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How many Kudoz askers have you put on ignore?
Thread poster: Tom in London
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:55
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Jan 11, 2016

Being able to put Kudoz askers on ignore is a very useful feature.

Currently I have 34 users listed whose questions I don't want to see and don't want to answer.

These are people who appear very frequently on Kudoz asking for the meanings of terms that anyone translating from Italian to English (my language pair) ought to know without needing to ask.

Many of them have profiles offering their services as translators from Italian to English and claiming that
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Being able to put Kudoz askers on ignore is a very useful feature.

Currently I have 34 users listed whose questions I don't want to see and don't want to answer.

These are people who appear very frequently on Kudoz asking for the meanings of terms that anyone translating from Italian to English (my language pair) ought to know without needing to ask.

Many of them have profiles offering their services as translators from Italian to English and claiming that they are native in English! I don't know how they get any work at all!

[Edited at 2016-01-11 09:53 GMT]
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Dan Lucas
Dan Lucas  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:55
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
I have put the whole of KudoZ on ignore Jan 11, 2016

Tom in London wrote:
Many of them have profiles offering their services as translators from Italian to English and claiming that they are native in English! I don't know how they get any work at all!

I'm not surprised. Translation - whatever anybody would like to think - is a segmented market, from Google Translate on up. There's a buyer at every level of quality. So I don't mind such people getting work.

What I do mind is them taking on work they cannot do and then asking many KudoZ questions in a short period of time. In my pair, these askers are nearly always from developing countries. In effect these people getting the translators who ARE capable of doing the job to bail them out. In what other industry do people demand that their competitors help them?

That's an abuse of the system. As ProZ seems unwilling to impose simple limits - say, 5 questions per month per person/company - the whole system is deeply flawed.

For that reason I no longer participate in KudoZ. Everybody's on ignore.

Regards
Dan


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:55
Member (2008)
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER
Enjoyment Jan 11, 2016

Dan Lucas wrote:

That's an abuse of the system. As ProZ seems unwilling to impose simple limits - say, 5 questions per month per person/company - the whole system is deeply flawed.

For that reason I no longer participate in KudoZ. Everybody's on ignore.

Regards
Dan


That seems extreme. Sometimes I find Kudoz questions intriguing or challenging and I enjoy suggesting answers or seeing the suggestions of others. If I don't find the questions stimulating or interesting I just don't get involved.

But you're right: the most annoying askers are the ones who work their way through an entire text, one question at a time, until they have the complete translation. I thought that wasn't allowed, but some people seem to get away with it. It particularly irks me when I see other users answering all the questions.

Call me cynical if you like, but in such cases I become suspicious about who's asking and who's answering....

[Edited at 2016-01-11 09:33 GMT]


 
Yasutomo Kanazawa
Yasutomo Kanazawa  Identity Verified
Japan
Local time: 16:55
Member (2005)
English to Japanese
+ ...
So far, eight. Jan 11, 2016

Tom in London wrote:

Being able to put Kudoz askers on ignore is a very useful feature.

Currently I have 34 users listed whose questions I don't want to see and don't want to answer.

These are people who appear very frequently on Kudoz asking for the meanings of terms that anyone translating from Italian to English (my language pair) ought to know without needing to ask.

Many of them have profiles offering their services as translators from Italian to English and claiming that they are native in English! I don't know how they get any work at all!

[Edited at 2016-01-11 08:39 GMT]


I think in every language pair there are people who appear very frequently on Kudoz asking questions where anyone who translates from X to Y should ought to know.

I could say this only in my language pair, but what I've seen so far are:

a) most of these people only ask; they never answer other people's questions,
b) don't close them (abandonment) due to having more than two peer agreements because they know the question will eventually be closed by being selected automatically
c) even though they ask, get answers with peer agreements, they close the question without giving any specific reason (i.e. other) because the asker does not want to give points to (certain) answerers.
d) closes the question ONLY when their limit of asking is full to make oneself available to ask a new question(s)
e) very little or no participation in entering an agree or disagree to other people's answers

People like thse can still get work because of KudoZ. You can always find people willing to help these askers.

