| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16] > | KudoZ: should "rubbish" help be appreciated? Thread poster: IanW (X)
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| How about some "peer pressure/self-regulation" for discouraging rubbish altogether | Jul 20, 2006 |
First of all, "rubbish" answers should not be understood as 'incorrect' answers. There is no prob with making mistakes-we all do that from time to time-misread, misunderstand etc. No one should be discouraged from entering an answer-feedback, negative and positive is a very useful part of the learning process and as translators, we are learning all the time.
Having said that, imho an active effort should be made to discourage the following type of answers:
1. 100% wrong answ... See more First of all, "rubbish" answers should not be understood as 'incorrect' answers. There is no prob with making mistakes-we all do that from time to time-misread, misunderstand etc. No one should be discouraged from entering an answer-feedback, negative and positive is a very useful part of the learning process and as translators, we are learning all the time.
Having said that, imho an active effort should be made to discourage the following type of answers:
1. 100% wrong answers with a 100% confidence level and naturally, no references other than  or ***.
How to discourage: deduct 4 Kudoz points
2. same as above, but perhaps with a lower confidence level and this time backed only by the number of G-hits (without showing a single one), most of which have NOTHING to do with the context.
How to discourage: systematically ignore. pretend it isn't there.
3. Answers that never end. Answer listed in answer box, then following by km's of extraneous ramblings, sometimes accidentally touching on a helpful term (but not recognised by Answerer who really doesn't know the subject matter anyway), and which end with a final answer at the bottom that has little or nothing to do with the answer entered at the top.
How to discourage: see under no. 2.
4. Answers based on knowledge of a related language in the hope that with a bit of luck, it will also work for the language asked in the question.
How to discourage: ??
5. Answers based on everyone else's answers, research and hard work, often entered by someone who doesn't really know the language involved but does have a localised knowledge of the field. So the answer ultimately can sound fine, but often has little or nothing to do with the context.
How to discourage: Hard to do and when Asker is also clueless this often works. Disagree, make a counter-entry in the KOG and/or notify Moderator when such an answer is chosen.
Suggestion: what if we could apply a bit of self-regulation to questions too?
1. Stop a question from being posted if no research has been done by Asker beforehand.
This would automatically eliminate all dicitionaryesque questions (AND their corresponding straight-from-dictionary answers). Imho, this would really reduce rubbish. If Asker has a prob anyway, then just explain. People will be glad to help.
2. Stop questions with no context. "Sorry, that's all I have". Meaning a job with one word or phrase stuck in the middle of an otherwise blank page? And you can make a living doing that? Let me in on it, please........
3. Put a tighter limit on questions asked by people clearly using the site to get jobs done. People who post on a daily basis for the same job. Many peers lose interest in 'helping' (since it's really 'doing') and only diehard point hunters keep on replying day after day. At some point 'filling in the blank spaces' become more important than having a non-rubbish answer, so the flow of rubbish answers increases.
Suggestion-what about some kind of 'this is unacceptable' button so people can express their frustration without personal remarks etc. Let people tick a box to show why:
this is unacceptable:
no context (after requests for context have been ignored or refused)
question easily found in any dictionary
question already in glossary
entire job is being posted
no evidence of any research by Asker
for answers:
this is unacceptable:
no reference(s)
references have nothing to do with context
seems to be guessing
confidence level too high-is misleading
misuse of Google numbers as reference.
answer too long (confusing, off-topic etc.)
too many different optional answers posted -seems to be guessing
too many language mistakes in answer
OR. a simple solution:
Perhaps the best way to say 'no thank you' to rubbish answers/questions is to take a more mature, realistic approach to translation: stick your own language(s), stick to your fields and when a question has nothing to do with one or the other, just sit back and enjoy the answers provided by pro colleagues who are capable of helping.
After all, answers are visible on Google and (with a bit of luck) in the glossary -wouldn't it be better for everyone concerned if those answers were something to be proud of? ▲ Collapse
| | | | Francis Lee (X)
Local time: 13:01
German to English
+ ...
| Rubbish Askers | Jul 20, 2006 |
Michele Johnson wrote:
< VENT >
To open up a completely different can of worms, what annoys me much more are the Kudoz *askers* who are so obviously non-native speakers (or at least completely out of their league in the target language), maxing out their daily quota of questions. I realize I'm mixing apples and oranges here, but this is much higher up on my scale of annoyance.
< /VENT >
[Edited at 2006-07-19 16:04]
I was just thinking this after seeing a particular non-native colleague post a series of questions today without providing any context and quite apparently having no idea how to phrase said terms. Have no time to expand right now, but surely the more important question is:
What do we do about rubbish askers? (native or not)
(and while we're there)
How can certain colleagues be classed bilingual when they quite clearly only have one native language?
Why are Answerer names accompanied by a "native language =" insert, but not Asker names?
| | | | Ian M-H (X)
United States
Local time: 07:01
German to English
+ ...
| Rubbish questions | Jul 20, 2006 |
Francis Lee wrote:
What do we do about rubbish askers?
