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Make Directory ranking follow a set of values / weighted average of features
Thread poster: traductorchile
traductorchile
traductorchile  Identity Verified
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Sep 23, 2012

I have opened a poll in the “Ideas” section of proz.com related to the following. I invite you to vote in that poll if you agree with this issue.

http://proz.uservoice.com/forums/37172-general/suggestions/3195269-make-directory-ranking-follow-a-set-of-values-we

I suggest that the present syste
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I have opened a poll in the “Ideas” section of proz.com related to the following. I invite you to vote in that poll if you agree with this issue.

http://proz.uservoice.com/forums/37172-general/suggestions/3195269-make-directory-ranking-follow-a-set-of-values-we

I suggest that the present system for ranking in the Directories, only using Kudoz points, is replaced by a system where a weighted average is built using various features, where Kudoz is only one of those features, not THE only one. According to many experienced translators and Kudoz users, Kudoz results are questionable in many cases; don’t prove a translator is a specialist in xxxxx field, might show a person is good at terminology research, are full of errors (however subjective that might be), can be manipulated in some cases, and other arguments.

IMHO the features to consider should show that the list is ordered according to those elements that are as objective as possible in showing the “professional experience” or “professionalism” of users. IMHO the following list of features and what they show or measure, could be used to create that “average”:

1) Has accredited “Translation competence” (a degree in translation/proof of experience).
2) Has accredited “Translation Competence” by other means (Examinations performed by translators’ associations, public institutions, and other institutions where those examinations can be verified).
3) Has accredited “Language competence” in source language at level 1, 2, 3, etc. (assuming that the translator is more competent in the Target language). A search can be done with only one pair of languages at a time, so someone that works in two or more language pairs should be able to accredit each source language or he’ll/she’ll fall in ranking for that pair. For people that work in 2 or more language pairs, accrediting their Target language (Native language, First language, Best language or whatever) might not be easily done, specially when translators at Proz move that definition all over the place just to satisfy their personal or commercial interests.
4) Has accredited a Specialty or field of expertise (documented with degrees or invoices of work performed)
5) Holds a Certified Pro badge: shows that the translator has gone through a screening process and his/her track record has been reviewed.
6) Holds a professional credential from an accredited institution: although this might be included in points 1 or 2, because not all institutions check their members, nor in similar depth.
7) Shows links to published and paid translations where his/her authorship can be verified, and his/her output can be reviewed.
8) Participation in ongoing professional development
9) Participation in Kudoz


What number of points are assigned to each item, and how the weights are distributed, IMHO is of little importance at present, as they can be scaled up permanently; but what would be a great gain is replacing a kudoz-driven directory that fails to show competence realistically.
However, and as an example, if someone is searching for a translator expert in marketing, the results should show at the top those that have accredited that specialty, and among these the ranking should show at the top those that have the best weighted average and at the bottom those with the smaller one. Although weight distribution can have a subjective element, and nobody will agree with the results, clearly holding a degree or an accreditation has much more value than being faster in answering a Kudoz question, or how many friends agree with you, or if you have time to find references that support an answer.
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Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
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I don't agree Sep 23, 2012

traductorchile wrote:
I suggest that the present system for ranking in the Directories, only using Kudoz points, is replaced by a system where a weighted average is built using various features, where Kudoz is only one of those features, not THE only one.

Rank in searches is already influenced by other data fields, should the searcher care to use them. Of course, the first determinant of ranking is paying membership. Most of your criteria below are already being used to select/deselect translators in specific searches, and KudoZ points are only taken into consideration where relevant, I believe. In other words, it doesn't matter if a translator has 1000 KudoZ points in FR>EN Marketing if the outsourcer chooses to select only those translators declaring a specialisation in EN>FR Construction. Few searches will be made simply by language pair, at least in the most common pairs. Outsourcers know that they have to select on various fields to whittle the list down.

