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Glossary-building KudoZ (GBK): a new kind of KudoZ question
Thread poster: Enrique Cavalitto
Thomas Johansson
Thomas Johansson  Identity Verified
Peru
Local time: 19:07
English to Swedish
+ ...
problem with notifications of GBK questions Dec 27, 2008

Hi,

On the dashboard, I specified that I don't want to receive notifications about GBK questions. However, I still get such notifications. This is a source of frustration and it makes me lose time unnecessarily.

For instance, the term "aliasing" below is a GBK question. Still, it was included in the Kudoz notification I received today - see the email message pasted in below. Notice that there is not even a warning indicating that it is a GBK question.

In c
... See more
Hi,

On the dashboard, I specified that I don't want to receive notifications about GBK questions. However, I still get such notifications. This is a source of frustration and it makes me lose time unnecessarily.

For instance, the term "aliasing" below is a GBK question. Still, it was included in the Kudoz notification I received today - see the email message pasted in below. Notice that there is not even a warning indicating that it is a GBK question.

In case you feel very strongly that you need to present GBK questions to people in these notifications, I see two possible ways:
- either clearly indicate for each GBK question that it is a GBK question
- or list GBK questions separately, after the real Kudoz questions, in a special section clearly marked as GBK questions.

Thomas

------------

Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2008 00:01:46 +0000 [06:01:46 PM CST]
From: "ProZ.com KudoZ"
Reply-To: "DO NOT REPLY! (Click on the link to view KudoZ page.)"
Subject: KudoZ Daily Digest - December 27, 2008
This is the KudoZ daily digest for December 27, 2008

This message contains a brief summary of the questions that have
been asked today, as well as a short listing of any answers to
these questions so far today.

Contents
----------------
English to Swedish, 1 questions


English to Swedish
--------------------------

Time: 6:54 pm
Term: aliasing
Field: Telecom(munications)
Difficulty: PRO
URL: http://www.proz.com/kudoz/3004541

=================================================================

You are receiving this email message because you signed up for
email notifications of this type in your ProZ.com email
preferences.

etc.


[Edited at 2008-12-27 00:31 GMT]

[Edited at 2008-12-27 00:38 GMT]
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hazmatgerman (X)
hazmatgerman (X)
Local time: 01:07
English to German
Agreement with Adele Oliveri Dec 27, 2008

Adele Oliveri and others wrote:

Dear Proz staff

Following my previous post on December 3, ... will help spark an interesting discussion about making the GBK system a useful tool for everyone.
Zea_Mays

The above post I support.
M.A.T.


 
Enrique Cavalitto
Enrique Cavalitto  Identity Verified
Argentina
Local time: 21:07
Member (2006)
English to Spanish
TOPIC STARTER
More answers to Adele Olivieri's feedback Dec 29, 2008

Adele Oliveri wrote:
2. Questions should be a lot more open to contribution. Anyone with a “work” interest in the field should be allowed to provide an answer. Anyone who works in the language combination should be able to peer review and participate to linguistic discussions. Bad or inappropriate answers by “non specialists” (if any) will be weeded out by means of the peer review system. Almost all the terms posted so far could have very easily been answered by non specialists. Strictly related to this is the issue of notifications - users should be allowed to receive notifications related to any GBK they wish, even those where they can't provide an answer.


A modification along these lines has just been implemented. Users with the field(s) of expertise defined as "specialty" will still be exclusive participants during the submission period (the first 72 hours after the question was posted) but those with the corresponding field(s) defined as "working" will be allowed to post translations and vote beyond this point.


Adele Oliveri wrote:
3. Questions should admit more than one answer. Some terms posted in the GBK so far have no unique corresponding term in the target language. The entry form should contain an additional field for alternative translations or synonyms. Answers provided in this field will be taken into account when evaluating each entry.


This is part of the future improvements planned for the GBK glossary.


Adele Oliveri wrote:
4. Linguistic discussions and peer reviews should NOT be allowed during the submission phase. This will prevent early repliers from being unduly advantaged/disadvantaged by early agrees/disagrees. Moreover, early linguistic discussions can be counterproductive: on two occasions, users who were not allowed to submit answers have posted their proposed solutions in the linguistic discussion area, thus discouraging answerers from posting the same solution as an answer (for fear of being seen as "copying" someone else's suggestion).


This is an interesting concept. Peer grading (voting) could be blocked for instance during the first 24 hours of the submission period, but this would require an additional notification at the moment of enabling the voting process. This is a trade-off that should be evaluated.


Adele Oliveri wrote:
6. Answers given to the GBK questions should not be given Kudoz points or should be “rewarded” in a different way. Currently users rush to answer GBKs because they hope this way to get awarded the Kudoz points. This makes sense in the Kudoz system, where requests for help need to be answered quickly as askers are often pressed for deadlines. It does NOT make much sense in the GBK system, since answers need to be thoroughly researched and meditated, with proper definitions and examples. If users think building a glossary is worthwhile, they will take part in the process even if they don’t get awarded Kudoz points.


A survey was performed at the end of the beta period among users of the corresponding five language pairs. Asked if KudoZ points should be awarded for GBK questions, 71.4% of the survey participants agreed, 5.2% disagreed and 23.4% were not sure.

A different kind of reward is a possibility being evaluated, but implementations on this will not be immediate.