Oh, and of course they are native in Japanese.


 
Katrin Bosse (X)
Katrin Bosse (X)  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 08:55
Dutch to German
+ ...
I don't participate in KudoZ anymore Jan 11, 2016

Dan Lucas wrote:
For that reason I no longer participate in KudoZ. Everybody's on ignore.


Taking valuable time away from my own translating in order to answer questions of "professional translators" either too poorly qualified to know the answers themselves or too lazy to do extensive research is just not worth it, neither the time, nor the KudoZ points.

In all my years on ProZ I only ever asked two questions myself, one in the very beginning (testing the waters...) and one in a language pair not my own (Finnish-German). After that innitial phase I found that I can easily and sometimes better depend on my own research and search strategies for all my professional challenges.

I agree, the system is deeply flawed.

[Bearbeitet am 2016-01-11 14:24 GMT]


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:55
Member (2008)
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER
Good intentions Jan 11, 2016

Katrin Bosse wrote:

I agree, the system is deeply flawed.


To prevent abuse of the system, I think there should NOT be a list of the top Kudoz answerers - for the obvious reason that any two people can cheat the system by asking and answering easy questions, and thereby get to the top of the list.

The intentions of Kudoz are good (serious, honest translators helping one another in a spirit of collaboration) but this depends on people behaving ethically.

Would anyone else agree that the list of top Kudoz answerers should be discontinued?

[Edited at 2016-01-11 09:28 GMT]


 
Dan Lucas
Dan Lucas  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:55
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Sometimes one has to take a stand Jan 11, 2016

Tom in London wrote:
That seems extreme. ... If I don't find the questions stimulating or interesting I just don't get involved.

I understand that point of view, but I don't like being involved in a Q&A system that rewards bad actors.

I think I have said before that a system like that used on Stack Overflow might help but the real issue is that - as usual - ProZ management doesn't want to make the effort to improve KudoZ.

Regards
Dan


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:55
Member (2008)
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER
Example of a GOOD kudoz question Jan 11, 2016

http://www.proz.com/kudoz/6018323

 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 07:55
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
So far, 5! Jan 11, 2016

But I do ignore many more...

 
Mikhail Kropotov
Mikhail Kropotov  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 08:55
English to Russian
+ ...
About a dozen Jan 11, 2016

Maybe more, I don't really keep track of them.

 
Harry Blake Paz Bonzano
Harry Blake Paz Bonzano  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 08:55
Member (2014)
Spanish to Italian
+ ...
None but... Jan 11, 2016

By reading your posts, I am more inclined to use the method of ignoring users I find quite annoying.

 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
None - now Jan 11, 2016

I switched off loads of eejits and KudoZ suddenly became very boring, so I've switched them all back on again for entertainment value

 
Jessica Noyes
Jessica Noyes  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 03:55
Member
Spanish to English
+ ...
A few Jan 11, 2016

Three or four of the most egregious users and manipulators.

 
Max Deryagin
Max Deryagin  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 12:55
Member (2013)
English to Russian
All of them Jan 11, 2016

Fun and challenging questions occasionally pop up, but, for me, the sheer number of utterly simplistic or outright boring questions makes wading through the dumpster that is the English-Russian Kudoz section absolutely not worth it. Just like Katrin and Dan, I bailed out of Kudoz half a year ago, and, in hindsight, I made a great decision.

 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:55
Member (2008)
Italian to English
TOPIC STARTER
Off-topic Jan 11, 2016

Jessica Noyes wrote:

Three or four of the most egregious users and manipulators.


Off-topic:

It's funny: in English "egregious" means "very bad" (as in the statement "the rich, egregious, and perverted William Beckford") whereas in Italian "egregio" means "most excellent" as when writing a letter to someone important, one might begin "Egregio Professore....."

Back to topic....

[Edited at 2016-01-11 13:41 GMT]


 
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How many Kudoz askers have you put on ignore?






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