IMHO the features to consider should show that the list is ordered according to those elements that are as objective as possible in showing the “professional experience” or “professionalism” of users. IMHO the following list of features and what they show or measure, could be used to create that “average”:

1) Has accredited “Translation competence” (a degree in translation/proof of experience).2) Has accredited “Translation Competence” by other means (Examinations performed by translators’ associations, public institutions, and other institutions where those examinations can be verified).
3) Has accredited “Language competence” in source language at level 1, 2, 3, etc. (assuming that the translator is more competent in the Target language). A search can be done with only one pair of languages at a time, so someone that works in two or more language pairs should be able to accredit each source language or he’ll/she’ll fall in ranking for that pair. For people that work in 2 or more language pairs, accrediting their Target language (Native language, First language, Best language or whatever) might not be easily done, specially when translators at Proz move that definition all over the place just to satisfy their personal or commercial interests.
4) Has accredited a Specialty or field of expertise (documented with degrees or invoices of work performed)
5) Holds a Certified Pro badge: shows that the translator has gone through a screening process and his/her track record has been reviewed.
6) Holds a professional credential from an accredited institution: although this might be included in points 1 or 2, because not all institutions check their members, nor in similar depth.
7) Shows links to published and paid translations where his/her authorship can be verified, and his/her output can be reviewed.
8) Participation in ongoing professional development
9) Participation in Kudoz

Of your 9 points, most of them are not at all "elements that are as objective as possible". In fact, they are not in the slightest bit objective in terms of being used as an automatic grading system. If you know anything about computers you will know that all that free-input text will have to be codified into something meaningful that computers can categorise. Your posting of these categories contains no fewer than 9 cases of the word 'accredited'. Well, as a follower of the interminable thread(s) on verifying native language, you must surely know how much controversy there is concerning accreditation of any/all of these fields, particularly in the area of language credentials.

This idea would be totally unworkable, IMO.
as an example, if someone is searching for a translator expert in marketing, the results should show at the top those that have accredited that specialty

What exactly does that mean? Because you (and by that I include myself) don't have a university degree conveniently called "marketing" rather than any one of a number of other similar names, or however many years actual experience in the field, you should forever be placed at the bottom of the list, no matter how capable you have shown yourself to be of translating in this field through your KudoZ answers? On the other hand, if you simply mean that the translators who have chosen marketing as a specialisation should be at the top of a list searching for translators specialising in marketing, that's already in place! Only within those first few will the KudoZ score be taken into account.


 
Natalie
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Most of these properties Sep 23, 2012

can be chosen in the left-side menu. And when you get the list of the translators corresponding to the chosen requirements, you can sort them also by experience, if you wish.

 
traductorchile
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Maybe you didn't understand, Sep 24, 2012

but you're wrong.

Some of those parameters, not all, can be used to "include" or "exclude" those translators that comply with some of those parameters, but they don't affect the ranking of a translator in the directory search. Only Kudoz points affect ranking inside the results (Total Language pair Kudoz, Specialty Kudoz).

i.e. Someone searching for translators with the P badge, will get a list of translators who hold the P badge. Those at the top of the list are ther
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but you're wrong.

Some of those parameters, not all, can be used to "include" or "exclude" those translators that comply with some of those parameters, but they don't affect the ranking of a translator in the directory search. Only Kudoz points affect ranking inside the results (Total Language pair Kudoz, Specialty Kudoz).

i.e. Someone searching for translators with the P badge, will get a list of translators who hold the P badge. Those at the top of the list are there only because of their higher Kudoz points, not because they have a degree on translation, they have accredited proficiency in a language, or they are nice people when they post in forums.
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Kay Barbara
Kay Barbara
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Agree with Sheila: an unworkable suggestion Sep 25, 2012

Just think of the amount of data, certificates, invoices, weblinks etc. that would have to be sifted through to checked whether someone is truly "accredited" according to your list - granted, it would probably create several new jobs at Proz, but IMHO this suggestion's only merit would be its economic impact.

I think your points 3-8 are really problematic. Users' credentials would also need to be weighted in some way (is a degree worth more than the P badge or the ATA accreditation?
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Just think of the amount of data, certificates, invoices, weblinks etc. that would have to be sifted through to checked whether someone is truly "accredited" according to your list - granted, it would probably create several new jobs at Proz, but IMHO this suggestion's only merit would be its economic impact.

I think your points 3-8 are really problematic. Users' credentials would also need to be weighted in some way (is a degree worth more than the P badge or the ATA accreditation?) and who is to decide? And of course things aren't always as clear cut and easy as you would have us believe with your list ...
what about those translators whose authorship of translation is not easily identifiable, whose texts are not published online etc. What would count as professional development, anyway? Tricky, tricky, tricky ...

The discerning client can filter and select translators according to all the criteria mentioned in your post, there is no need to implement an unwieldy ranking system all of a sudden. I am satisfied that one can use Kudoz to find competent specialists in certain fields if you invest a little bit of time (don't just go for the highest points total) - if you take into account e.g. the ratio "points/question answered" among other things, this can tell you a lot about the translator in question.

