief.
If anything, it has to do with the frequency of question posting, the (low) level of the questions asked and the number of questions per job (often going on for several days) etc.
[Edited at 2005-05-08 23:06]
| | | | | But how do you measure it? | May 8, 2005 |
writeaway wrote:
The target in this thread are the site abusers, people who are routinely doing all their translations via the site. They often ask questions that can be answered without looking anything up or by one click on a dico or on Google, questions that make the rest of us groan in disbelief.
If anything, it has to do with the frequency of question posting, the (low) level of the questions asked and the number of questions per job (often going on for several days) etc.
With you all the way (I think we can both think of one recent example in our shared pair).
But unless I'm misunderstanding the purpose of this thread, the tricky bit is to be able to *measure* abuse. We, as sentient beings, can just "see" it. But if you want the system itself to stop it, without recourse to moderators or some other human intervention, you (we, that is) need to have a simple way to measure or detect it. With respect to your criteria above (with which I agree fully):
- frequency of questions - measurable
- level of questions - subjective, and even the PRO non-PRO distinction might not help us much because, as I said before, it's possible to switch the level now so it could get tricky to program the rules for that
- from the same job - again, we can tell that by looking, and there IS the category of question, but a determined abuser (if that's the word) can just vary the category to get round it.
Plus which, if we want to get something actually implemented, I think it should be something that the programming staff can knock up quite easily. Which a system based purely on the number of questions asked over a period of time is.
For members with a reasonable (i.e. non-abusive) history who absolutely HAVE to ask 15 questions in one day, perhaps this feature could be temporarily disabled if they ask a moderator to do so.
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Hey Robert,
Some topic My view on this has always been rather practical and it goes something like this:
1. I always have the option of not answering a question if I am tired of the same person asking the same types of question (think robot and you'll know what I mean)
2. Kudoz in the right fields combined with the right prof... See more
| | | | Sormane Gomes
États-Unis
Local time: 16:51
portugais vers anglais
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| Yes, absolutely. | May 9, 2005 |
Robert Donahue wrote:
I would like to solicit the input of my fellow Prozians on this. Should there be a cap on the number of questions a member (basic/platinum) can ask?
Yes, whether this person is a basic or platinum member; whether the question is PRO or non-PRO. If one has that many questions and can’t figure most of them out on his/her own, he or she should not be translating it.
Once I answered a question on KudoZ (which by the way was the answer chosen) that was part of a job that I bid for but lost because “my fees were too high.” I realized it was the same project/text when the person who won the bid posted a string of questions for four days straight. I stopped helping this person right away.
If you saw a doctor or a lawyer and this person got on the phone and asked several questions to other colleagues, would you trust this doctor or lawyer? That’s basically how I feel about it in a nutshell.
I don’t care how many pages your translation/project is. If you have that many questions you’re not qualified for the job.
Maybe limit the number of questions to 15 a week?
Sormane Gomes
[Edited at 2005-05-09 03:04]
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Irene N
États-Unis
Local time: 15:51
anglais vers russe
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Lucinda Hollenberg wrote:
1. what if, I am left with more than 5 or 10 (whatever the set limit is then) questions to ask on a given day.
2. SO, I would like to keep the unlimited number of questions to be asked but perhaps give the Kudoz point only to the first 5 or 10.
1. 10 or even 20 questions for a huge job can be spread out in time, it takes more than 1 day to accomplish. 10 questions every day does not appear to be one's specialty (assuming that we go to Kudoz after exhausting all other resources or for confirmation).
2. If I understood you correctly, then why punish the answerers?
Cheers,
Irina
| | | | CMJ_Trans (X)
Local time: 22:51
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Well, my two cents worth is that there are a lot of questions posed on this site that are quite shameful. No names, no pack drill but frankly (other than for homework - and there is a moral issue at stake there, too - and maybe someone who has received a letter he or she does not understand) there are people clearly working on paid translations who ask questions that show their ignorance in no uncertain fashion.