Good question. although rubbish asking is the problem, not askers as such – at least some of whom sometimes ask good questions and sometimes ask rubbish questions.
All I can suggest is ignoring rubbish questions. In practice, of course, that eventually means ignoring certain askers. There are one or two askers who no longer get any input from me. At some point I will have asked them for more context, or asked why the standard dictionary terms aren't appropriate in the case they're dealing with, and got no answer.
So I've given up. And of course the askers in question don't miss my input. People have written here that the German-English pairs are better than some others and I have to take their word on it. But it is increasingly common to see DE to EN questions being asked and answered, and an answer selected, without any involvement at all on the part of native speakers of the target language.
Mr Lee continued:
Why are Answerer names accompanied by a "native language =" insert, but not Asker names?
I'd certainly vote in favour of changing this so that we could see the native language of people asking for assistance.
| | | | Heinrich Pesch 
Finland
Local time: 14:01
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
+ ...
| Why don't you use that feature | Jul 20, 2006 |
Ian Müller-Harknett wrote:
[
Good question. although rubbish asking is the problem, not askers as such – at least some of whom sometimes ask good questions and sometimes ask rubbish questions.
All I can suggest is ignoring rubbish questions. In practice, of course, that eventually means ignoring certain askers. There are one or two askers who no longer get any input from me. At some point I will have asked them for more context, or asked why the standard dictionary terms aren't appropriate in the case they're dealing with, and got no answer.
You already have the choice to ignore askers. It's displayed under the image of the answerer.
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Ian M-H (X)
United States
Local time: 07:01
German to English
+ ...
| Not really the answer | Jul 20, 2006 |
Heinrich Pesch wrote:
You already have the choice to ignore askers. It's displayed under the image of the answerer.
I think you mean "flag or filter" under the image of the asker. Of course some people may find this a useful feature, but only in the absence of a proper solution (which would incorporate at least some of writeaway's suggestions for improving the overall quality of questions).
Filtering askers doesn't actually solve any problems, though. Only improving the quality of questions will do that. Filtering askers just means not seeing everything that's going on in a language pair, including who's answering and how good they are.
We might prefer not to have much to do (professionally) with people who choose nicks along the lines of "superlanguagepro" and/or claim multiple native languages, but we sure as hell do need to have a vague idea of what they're up to.
[Edited at 2006-07-20 15:44]
| | | | | how many times are people born? native speaker is not the same as being bilingual | Jul 20, 2006 |
Francis Lee wrote: Michele Johnson wrote:
< VENT >
To open up a completely different can of worms, what annoys me much more are the Kudoz *askers* who are so obviously non-native speakers (or at least completely out of their league in the target language), maxing out their daily quota of questions. I realize I'm mixing apples and oranges here, but this is much higher up on my scale of annoyance.
< /VENT >
[Edited at 2006-07-19 16:04] (and while we're there) How can certain colleagues be classed bilingual when they quite clearly only have one native language?
I think a lot of non-natives are confused about the English term native speaker. It means someone who was born into and grew up speaking that language at home, school etc. My impression is that in the rush to state they are bilingual, they have listed English along with their actual native/mother tongues. Naturally two words into any question and/or answer, it's obvious to the real native speakers that this can't be the case. On the NL site for instance, there are an amazing number of people who 'became' native speakers by learning English at school or by spending time in an English-speaking country. You can't 'become' a native speaker. You are one or you are not. However you can become fully bilingual, trilingual etc . Imho, people should be given the opportunity to correct their 'stated native language' on their profile page.
Ian Müller-Harknett wrote:
But it is increasingly common to see DE to EN questions being asked and answered, and an answer selected, without any involvement at all on the part of native speakers of the target language.
Ditto on several other sites that I see at least, including NL-En and It-En. A majority of questions have no native speaker involvement (always makes me think of Ian's post "who needs the natives" ) and very often the only English words that appear are the ones in the answer box. Frankly, I think questions should be asked in the target language. You are translating a doc into English, then why not have questions asked and answers explained in English? After all, if you work into a given target language, then asking a question or giving an answer in that language shouldn't be any problem, should it?
[Edited at 2006-07-20 16:25]
| | | | Marta Fernandez-Suarez (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:01
English to Spanish
Hi
Just one example. I posted, sometime this morning, a translation for a Kudoz term (I suggested a translation and, in the comments section, wrote other possibilities). Someone has just posted another answer basically copying mine. What is going on? Who knows?
Regards
Marta
Regarding: ES Kudoz, word "American Road Trip"
Contd.: ok, it seems the answerer has hidde... See more Hi
Just one example. I posted, sometime this morning, a translation for a Kudoz term (I suggested a translation and, in the comments section, wrote other possibilities). Someone has just posted another answer basically copying mine. What is going on? Who knows?
Regards
Marta
Regarding: ES Kudoz, word "American Road Trip"
Contd.: ok, it seems the answerer has hidden her question sometime after I wrote this. There are many examples about Kudoz being abused, which is a real shame. I hope some ideas from this forum posting are implemented.