Moreover, could it be that you've been harbouring a personal gripe with Kudos recently and that your suggestion is emotionally loaded (as stated in your profile)?
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Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
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Agree with suggestion, more or less Sep 25, 2012

traductorchile wrote:
I suggest that the present system for ranking in the Directories, only using Kudoz points, is replaced by a system where a weighted average is built using various features, where Kudoz is only one of those features, not THE only one.


I agree that there should be another way of ranking translators. Currently, clients can click the column headings of "Experience" and "KudoZ" to sort by years of experience or by number of KudoZ points. The default ranking is KudoZ points.

I think it could be made visually clearer that clicking the column headings will result in a different sort order. On most web sites with tables that allow column sorting, the column headings show more clearly that the columns are sortable.

On some web sites, there are fewer columns but you can select a sort option from a dropdown box at the top of the column. Such a system may be useful for ProZ.com, to allow clients to sort rankings by something specific (e.g. by WWA score, by KudoZ responses per month, by profile completeness, by general participation in the site, etc).

I understand the rationale of ranking by KudoZ points -- it encourages people to participate in KudoZ. I'm not sure what effect it would have on KudoZ participation if the ranking disappears.

If anything, it would be a good idea to create an aggregate ranking similar to the one proposed by Richard, and add that sorting option as a third column to the search results. The default sorting can still be KudoZ, but being able to sort by an aggregate ranking makes a lot of sense.

Samuel


 
Samuel Murray
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@Sheila, disagree somewhat Sep 25, 2012

Sheila Wilson wrote:
Rank in searches is already influenced by other data fields, should the searcher care to use them. Of course, the first determinant of ranking is paying membership. Most of your criteria below are already being used to select/deselect translators in specific searches, and KudoZ points are only taken into consideration where relevant, I believe.


No, that is not quite true. If the client selects a specialist field, all translators without that specialist field are excluded from the search results (they are not merely listed lower in the results). Of the translators that do end up in the search result, paying members are listed first, yes, but after that the ranking is based purely on KudoZ points. KudoZ points are not taken into account only "where relevant" -- KudoZ points are always taken into account, and by default as the highest ranker (apart from whether you are a paying member).

It's true that the KudoZ points in a specific field are taken into account in the ranking (i.e. not the global KudoZ score but the score based on the specalist field selected by the client), but the fact remains that the KudoZ score is the only determinant of ranking (by default). It is not even the "main determinant", no, it is the only determinant.

If two translators have the same specialist KudoZ score , their total KudoZ score is taken into account. Only if two translators have the same specialist and total KudoZ score, does the search result take into account something else, namely years of experience.

Now if translator A has 9 specialist KudoZ and 81 total KudoZ points, and translator B has 9 specialist KudoZ and 80 total KudoZ points, then translator A will be listed higher than translator B, even if translator B has 20 years of experience and translator A has only 1 year of experience.

Samuel


[Edited at 2012-09-25 07:34 GMT]


 
Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Duplicate post removed by poster.
BeaDeer (X)
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Seconded. Sep 25, 2012

I fully agree. Well-founded and explained.

traductorchile:
I suggest that the present system for ranking in the Directories, only using Kudoz points, is replaced by a system where a weighted average is built using various features, where Kudoz is only one of those features, not THE only one. According to many experienced translators and Kudoz users, Kudoz results are questionable in many cases; don’t prove a translator is a specialist in xxxxx field, might show a person is good at terminology research, are full of errors (however subjective that might be), can be manipulated in some cases, and other arguments.

IMHO the features to consider should show that the list is ordered according to those elements that are as objective as possible in showing the “professional experience” or “professionalism” of users. IMHO the following list of features and what they show or measure, could be used to create that “average”:

1) Has accredited “Translation competence” (a degree in translation/proof of experience).
2) Has accredited “Translation Competence” by other means (Examinations performed by translators’ associations, public institutions, and other institutions where those examinations can be verified).
3) Has accredited “Language competence” in source language at level 1, 2, 3, etc. (assuming that the translator is more competent in the Target language). A search can be done with only one pair of languages at a time, so someone that works in two or more language pairs should be able to accredit each source language or he’ll/she’ll fall in ranking for that pair. For people that work in 2 or more language pairs, accrediting their Target language (Native language, First language, Best language or whatever) might not be easily done, specially when translators at Proz move that definition all over the place just to satisfy their personal or commercial interests.
4) Has accredited a Specialty or field of expertise (documented with degrees or invoices of work performed)
5) Holds a Certified Pro badge: shows that the translator has gone through a screening process and his/her track record has been reviewed.
6) Holds a professional credential from an accredited institution: although this might be included in points 1 or 2, because not all institutions check their members, nor in similar depth.
7) Shows links to published and paid translations where his/her authorship can be verified, and his/her output can be reviewed.
8) Participation in ongoing professional development
9) Participation in Kudoz

