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Do you think it is fair to have a question removed if answers have already been provided?
Thread poster: jyuan_us
Christian christian@nielsen-palacios.com
Christian [email protected]
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Agree with both? Oct 24, 2016

As far as I understand, you are frustrated because you made a contribution (posted an answer = sent money to the watch guy on eBay) in anticipation of a reward (points = a Rolex), but you were not able to get your reward (points = the Rolex), because the transaction was never completed (the question was found to be violating the rules and got squashed = the police found out about the guy and shut his business down).

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The point is, if the question violates the rules, it viol
... See more
As far as I understand, you are frustrated because you made a contribution (posted an answer = sent money to the watch guy on eBay) in anticipation of a reward (points = a Rolex), but you were not able to get your reward (points = the Rolex), because the transaction was never completed (the question was found to be violating the rules and got squashed = the police found out about the guy and shut his business down).

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The point is, if the question violates the rules, it violates the rules. Having an answer posted already does not change that fact.

Katalin: I agree with your analogy, but JYUAN did not say WHY the question and answer(s) were removed. We are all assuming it was because the question violated some KudoZ rule, but we don't KNOW that. Do we?
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jyuan_us
jyuan_us  Identity Verified
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TOPIC STARTER
You have made the analogy much clearer Oct 24, 2016

Christian Nielsen-Palacios wrote:

As far as I understand, you are frustrated because you made a contribution (posted an answer = sent money to the watch guy on eBay) in anticipation of a reward (points = a Rolex), but you were not able to get your reward (points = the Rolex), because the transaction was never completed (the question was found to be violating the rules and got squashed = the police found out about the guy and shut his business down).


but the analogy can still be a fallacy. When you order something but "the transaction was never completed", you are supposed to get refunded, no matter who the seller is, although in reality, this would not easily happen.

Also, would you kindly refrain from using words like "you are frustrated"? We are discussing an issue here and if you are thinking that you are trying to relieve my frustration, you really don't need to do so.

Please, we are the professionals.


 
Katalin Horváth McClure
Katalin Horváth McClure  Identity Verified
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To Christian Oct 24, 2016

Christian Nielsen-Palacios wrote:

As far as I understand, you are frustrated because you made a contribution (posted an answer = sent money to the watch guy on eBay) in anticipation of a reward (points = a Rolex), but you were not able to get your reward (points = the Rolex), because the transaction was never completed (the question was found to be violating the rules and got squashed = the police found out about the guy and shut his business down).

...
The point is, if the question violates the rules, it violates the rules. Having an answer posted already does not change that fact.

Katalin: I agree with your analogy, but JYUAN did not say WHY the question and answer(s) were removed. We are all assuming it was because the question violated some KudoZ rule, but we don't KNOW that. Do we?


Yes, we sort of know it.
A KudoZ question can be removed by the asker, or by a KudoZ Editor, Moderator or Staff member. The OP said "removed before the asker was given a chance to select an answer" - that means it was not removed by the asker.
As I explained before, KudoZ Editors can't remove a question that has answers already submitted. Moderators and staff remove questions if they violate the rules. So, we can be pretty sure that one or more rules were violated.

By the way, you did not indicate that you were quoting my post, so jyuan_us thought it was your contribution. jyuan_us, I wrote those in my previous post, so please don't chew him out about that.


 
Katalin Horváth McClure
Katalin Horváth McClure  Identity Verified
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Refunded by whom??? Oct 24, 2016

jyuan_us wrote:

When you order something but "the transaction was never completed", you are supposed to get refunded, no matter who the seller is,

In a legitimate transaction, perhaps.
But when it is NOT a legit transaction?
Who do you think would owe you the refund? The authorities who identified and shut down the illegal transaction in progress? No, right? (Maybe the other party to the transaction, but as you said, in reality that does not work.)

When Moderators/Staff are deciding whether to remove a question, the deciding factor is (and should be) whether it violates the rules. Whether or not anybody answered, that should not be a deciding factor. In other words, you cannot have a system where submitting an answer would suddenly turn an offending question into a legitimate one.

