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Is it worth answering?
Thread poster: Luca Vaccari
James McVay
James McVay  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 18:47
Russian to English
+ ...
Don't focus just on the asker May 6, 2015

I don't know about other people, but often, when I encounter a difficult translation problem, I will search the ProZ.com site. Frequently enough to make it worthwhile, I find my answer in responses to a Kudoz question that someone has already asked. Also, I not infrequently prefer an answer that was not awarded points.

Here's a suggestion for the ProZ.com staff: why not add a button to make it possible to award "posthumous" points, i.e., points awarded after a question has closed
... See more
I don't know about other people, but often, when I encounter a difficult translation problem, I will search the ProZ.com site. Frequently enough to make it worthwhile, I find my answer in responses to a Kudoz question that someone has already asked. Also, I not infrequently prefer an answer that was not awarded points.

Here's a suggestion for the ProZ.com staff: why not add a button to make it possible to award "posthumous" points, i.e., points awarded after a question has closed?
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Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 18:47
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
+ ...
I stopped answering questions... May 6, 2015

... three years ago when someone started a "war" against my answer just to get the points and when I noticed how some people started systematically posting synonyms to everyone else's answers (as though the asker couldn't do this on their own) in the hope of grabbing random points, not to mention the people who ask way too many questions - not just for one project, but over and over again (as though they were accepting every job thrown at them and they were perpetually lost in a sea of incompete... See more
... three years ago when someone started a "war" against my answer just to get the points and when I noticed how some people started systematically posting synonyms to everyone else's answers (as though the asker couldn't do this on their own) in the hope of grabbing random points, not to mention the people who ask way too many questions - not just for one project, but over and over again (as though they were accepting every job thrown at them and they were perpetually lost in a sea of incompetence).

Everyone has their own idea about what a proper KudoZ answer should be. For me, any tidbit of information I know or uncover in my research may help the asker (including when I am the asker) find or determine the proper answer. It's not my job to do all of the asker's work, but to assist them in finding a translation. For others, only a complete and definitive response backed up by thousands of Google links is appropriate and everyone else's help is questionable "Where's the documentation for this?", 'How is that helpful?". In other words, instead of giving you the benefit of the doubt that you were genuinely trying to help that person, they jump all over you as though your sole intention were to grab points and how dare you expect the asker to use your response as stepping stone/starting point for further research.

As for asking, I seem to average around one question a month, although so far, I haven't asked any at all this year.


[Edited at 2015-05-07 14:17 GMT]
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Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 18:47
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
+ ...
May 6, 2015

[duplicate post deleted]

[Edited at 2015-05-06 21:30 GMT]


 
Phil Hand
Phil Hand  Identity Verified
China
Local time: 06:47
Chinese to English
Kudoz is a computer game, it's just you and the screen... May 7, 2015

...the people on the other end are just pixellated figments of Proz's imagination.

viking modena wrote:

But is it worth answering?

Any Kudoz question is worth answering only insofar as it helps you. If you like to get your nerd on and research odd words, then it's worth it. There is only one other reason for engaging with Kudoz, that I can see: it can be a forum for seeing who knows their stuff in your pair, and if you one day want to partner up with someone, you will have some evidence.
The points are meaningless; and you can't generate real goodwill on Kudoz. If you do it, you do it for yourself only.


I also feel that answering to such questions is like "cutting the branch I sit on". So far, I've not seen so big "rewarding" for all the questions I've answered and points awarded.

No. Rubbish translators are not made good - or even barely competent - by a few Kudoz answers. And the rewards are entirely the benefit you get from researching questions.


 
Luca Vaccari
Luca Vaccari  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 23:47
Swedish to Italian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
thanks for all feedbacks May 7, 2015

I'm really pleased that so many of you got engaged in this.

If I want to sum up:
a) I should see answering as a way to improve my knowledge or help colleagues (competitors) for free, as the point awarding system either doesn't work as it was thought or is misused.
b) There is no way to stop non-qualified askers, and with this I mean askers that do not even care to make a small search before asking. Look at yesterday's list and you will see another 4-5 examples of questio
... See more
I'm really pleased that so many of you got engaged in this.

If I want to sum up:
a) I should see answering as a way to improve my knowledge or help colleagues (competitors) for free, as the point awarding system either doesn't work as it was thought or is misused.
b) There is no way to stop non-qualified askers, and with this I mean askers that do not even care to make a small search before asking. Look at yesterday's list and you will see another 4-5 examples of questions from the "same" asker about things that should/could be sorted out with a little exercise.