What number of points are assigned to each item, and how the weights are distributed, IMHO is of little importance at present, as they can be scaled up permanently; but what would be a great gain is replacing a kudoz-driven directory that fails to show competence realistically.
However, and as an example, if someone is searching for a translator expert in marketing, the results should show at the top those that have accredited that specialty, and among these the ranking should show at the top those that have the best weighted average and at the bottom those with the smaller one. Although weight distribution can have a subjective element, and nobody will agree with the results, clearly holding a degree or an accreditation has much more value than being faster in answering a Kudoz question, or how many friends agree with you, or if you have time to find references that support an answer.



Samuel Murray wrote:

Sheila Wilson wrote:
Rank in searches is already influenced by other data fields, should the searcher care to use them. Of course, the first determinant of ranking is paying membership. Most of your criteria below are already being used to select/deselect translators in specific searches, and KudoZ points are only taken into consideration where relevant, I believe.


No, that is not quite true. If the client selects a specialist field, all translators without that specialist field are excluded from the search results (they are not merely listed lower in the results). Of the translators that do end up in the search result, paying members are listed first, yes, but after that the ranking is based purely on KudoZ points. KudoZ points are not taken into account only "where relevant" -- KudoZ points are always taken into account, and by default as the highest ranker (apart from whether you are a paying member).

It's true that the KudoZ points in a specific field are taken into account in the ranking (i.e. not the global KudoZ score but the score based on the specalist field selected by the client), but the fact remains that the KudoZ score is the only determinant of ranking (by default). It is not even the "main determinant", no, it is the only determinant.

If two translators have the same specialist KudoZ score , their total KudoZ score is taken into account. Only if two translators have the same specialist and total KudoZ score, does the search result take into account something else, namely years of experience.

Now if translator A has 9 specialist KudoZ and 81 total KudoZ points, and translator B has 9 specialist KudoZ and 80 total KudoZ points, then translator A will be listed higher than translator B, even if translator B has 20 years of experience and translator A has only 1 year of experience.

Samuel


 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
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Thanks for the clear explanation, Samuel Sep 25, 2012

Samuel Murray wrote:
KudoZ points are not taken into account only "where relevant" -- KudoZ points are always taken into account, and by default as the highest ranker (apart from whether you are a paying member).

It's true that the KudoZ points in a specific field are taken into account in the ranking (i.e. not the global KudoZ score but the score based on the specalist field selected by the client), but the fact remains that the KudoZ score is the only determinant of ranking (by default). It is not even the "main determinant", no, it is the only determinant.

If two translators have the same specialist KudoZ score , their total KudoZ score is taken into account. Only if two translators have the same specialist and total KudoZ score, does the search result take into account something else, namely years of experience.

Now if translator A has 9 specialist KudoZ and 81 total KudoZ points, and translator B has 9 specialist KudoZ and 80 total KudoZ points, then translator A will be listed higher than translator B, even if translator B has 20 years of experience and translator A has only 1 year of experience.

I hadn't expressed myself well, as I actually meant that only those KudoZ points in relevant sectors were taken into account, rather than the global KudoZ points (with the global total used only as a 'tie-breaker'). Hence, if someone had 5000 KudoZ in technical specialisations and zero in literature, they wouldn't figure at the top of the carefully-selected list of possible translators for a book translation. If they did, I'd certainly say that ought to change.

I can see that some people don't like the skew that KudoZ points put on the directory rankings. However, ProZ.com started a long while ago as a translators' community, not as a job market-place, so the contributive element of KudoZ was, and is, very important. Perhaps if someone were to propose workable solutions that gave less emphasis to KudoZ points, then site staff might listen, but this idea would be entirely unworkable even if everyone were 100% behind it - it simply isn't possible.

I was put in charge of categorising qualifications at Shell UK back in the '70s. Somebody thought it would be a good idea to be able to assign a code to each one, which would give meaningful statistics when all personnel data was loaded onto the then football-pitch sized computers (with about the capacity of our smartphones). It was soon discovered that it was a crazy idea even to codify qualifications from around the world, let alone do any usable ranking exercises on them. A hopeless task soon thankfully forgotten.