If a question is removed in spite of not violating any of the rules, that is a different thing, that would be totally unfair, but we are not talking about that here.
Also, whether the rules themselves are fair, could be material for an entirely different discussion. Not this one here.


 
jyuan_us
jyuan_us  Identity Verified
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@ katalin Oct 24, 2016

Your assumption is that the answerers commit a conspiracy for the illegal act together with the asker, but my assumption is that the answerers are the victims. With your analogy of "illegal" transactions, you assume that the buyers are doing something illegally and that is why you asked the question "refunded by whom?" My assumption is that the ones who buy the watches are ignorant about the source of the watches, and they don't feel anything wrong in dealing with the seller. Don't they have the... See more
Your assumption is that the answerers commit a conspiracy for the illegal act together with the asker, but my assumption is that the answerers are the victims. With your analogy of "illegal" transactions, you assume that the buyers are doing something illegally and that is why you asked the question "refunded by whom?" My assumption is that the ones who buy the watches are ignorant about the source of the watches, and they don't feel anything wrong in dealing with the seller. Don't they have the right to get refunded if their "orders" are not materialized?

Let me ask you this: If you fall victim to a Ponzi scheme, and if its operator is jailed, aren't you going to request your money back? I know I'm committing a fallacy here but I couldn't find a better way to respond to your "refunded by whom" question.

I think we should stop using any analogy on this topic. Point is, the magnitude, significance, consequence, and possible solutions of the issue at hand are not comparable to something "illegal" (which is the word that you first used in this thread).
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Katalin Horváth McClure
Katalin Horváth McClure  Identity Verified
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Don't put words in my mouth, please Oct 25, 2016

jyuan_us wrote:

Your assumption is that the answerers commit a conspiracy for the illegal act together with the asker,

No, it is not my assumption.

but my assumption is that the answerers are the victims.

Yes, in a sense, and if you read what I wrote (especially at the beginning), you would understand that I am saying the same thing.


My assumption is that the ones who buy the watches are ignorant about the source of the watches, and they don't feel anything wrong in dealing with the seller.

Yes, that is exactly the analogy for people who answer these questions because they don't realize the questions are against the rules. I mentioned this in one of my earlier comments.
I also mentioned, that while it is unfortunate, that they will be losing out (as they 'wasted their time"), it won't happen again, because going forward they will know that answering rule-violating questions carries the risk of such time wasting. Is it more clear now?

Don't they have the right to get refunded if their "orders" are not materialized?

I am not sure how to respond to this, because even if they had any sort of right, it is not really possible to enforce or validate in practice, in the described situation. Going back to Kudoz, when you offer an answer to a question, there is no guarantee that your answer would be selected, and if selected, how many points you would get. All answerers know that, that's how it works, and after all, the basic goal is to help the asker, right?

Let me ask you this: If you fall victim to a Ponzi scheme, and if its operator is jailed, aren't you going to request your money back? I know I'm committing a fallacy here but I couldn't find a better way to respond to your "refunded by whom" question.

Of course, I would try to get my money back. But not from the POLICE, for heavens sake!
If I wanted to get my money back, my only choice would be to sue the Ponzi operator. That is why I asked, "refunded by whom?".
I don't believe anybody would question whether it was "fair" for the police to shut down the Ponzi scheme. Would you? (Rhetoric question, don't need to answer.)

Going back to the KudoZ topic, and your original question about fairness, here is my last contribution to the topic:
The only one who could be considered unfair is the asker who posted the question. It is entirely possible, that the asker was not familiar with the rules, and that's why he/she posted the question, but it doesn't mean the rules don't apply. My point in this entire thread was that all participants need to know the rules and play by them. Enforcing those rules should not be considered "unfair".


 
Katalin Horváth McClure
Katalin Horváth McClure  Identity Verified
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P.S: Illegal - definition Oct 25, 2016

jyuan_us wrote:

Point is, the magnitude, significance, consequence, and possible solutions of the issue at hand are not comparable to something "illegal" (which is the word that you first used in this thread).


It seems to me you are taking offence at my use of the word "illegal".
Here is what it means:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/illegal
illegal
adjective il·le·gal \(ˌ)i(l)-ˈlē-gəl\

Simple Definition of illegal
: not allowed by the law : not legal
: not allowed by the rules in a game
Source: Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary

Full Definition of illegal
: not according to or authorized by law : unlawful, illicit; also : not sanctioned by official rules (as of a game)

Learner's definition of ILLEGAL
1
: not allowed by the law : not legal
illegal [=illicit, unlawful] drugs
In this state, it is illegal for anyone under the age of 21 to drink alcohol.
an illegal alien/immigrant [=a foreign person who is living in a country without having official permission to live there]
2
: not allowed by the rules in a game
The team was penalized for an illegal play.