So my conclusion is: I will me even more strict to when and what I answer to, acting as a samaritan, and refraining from answering to very silly questions.
That was the meaning of my question.

I didn't mean to be my question a personnel issue, but someone has taken out my statistics. So I have to reply on that. As I said, I have always been quite strict for answering, in fact only to questions that had not yet received any answer AND when I was 100%/almost sure about the answer, that is... not only to fill in a form.
Considering this, I was expecting that the acceptance of my answers would be towards 100%. This is not the case, because askers have not closed their questions (and awarded points, but we can drop this, then!) or because they have chosed other answerers. And if you look again at the statistics, some of these non closed answers are just to these silly questions. That's why I felt I was not doing the right thing and asked for colleagues' feedback.

By the way, we normally also refrain to reply to job posts, when you can see that 4-5 other people already have offered. Is it worth it? Probably not. If a job poster gets more than 10 offers, he/she will probably choose a cheaper competitor than us. Any translation balance sheet always ends with 100%, so if you are very fast, you cannot be as accurate or ought not to be very cheap.
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Lincoln Hui
Lincoln Hui  Identity Verified
Hong Kong
Local time: 06:47
Member
Chinese to English
+ ...
Zero-sum games May 7, 2015

Considering this, I was expecting that the acceptance of my answers would be towards 100%.

Don't we all. You're asking the mathematically impossible.


 
Balasubramaniam L.
Balasubramaniam L.  Identity Verified
India
Local time: 04:17
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
There are two aspects to the kudoz game May 7, 2015

Let us first begin with the altruistic: Helping others motivates many people, though not me. I do it because I find it mentally and linguistically challenging to tackle difficult translation situations. The pleasure is enhanced many fold when discerning fellow translators show understanding of the technical or linguistic fineness you have brought in by commenting or agreeing (or disagreeing) with your answer in an intelligent manner. It is the latter that I find more rewarding in my kudoz pursui... See more
Let us first begin with the altruistic: Helping others motivates many people, though not me. I do it because I find it mentally and linguistically challenging to tackle difficult translation situations. The pleasure is enhanced many fold when discerning fellow translators show understanding of the technical or linguistic fineness you have brought in by commenting or agreeing (or disagreeing) with your answer in an intelligent manner. It is the latter that I find more rewarding in my kudoz pursuits.

Now for the selfish: kudoz scalps help you move up the totem pole in your language pair, which gives you more exposure to outsourcers and increases your chances of being directly contacted by clients.

kudoz can also be viewed as small ad inserts of your service in a heavily viewed site frequented by translation outsourcers - each kudoz answer or agree also displays your name, picture, working languages and a link to your profile. So this is a free ad service that proz.com provides to its members.

Thirdly, I have read in these forums that quality-conscious outsourcers actually evaluate your kudoz record while deciding whether to hire you or not, or pick up a competitor instead. So it pays to keep your kudoz record clean and impressive.

So the benefits of kudoz participation are not immediate or tangible, but they can be significant. This site is heavily built around the kudoz feature, and it always pays to learn to manipulate this feature to your advantage.

[Edited at 2015-05-07 14:17 GMT]
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Jessica Noyes
Jessica Noyes  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 18:47
Member
Spanish to English
+ ...
Get by with a little help from my friends May 7, 2015

Maybe the Original Poster never needs a helping hand or a fresh point of view with his translations, but I sometimes do. In my isolated rural US outpost I have few bilingual friends and colleagues to consult, and I do get stuck. (Sometimes the term is genuinely arcane, sometimes I parse the sentence incorrectly, and sometimes my brain just shifts briefly into "stupid" mode.) So I ask my question on KudoZ, and some kind translators come to my aid.
In addition, I often refer to the Kudo
... See more
Maybe the Original Poster never needs a helping hand or a fresh point of view with his translations, but I sometimes do. In my isolated rural US outpost I have few bilingual friends and colleagues to consult, and I do get stuck. (Sometimes the term is genuinely arcane, sometimes I parse the sentence incorrectly, and sometimes my brain just shifts briefly into "stupid" mode.) So I ask my question on KudoZ, and some kind translators come to my aid.
In addition, I often refer to the KudoZ terminology, carefully review the comments of the various people who participated in the past, and check their reference links. This has been very helpful to me overall.
Now it is part of my personal belief system that if I receive energy from a system, I return energy into that system if I can. Therefore, when it is convenient for me, and when I think I have a useful perspective to offer, and *when I have not blocked the KudoZ asker for abusing the system IMHO*, I respond to a question or two. I would do this even without the pointz that my response might be awarded.
So this is why I participate -- part of routine and healthy human give-and-take.
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Matthias Brombach
Matthias Brombach  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 23:47
Member (2007)
Dutch to German
+ ...
Targeted audience has already moved: May 7, 2015