I don't know if the OP was thinking of giving more weighting to higher examinations (MA over BA, for example), but even the collection of that information is highly suspect. We already know that some people lie on their profiles and even if they didn't, can we expect ProZ.com to decide on the relevancy of a particular qualification from a particular part of the world? And collect all that other data from us, checking on the viability? You would have to have a 100% paying site, with membership fees of many times the current cost for that. And still there would be endless quibbles about rankings.


 
traductorchile
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To make things better you have to create solutions, not barriers Sep 25, 2012

Kay Barbara wrote:
Just think of the amount of data, certificates, invoices, weblinks etc. that would have to be sifted through to checked whether someone is truly "accredited" according to your list - granted, it would probably create several new jobs at Proz


- Declaring or not documented evidence, as now, is a responsibility of the holder. If he doesn't, he does not add points for that field.
- Anyone can check many documents (i.e. the dishonest behaviour of a colleague who stated he was a PhD, made me check that fact: one email to the University of Hull was enough. Now I am in doubt of his psychology, but I can't check that) and checking can be implemented only when there are reasonable doubts that a document is false or forged.


Sheila Wilson wrote:
It was soon discovered that it was a crazy idea even to codify qualifications from around the world, let alone do any usable ranking exercises on them. A hopeless task soon thankfully forgotten.
I don't know if the OP was thinking of giving more weighting to higher examinations (MA over BA, for example), but even the collection of that information is highly suspect.


Any differential weight given to each document surely will not be consensual with everyone, but as they can be scaled to higher consensuses according to experience, it should be a good starting point. Nothing is perfect in this world, and those looking for perfection end up frustrated and dropping the most simple tasks. It all depends of what you are looking for and which are your expectations. Not doing anything when something is clearly wrong or is producing the wrong results makes me think of Einstein’s definition of insanity.

I suppose there can be an easy consensus in some areas, like different weights for a BA, a Msc and a PhD, for example, and others would be more difficult to tackle. In those that are more difficult to tackle, IMHO the rules should be lenient except for some marginal obvious cases. No one wants prejudice and discrimination to take over as a flagship some people like to use, getting rules to favour their particular interests.


 
Sheila Wilson
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The barriers are already there - the job is far too massive to even imagine Sep 25, 2012

traductorchile wrote:
checking can be implemented only when there are reasonable doubts that a document is false or forged.

Bearing in mind that ProZ.com have not implemented a system of verifying something totally fundamental i.e. our native language (or our proficiency in any language) after 14 years, I believe, of thinking about it, what makes you think that any of this is going to happen? Even if it were feasible (which it isn't), what's in it for the site? All it would create is enmity between translators who can't prove anything but think they've been robbed of visibility. That's one thing about membership and KudoZ points: you may not like either but you can see the evidence before your eyes and you can go and get them for yourself if ranking is so important to you.

BTW The 'P' badge doesn't depend on KudoZ points. In fact I've seen some badge holders with very little in that area. A lot of things are examined by a lot of people before that badge is awarded. In my personal case, at least one client was contacted and asked to fill in a questionnaire. My qualifications etc were also checked. Isn't that what happened to you, too? So, ProZ does these checks for a few thousand paying members. But they aren't going to extend that to everyone, are they? Are you saying they should spend time doing them for non-paying users? Do you realise there are nearly 600,000 users? How many of them have forged credentials?


 
Samuel Murray
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Any ranking has to use current information Sep 25, 2012

Sheila Wilson wrote:
I don't know if the OP was thinking of giving more weighting to higher examinations (MA over BA, for example), but even the collection of that information is highly suspect. ... [Can] we expect ProZ.com to decide on the relevancy of a particular qualification from a particular part of the world? And collect all that other data from us, checking on the viability?


Well, my support for the original idea was based on the assumption that the aggregate score would be based on things that are already known to ProZ.com. In other words, not anything that requires additional verification. Here is a simple example of what such a scoring system might look like:

* WWA entries = 3 points each (maximum 15 points)
* Referrals = 2 points each (maximum 10 points)
* Number of BB posts = 1 point each (maximum 5 points)
* Profile completeness = between 0 and 5 points
* Years of experience = 1 point for every 5 years (minimum 0, maximum 5 points)
* Number of portfolio translations = 1 point each (maximum 5 points)
* And one point each for:
- having a downloadable CV/résumé (2 points if more than one language version)
- having at least 1 association membership
- having at least 100 forum posts from more than 1 year ago
- having at least 100 entries in a personal glossary

In the above example, the maximum score is 50 and the minimum score is 0. Users can still do things to raise their aggregate scores, but some aspects of the score can't be fixed by the user unless he resorts to deception. Such a score would also help encourage users to participate in the site sections that affect their score.