 
Premium✍️
Premium✍️  Identity Verified
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No it is NOT fair Dec 3, 2016

It is not nice or fair toward those answerers who have selflessly devoted time to researching, drafting, writing, reviewing and carefully crafting an answer (as I usually do), only to find out seconds later that overzealous hands have made it disappear.

I have seen questions smashed because 2 or 3 terms are put together, but in the case of a slogan, for instance, even 4 or 5 words should remain together to give a full idea of the context. It would not make sense to split it into 5 d
... See more
It is not nice or fair toward those answerers who have selflessly devoted time to researching, drafting, writing, reviewing and carefully crafting an answer (as I usually do), only to find out seconds later that overzealous hands have made it disappear.

I have seen questions smashed because 2 or 3 terms are put together, but in the case of a slogan, for instance, even 4 or 5 words should remain together to give a full idea of the context. It would not make sense to split it into 5 different words. I understand the rationale and the motivation to have more questions asked for the purpose of boosting the number of KudoZ questions asked and increase participants' total Kudoz points. However, in such a case, the smashing of a slogan, an idiomatic expression or a phrase is linguistically, grammatically and logically unwarranted.
My 2 fair cents.





[Edited at 2016-12-03 05:14 GMT]
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Daryo
Daryo
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beyond fairness / unfairness there is a far more important aspect Dec 3, 2016

namely, is that kind of behaviour by overzealous moderators something that makes the whole "Kudoz" system "fit for purpose"?

If I'm not mistaken, the primary purpose is mutual help - "translators helping translators". Well, making some questions disappear in a puff of smoke is really helpful!

I remember that there was several cases when a question generated a very useful exchange of views - useful in a very general way, not only for answering the specific questi
... See more
namely, is that kind of behaviour by overzealous moderators something that makes the whole "Kudoz" system "fit for purpose"?

If I'm not mistaken, the primary purpose is mutual help - "translators helping translators". Well, making some questions disappear in a puff of smoke is really helpful!

I remember that there was several cases when a question generated a very useful exchange of views - useful in a very general way, not only for answering the specific question - with many contributions and good references thrown into the common pot - all this collective effort to be vandalised by some overzealous moderator at a click of a mouse.

All that made even more irritating when questions containing two totally unrelated terms (i.e. where each term keeps its own meaning, not a long expression where several words together create a new meaning) are left to stand despite the fact that answers to them are useless for "future use"!

Most questions that are borderline "out of limits" should not be erased, maybe "frozen" - no points awarded, but making them completely disappear is, as I see it, in many cases just pure vandalism that is contrary to the declared aims of Kudoz.

@Katalin Horváth McClure

Before you start comparing outright criminals and people that are declared "offenders to Kudoz rules", you might want maybe to first take a look at this:

"Vérité en deçà des Pyrénées, erreur au delà"

BTW if real courts had your ways of applying rules, there would be probably more people in prisons than outside!



[Edited at 2016-12-03 23:44 GMT]
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Katalin Horváth McClure
Katalin Horváth McClure  Identity Verified
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Are you familiar with this article that describes the rules and procedures? Dec 4, 2016

http://www.proz.com/translation-articles/articles/94/

MultiPro wrote:

only to find out seconds later that overzealous hands have made it disappear.


Please see the article a the link above. It describes valid reasons for a question to be removed, and also describes invalid reasons. If you suspect that a question was removed without a valid reason, you should contact the moderator or site staff. "Overzealous" KudoZ editors will be dealt with, if they are really making bad decisions. This is also explained at the end of the article.

I have seen questions smashed because 2 or 3 terms are put together, but in the case of a slogan, for instance, even 4 or 5 words should remain together to give a full idea of the context. It would not make sense to split it into 5 different words. However, in such a case, the smashing of a slogan, an idiomatic expression or a phrase is linguistically, grammatically and logically unwarranted.