[Edited at 2006-07-20 22:40] ▲ Collapse
| | | | pep
Local time: 13:01
English to Spanish
| How about custom blacklisting? | Jul 20, 2006 |
I understand that there are two things that are true:
- The one who could be more annoyed is the asker, since he or she is the one that really is looking for advise.
- If it is an annoyance, probably is because the same set of point-chasers are annoying them, and if Pareto was right, probably the real trouble makers are just a handful of people very active.
So in my opinion, it would be great if the asker could get rid of the people who annoy them, by black... See more I understand that there are two things that are true:
- The one who could be more annoyed is the asker, since he or she is the one that really is looking for advise.
- If it is an annoyance, probably is because the same set of point-chasers are annoying them, and if Pareto was right, probably the real trouble makers are just a handful of people very active.
So in my opinion, it would be great if the asker could get rid of the people who annoy them, by blacklisting them in his personal blacklist.
Blacklisting means that these people do not see their questions anymore.
This way the asker is not annoyed anymore and the point-chasers are still able to answer to other asker who might consider their input valuable.
A derivative work from collecting this information is that an asker may place a question that by default is not only blocked to his blacklist but also to those people who are in more than say 10 blacklists (as a rule of thumb for spam). Also good for people who are too lazy.
If the blacklisted people would be notified after say 5 blacklistings, probably it will be a good heads up for them. I don't think though that it is a good idea to notify the blacklisted people who is blacklisting them, to avoid personal confrontation. Moreover, I think that this notifications should be in the form: "in last month, you were blacklisted", so they cannot easily tell who is blacklisting them, but simply as warning that they should raise the bar in their answers.
This might sound complex to implement and a resource hog, but something tells me that it would lead towards convergence very fast and the mere knowledge of its existance will keep the actual blacklisting low because people will, al of a sudden, start to try harder.
My $0.02
Pep.
[Edited at 2006-07-20 23:43] ▲ Collapse
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Francis Lee (X)
Local time: 13:01
German to English
+ ...
| Asking and answering in target language mandatory? | Jul 21, 2006 |
writeaway wrote:
Frankly, I think questions should be asked in the target language. You are translating a doc into English, then why not have questions asked and answers explained in English? After all, if you work into a given target language, then asking a question or giving an answer in that language shouldn't be any problem, should it?
[Edited at 2006-07-20 16:25]
What a simple but great idea! It's quite obvious to me, at least, that the vast majority of non-native Ger-Eng Askers realise that their limitations will be fully exposed here amongst pro natives and therefore (while delivering translations week for week to their unsuspecting, likewise non-native customers) refrain from writing at length in English. There are notable exceptions, may I stress - and they know who they are.
writeaway wrote:
On the NL site for instance, there are an amazing number of people who 'became' native speakers by learning English at school or by spending time in an English-speaking country.
On the German site, I suspect most of the individuals in question had/have perhaps one native parent but mostly grew up in Germany, at most attending an international school. Their spoken English may be fluent - but they write like non-natives!
[/quote]
Sorry - still intend to address the specific issue at the heart of this posting ...
| | | | Irene N
United States
Local time: 06:01
English to Russian
+ ...
I know one thing for sure - should one more time I hear that being "non-native" places me into a subhuman category, my second attempt to come back to Proz will end right there.
There are good and bad translators, period. If your snobbish attitudes cloud a simple truth that it is not "nativeness" but illiterate easy-riders of all shapes and forms who hardly know their own language yet lurk around translation trade like vultures make the whole impression, then maybe you should think ... See more I know one thing for sure - should one more time I hear that being "non-native" places me into a subhuman category, my second attempt to come back to Proz will end right there.
There are good and bad translators, period. If your snobbish attitudes cloud a simple truth that it is not "nativeness" but illiterate easy-riders of all shapes and forms who hardly know their own language yet lurk around translation trade like vultures make the whole impression, then maybe you should think of whether you are in the right field.
Disrespectfully,
Irene
[Edited at 2006-07-21 10:49]
[Edited at 2006-07-21 11:00] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Ian M-H (X)
United States
Local time: 07:01
German to English
+ ...
| This is emotional enough... | Jul 21, 2006 |
... without accusing people of categorising non-native speakers of any language as "subhuman". I don't think anybody has done that and IreneN is disingenuous to suggest that they have (in order to then take offence).
Normally we don't comment on use of English in forums, as the point is to understand one another. But that changes if someone claims to be able to translate into a particular language, whether or not it's their native language, and the subject of their posting is their ... See more ... without accusing people of categorising non-native speakers of any language as "subhuman". I don't think anybody has done that and IreneN is disingenuous to suggest that they have (in order to then take offence).
Normally we don't comment on use of English in forums, as the point is to understand one another. But that changes if someone claims to be able to translate into a particular language, whether or not it's their native language, and the subject of their posting is their 'right' to be treated as equals.
In that case we are entitled to apply high standards to assess their use of the written language. Not to pounce on slips that anyone could make (I'll probably make at least one typing mistake in this message), but also not being afraid to form and state the opinion that some colleagues shouldn't be translating into language X if the evidence points to that being the case.
Hilary's right and her comment is fair. ▲ Collapse
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