What do you think?

I understand the reasoning that someone who has 100 KudoZ points in cosmetics will likely be an experienced cosmetics translator, but not all translators participate in KudoZ, and besides, the KudoZ score is based not on KudoZ participation but on KudoZ luck and KudoZ success.

Samuel


 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
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The solution has to be better than the problem Sep 25, 2012

Samuel Murray wrote:
Well, my support for the original idea was based on the assumption that the aggregate score would be based on things that are already known to ProZ.com. In other words, not anything that requires additional verification. Here is a simple example of what such a scoring system might look like:

* WWA entries = 3 points each (maximum 15 points)
* Referrals = 2 points each (maximum 10 points)
* Number of BB posts = 1 point each (maximum 5 points)
* Profile completeness = between 0 and 5 points
* Years of experience = 1 point for every 5 years (minimum 0, maximum 5 points)
* Number of portfolio translations = 1 point each (maximum 5 points)
* And one point each for:
- having a downloadable CV/résumé (2 points if more than one language version)
- having at least 1 association membership
- having at least 100 forum posts from more than 1 year ago
- having at least 100 entries in a personal glossary

In the above example, the maximum score is 50 and the minimum score is 0. Users can still do things to raise their aggregate scores, but some aspects of the score can't be fixed by the user unless he resorts to deception. Such a score would also help encourage users to participate in the site sections that affect their score.

What do you think?

It might be interesting to discuss that, Samuel. But that's a long, long way from the OP's suggestion. See some excerpts from the original posting and my added comments below (sorry, highlighting things is just too much of a pain - please refer back to the original posting to be sure of what the OP said and what's my opinion):

1) a degree in translation/proof of experience - proof of experience?
4) Has accredited a Specialty or field of expertise (documented with degrees or invoices of work performed) - apart from the possibilities of non-translation degrees, how would this be achieved? Invoices? I'm not uploading my invoices thank you very much!
6) Holds a professional credential from an accredited institution: although this might be included in points 1 or 2, because not all institutions check their members, nor in similar depth. - true, some simply take your money
7) Shows links to published and paid translations where his/her authorship can be verified, and his/her output can be reviewed. - again, with NDAs so prevalent, proof impossible, and clients free to mess with our work post-delivery...
8) Participation in ongoing professional development - that can be anywhere, at any level, in any language...

In short, it simply isn't feasible. However biased things are at the moment I can guarantee they would deteriorate if ProZ.com goes down this route. Big Brother has nothing on this planned scrutiny.


 
traductorchile
traductorchile  Identity Verified
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Yes, but Sep 25, 2012

Samuel Murray wrote:
* WWA entries = 3 points each (maximum 15 points)
* Referrals = 2 points each (maximum 10 points)
* Number of BB posts = 1 point each (maximum 5 points)
* Profile completeness = between 0 and 5 points
* Years of experience = 1 point for every 5 years (minimum 0, maximum 5 points)
* Number of portfolio translations = 1 point each (maximum 5 points)
* And one point each for:
- having a downloadable CV/résumé (2 points if more than one language version)
- having at least 1 association membership
- having at least 100 forum posts from more than 1 year ago
- having at least 100 entries in a personal glossary


I think that any option is better than what we have now: anyone can declare a specialty with no supporting evidence at all, as is the same case with "being native" (although this is not part of this thread).

I wouldn't include the following (suggested by you), and the reason:

WWA entries= some people don't seek WWA from all clients due to wariness about the misuse that competitors might make with that information (although one might consider those cases as personal issues).

Downloadable CV/résumé = due to confidentiality issues, scams and similar issues, many members prefer not to publish a CV that can be downloaded by anyone.

Association membership = Yes, it’s considered an important feature, although I’m sure many top pros don’t belong to any association, for reasons that have nothing to do with professionalism, including the costs and others. And as Sheila has recognised there are Associations that follow accepted practices and others that don’t.

But, anyhow, I agree, this should be the right track.

Maybe there is a better way to encourage Kudoz, and specially quality Kudoz, not competition-driven Kudoz. Maybe Kudoz driven by a prize for collaboration in terminology research, where peers vote for those who collaborate generously in search of the correct answer. I'm sure Kudoz quality would gain tremendously with a strategy like that.


 
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