Yes, correct. That is why the rules allow up to 10 words, as long as they belong together as an idiomatic phrase, or a slogan, as you said. Here is the actual explanation from the KudoZ rules:
2.1 - What constitutes "term help" as defined in rule http://www.proz.com/siterules/kudoz_general/1.1#1.1 ?
KudoZ questions can be used to ask for help on terms or idiomatic expressions.

A group of words (up to approximately 10) should be posted in a single question only when they constitute an unbreakable unit, such as an idiomatic expression (e.g. 'a jack of all trades and master of none') that may be several words long and where omitting any part would not formulate the question correctly.

If you see legitimate questions like that being removed, contact the moderator or site staff.

I understand the rationale and the motivation to have more questions asked for the purpose of boosting the number of KudoZ questions asked and increase participants' total Kudoz points.

I have no idea where you get this from, I very much doubt that this would be the goal at all. Limits are usually there to prevent abuse. Just as an example, perhaps you have not encountered people who try to post questions with a list of glossary words, or complete paragraphs as a single question, to avoid exceeding their daily/weekly limit of questions.


 
MollyRose
MollyRose  Identity Verified
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Strict application is unfair Dec 5, 2016

I agree with MultiPro. Also, sometimes we need to include 2 or more terms in the same question in order to juxtaposition them, or for clarification of the difference between them. If they were only put in separately, you could end up getting the same answer for the different terms and you wouldn't get to see the difference in meaning, application, context, etc.

I understand that ProZ wants to have single terms for the purpose of searches, but usually when you search a term, it wil
... See more
I agree with MultiPro. Also, sometimes we need to include 2 or more terms in the same question in order to juxtaposition them, or for clarification of the difference between them. If they were only put in separately, you could end up getting the same answer for the different terms and you wouldn't get to see the difference in meaning, application, context, etc.

I understand that ProZ wants to have single terms for the purpose of searches, but usually when you search a term, it will show up anyway if it's included in a question. And if they're not together and someone in the future wonders about the difference in meaning of those same terms, they won't be able to see it if they aren't together in one explanation.

This website should be more about helping each other than being (too) strict with rules. Love/grace vs. law.
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Katalin Horváth McClure
Katalin Horváth McClure  Identity Verified
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Assumptions or actual cases? Dec 7, 2016

MollyRose wrote:

I agree with MultiPro. Also, sometimes we need to include 2 or more terms in the same question in order to juxtaposition them, or for clarification of the difference between them. If they were only put in separately, you could end up getting the same answer for the different terms and you wouldn't get to see the difference in meaning, application, context, etc.

I agree. It is necessary sometimes to put more than one word in the question, and the rules allow that. As long as it is explained in the question, it should not be a problem.

I understand that ProZ wants to have single terms for the purpose of searches, but usually when you search a term, it will show up anyway if it's included in a question. And if they're not together and someone in the future wonders about the difference in meaning of those same terms, they won't be able to see it if they aren't together in one explanation.

Again, I agree, and the rules allow it. (See my previous note above.)


This website should be more about helping each other than being (too) strict with rules. Love/grace vs. law.

Yes. However, some rules are necessary to prevent abuse. The current rules were formed over the years, based on how people used the site. Over the 15 years I have been a member of this site, I have seen some rules removed or relaxed, and some new ones introduced, as they became necessary.
If you have some time, read older threads in the forums discussing KudoZ. You will see that sometimes people request more strict rules, and sometimes they are displeased with existing ones, calling them too strict, unfair, etc. Sometimes the same rules are criticized both ways, depending on which side the person is on.

Also, when you judge the "fairness" of the rule, base your judgement on actual cases, not assumptions. Again, if you see a question with more than one word in it, along with sufficient explanation why it is being asked like that, and the question gets removed, please contact the moderator or site staff. Any question can be reinstated, if it turns out it was removed without justification.
I see no point in talking about possible overzealous applications of any of the rules. Of course, it is a possibility. But that does not mean the rule itself is "unfair". Any actual cases where the removal does not seem justified should be discussed with the moderator or site staff. That's the only way the question may be reinstated, if that is the goal.
I am leaving this thread now, as I don't think I can add any more value to the discussion. Please read the article I linked in my previous note - that explains pretty much everything.

[Edited at 2016-12-07 04:09 GMT]


 
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