viking modena wrote:

is it worth answering questions from a poster who markets him/herself as "I offer cheap, fast and accurate translations" and then posts some 10 questions a day and may ask what "eg." stands for?
Nice to see what you think of this.


I assume a majority of these kind of posters you mentioned are moving more and more to the facebook world; there, where the grass is greener and where end clients queue up for them to pay really "best rates" (credits to Bernhard ). There must be similar help boards, where they load each other inflationary with "Thumbs Up" and "Likes" instead of awarding KudoZ points. How do I know? Because I have a secret facebook profile? No, but there is almost any KudoZ traffic in my language combinations (and specialities). Perhaps a good chance to outsource these posters and to rebuild this platform to a different quality level.





[Bearbeitet am 2015-05-07 14:48 GMT]


 
Jeff Whittaker
Jeff Whittaker  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 18:47
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Of course, it should be remembered that... May 9, 2015

although many of us do not post questions, we do make use of the KudoZ term search, and thus make use of questions asked by someone else.

 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:47
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Monitoring the competition May 9, 2015

Phil Hand wrote:

There is only one other reason for engaging with Kudoz, that I can see.....


One of my reasons for staying linked to Kudoz is a well-known practice that's essential to any type of business: monitoring the competition.

One of the ways in which I monitor my competitors is by tracking the Kudoz activity of other translators who are quoting for jobs in my specialist fields, probably at a lower rate than mine, but who manifestly don't know the lingo and who then come to Kudoz looking for help. I keep files on those people.

I usually don't answer their questions, but I do have fun leaving them to stew in their own juice, seeing all the wrong answers being suggested, and googling for the context provided to see if I can find the original of the text that's being translated .

This activity enhances my overview of what's going on in my specialist fields, what demand there is for translations of particular types of text, etc.

I do make exceptions for people I "know" and who are skilled translators I respect, who've genuinely run into a one-off problem.

[Edited at 2015-05-09 12:26 GMT]


 
Balasubramaniam L.
Balasubramaniam L.  Identity Verified
India
Local time: 04:17
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
Quiet a novel use for kudoz May 11, 2015

Tom in London wrote:

One of my reasons for staying linked to Kudoz is a well-known practice that's essential to any type of business: monitoring the competition.

One of the ways in which I monitor my competitors is by tracking the Kudoz activity of other translators who are quoting for jobs in my specialist fields, probably at a lower rate than mine, but who manifestly don't know the lingo and who then come to Kudoz looking for help. I keep files on those people.

I usually don't answer their questions, but I do have fun leaving them to stew in their own juice, seeing all the wrong answers being suggested, and googling for the context provided to see if I can find the original of the text that's being translated .

This activity enhances my overview of what's going on in my specialist fields, what demand there is for translations of particular types of text, etc.

I do make exceptions for people I "know" and who are skilled translators I respect, who've genuinely run into a one-off problem.

[Edited at 2015-05-09 12:26 GMT]


I thought I knew all the tricks about kudoz use, but this is a new one for me, and how wicked. But it is brilliant nevertheless! One does learn new things from these forum discussions!


 
Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 23:47
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
Reasons for answering carefully May 11, 2015

Jeff Whittaker wrote:

although many of us do not post questions, we do make use of the KudoZ term search, and thus make use of questions asked by someone else.


and
Tom in London wrote:
...
One of my reasons for staying linked to Kudoz is a well-known practice that's essential to any type of business: monitoring the competition.


Maybe many people don't do it as consistently as Tom, but you get yourself noticed for better or worse, and with a record of 75% accepted in a busy language pair, you are probably doing fine!

I have sent 'agrees' with thanks to people who have contributed, even if they were not awarded points, because they really have helped me out with their contributions to the discussion.


 
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