I reckon that all serious translators should systematically boycott those que... See more Well, my two cents worth is that there are a lot of questions posed on this site that are quite shameful. No names, no pack drill but frankly (other than for homework - and there is a moral issue at stake there, too - and maybe someone who has received a letter he or she does not understand) there are people clearly working on paid translations who ask questions that show their ignorance in no uncertain fashion.
I reckon that all serious translators should systematically boycott those question(er)s. The onus is then on the answerers to stand together as a body, refuse to go for cheap and easy points and MAKE the lazy ones remove the proverbial digit and LOOK THINGS UP FOR THEMSELVES....
How many times have I seen questions and actually gone looking for answers out of pure curiosity (wanting to know for myself) only to realise how easy it was to find the answer? The implication then is that "asker" made no attempt to find his/her own salvation. I do not consider myself particularly hot at surfing and finding answers and feel very strongly that if I can do it, then so can the whole of the rest of the world.
Frankly there are people for whom I will no longer lift a finger, now I've seen the way they use the system. There are others on my black list because I know they will always ignore my answer (however correct) and award the points to their buddies... Initially I kept going for future generations. Now I am on strike. I doubt if I'm alone. Somewhere on the line I fear that this is counterproductive. The site will stop bringing people often working alone together and drive them apart. There has to be a way of blacklisting abusers before it's too late!
Perhaps there should be a club of serious translators as a sort of inner circle to which only those who have proved their worth would be allowed access.... just an idea... ▲ Collapse
| | | | Robert Donahue (X)
russe vers anglais
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AUTEUR DU FIL | I'm not talking about average users... | May 9, 2005 |
pidzej wrote: Robert Donahue wrote: Or perhaps, taking Writeaway's idea a step further, maybe their questions would no longer count for points. Then there would be less than zero incentive to help them Fully concur, if ProZ is a translators community, what are guys with a score of 867 asked vs. 3 answered, or 395/0, doing here? What have these members (they exist, rest assured) given to the community? This count is a better yardstick of their attitude than KudoZ points: they do not even bother to try. Pity there's no points to take away from them. Indeed, if one does not want to answer one question for every 10 or 15 questions he asks himself, he does not belong here IMO. I am aware the topic started with "questions per day" but I think "career questions" are as, if not more, important. Re the former, and some remarks about ethics and professionalism above, I think somebody can be perfectly competent to translate a legal text, eg., a huge corporate takeover agreement, but in it he will come across a paragraph or two full of strange names of products or processes used by the poor takeover target, and will have to ask 11 or 21 questions in a row. Who thinks it's unprofessional to accept such assignment? I don't, for one.
I'm talking about the abusers. Those who give nothing back to the site.
The fact is, that everyone asks questions, so there's no issue there. Sometimes, in the case of a large project there may be a need to ask quite a few. For those who participate in the site that's fine. The issue here is the type of user that Pidzej and I are talking about. These people are the ones damaging the profession. I made the analogy before that helping these people is like helping a burglar carry out the family silver because they can't carry it all by themselves. I think this is absolutely fitting. If someone gets a translation job for which they are not qualified (and for which YOU might have been) then helping them is literally like taking money out of your pocket.
After reading through these posts, I have come to this conclusion...the issue at hand is not asking too many questions, it's WHO is asking too many questions. We need to curb the abusers. The "I just choose to ignore them" thing won't work, because there is always someone who will answer their questions. The concept of negative kudoz is likely too complicated, but I think the idea of taking away their "kudoz granting privileges" is not. Here's what I propose;
1- Only registered & verified members can post questions. This is a site for professionals. Why wouldn't a professional make the effort?
2- Establish some sort of standard for what constitutes an abuser of the system and then either;
a- Suspend their accounts entirely
or
b- Make it so their questions are no longer eligible for points.
I like option B. It still allows the benevolent to lend a hand if they are so inclined, but at the same time removes the incentive for more casual users of Proz.
I don't think this would be too dificult to implement and I think it would do wonders for morale.
| | | | | I fully support the idea, Robert. | May 9, 2005 |
Rob,
I love the idea of suspending/limiting the asker's ability to grant Kudoz. And if some of the current users have a problem with this (i.e. those who absolutely MUST ask a number of questions), they can always talk to the moderators and resolve this issue to mutual satisfaction.
Negative Kudoz, on the other hand, is not such a great concept, IMHO.
Mike
Added: Rob, you read my mind re: appealing to the moderators. I just mentioned it to sugg... See more Rob,
I love the idea of suspending/limiting the asker's ability to grant Kudoz. And if some of the current users have a problem with this (i.e. those who absolutely MUST ask a number of questions), they can always talk to the moderators and resolve this issue to mutual satisfaction.
Negative Kudoz, on the other hand, is not such a great concept, IMHO.
Mike
Added: Rob, you read my mind re: appealing to the moderators. I just mentioned it to suggest that IN CASE there are problems, those who deserve special consideration will be able to receive it.
[Edited at 2005-05-09 14:17] ▲ Collapse
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Robert Donahue (X)
russe vers anglais
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AUTEUR DU FIL
Mikhail Kropotov wrote:
Rob,
I love the idea of suspending/limiting the asker's ability to grant Kudoz. And if some of the current users have a problem with this (i.e. those who absolutely MUST ask a number of questions), they can always talk to the moderators and resolve this issue to mutual satisfaction.
Negative Kudoz, on the other hand, is not such a great concept, IMHO.
Mike
Negative kudoz is probably unworkable, and truth be told it would be unnecessary if there was a suspension of kudoz granting privileges. Why give the abusers the ability to keep on asking questions after all?
In reality, the type of person who would appeal to a moderator for an exception (to a rule that unfortunately doesn't exist) isn't necessarily the type to abuse the system. Just that act alone shows a base level of consideration.
I just think that if this is supposed to be a community designed for professionals then there should be an established set of rules designed to discourage abusers. True professionals don't take advantage of the generosity of their colleagues. Therefore we should take tangible steps to curb these abuses for the common good. Limit question asking to registered/verified members. If they don't participate in the giving part of the site's "give and take" then they don't get to take. Simple as that. Let them appeal to a Moderator for an exception if need be. If the behavior still doesn't change....bye, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
| | | | Textklick
Local time: 21:51
allemand vers anglais
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In memoriam
Sarah wrote:
Textklick,
I wonder how many outsourcers really understand the asked/answered business and/or bother to check. Cilian is probably the exception. At the end of the day, the KudoZ and browniz are really an internal mechanism, fully known and understood by us prozians but less so by outsiders.
Outsourcers will probably rely on what they know: resumes, degrees etc. I don't think they have the time or the inclination to learn another type of indicator.
Sarah
Hi Sarah,
Your comment on Cilian's statement is indeed exactly what I meant (excuse my possible Sunday-style formulation).
But cannot agree that Kudoz is an "internal mechanism". Inasmuch as it affects the order in which we are displayed to visitors, it is important IMHO that there is transparency.
Hence my interest in seeing the number of questions asked, as well as those answered.
Also maybe a "What's this" tooltip over the thumbs up Kudoz device on the profile pages which jumps to the Kudoz definition in the FAQ's?
Cheers
Chris
| | | | | the only solution.... | May 9, 2005 |
stop the point system. The only reason why people answer is to get points and get more visibility, which in turn means more chances to get a job. There will always be newcomers who will answer everything in order to get high up on the KudoZ ladder. Unfortunately, it will never be implemented, because the site would lose precious traffic and we all know what that means...
Giovanni
[Edited at 2005-... See more stop the point system. The only reason why people answer is to get points and get more visibility, which in turn means more chances to get a job. There will always be newcomers who will answer everything in order to get high up on the KudoZ ladder. Unfortunately, it will never be implemented, because the site would lose precious traffic and we all know what that means...
Giovanni
[Edited at 2005-05-09 15:57] ▲ Collapse
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