Adele Oliveri wrote:
8. As opposed to building a glossary from scratch, why don't we consider cleaning up the KOG? There are zillions of entries there, and a properly cleaned up KOG would be an excellent starting point for a multilingual glossary-building exercise. Several proposals have already been made in the past about this, but regretfully they seem to have gone unheeded to a large extent.


These are two different and independent projects. Some form of KOG cleaning is likely to be implemented in the near future, but I can provide no precisions at this point.

Regards,
Enrique


 
Enrique Cavalitto
Enrique Cavalitto  Identity Verified
Argentina
Local time: 21:07
Member (2006)
English to Spanish
TOPIC STARTER
There was a bug that should be solved by now Dec 30, 2008

Thomas Johansson wrote:

problem with notifications of GBK questions

------------

Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2008 00:01:46 +0000 [06:01:46 PM CST]
From: "ProZ.com KudoZ"
Reply-To: "DO NOT REPLY! (Click on the link to view KudoZ page.)"
Subject: KudoZ Daily Digest - December 27, 2008
This is the KudoZ daily digest for December 27, 2008



Hi Thomas,

Thanks for your feedback. There was a bug that kept GBK notifications in the KudoZ Daily Digest with the option "Ignore glossary-building questions" selected in the KudoZ dashboard. This should be solved by now.

I apologize for the inconveniences,
Enrique


 
Bjørnar Magnussen
Bjørnar Magnussen  Identity Verified
Local time: 01:07
English to Norwegian
+ ...
Questions still to easy Apr 18, 2009



1. An effort should be made to choose really “technical” questions. The GBK will add a lot more value if it is a repository of resources not found elsewhere.



This is still a problem even four months after the issue was raised. Many of the questions posed are of a so low difficulty that anyone with a dictionary can provide the correct answer.


 
AnneMarieG
AnneMarieG  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 01:07
German to French
+ ...
Non-Pro Apr 20, 2009

I can only support what B. Magnussen just said, the GBK questions are far too easy... and there is no 'vote non-Pro' Key.
In two instances I highlighted the fact through a support request, and received the answer that 'GBK questions' are 'PRO questions only' - which is wrong.

I don't even look at GBK-questions anymore, they are not professional.

The whole exercise seems pretty 'artificial' to me.

KudoZ instead is very helpful, even though you have t
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I can only support what B. Magnussen just said, the GBK questions are far too easy... and there is no 'vote non-Pro' Key.
In two instances I highlighted the fact through a support request, and received the answer that 'GBK questions' are 'PRO questions only' - which is wrong.

I don't even look at GBK-questions anymore, they are not professional.

The whole exercise seems pretty 'artificial' to me.

KudoZ instead is very helpful, even though you have to check the answers thoroughly - but as a professional you need to double check answers often anyhow.
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Stéphanie Soudais
Stéphanie Soudais  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 01:07
English to French
Fully agree Apr 21, 2009

In EN-FR answers are often the same than the English questions, or very easy to find in any bilingual dictionary.

Recent example: "stagflation". In French we say..."stagflation". The chosen answerer suggested "stagflation" and gave no definition, no example sentence, only a link to wikipedia. So the question did not match the "good answer criteria" but was included in the GBK. I wonder where the point is. People are asked to make an effort to provide definitions and references, but
... See more
In EN-FR answers are often the same than the English questions, or very easy to find in any bilingual dictionary.

Recent example: "stagflation". In French we say..."stagflation". The chosen answerer suggested "stagflation" and gave no definition, no example sentence, only a link to wikipedia. So the question did not match the "good answer criteria" but was included in the GBK. I wonder where the point is. People are asked to make an effort to provide definitions and references, but if not, they can still easily win points...

[Edited at 2009-04-21 07:51 GMT]
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writeaway
writeaway  Identity Verified
French to English
+ ...
Sounds like glorified Kudoz questions, which are also often found in any dictionary Apr 21, 2009

Stéphanie Soudais wrote:

In EN-FR answers are often the same than the English questions, or very easy to find in any bilingual dictionary.

Recent example: "stagflation". In French we say..."stagflation". The chosen answerer suggested "stagflation" and gave no definition, no example sentence, only a link to wikipedia. So the question did not match the "good answer criteria" but was included in the GBK. I wonder where the point is. People are asked to make an effort to provide definitions and references, but if not, they can still easily win points...

[Edited at 2009-04-21 07:51 GMT]


I didn't realise people were awarded "points" for this too. Sounds as though the points here are just as meaningless as Kudoz points have now become, perhaps because the terms here are just as basic as those asked on a majority of Kudoz questions. Calling a question "pro" does not make it pro.
Too bad the points still matter so much to some people. Imo, all questions that can be answered by opening a dictionary are automatically non-pro. After all, what pro translator would bother colleagues with such questions/terms?


 
Enrique Cavalitto
Enrique Cavalitto  Identity Verified
Argentina
Local time: 21:07
Member (2006)
English to Spanish
TOPIC STARTER
Non-pro questions and terms used in English Apr 21, 2009

Bjørnar Magnussen wrote:

This is still a problem even four months after the issue was raised. Many of the questions posed are of a so low difficulty that anyone with a dictionary can provide the correct answer.



writeaway wrote:

Imo, all questions that can be answered by opening a dictionary are automatically non-pro. After all, what pro translator would bother colleagues with such questions/terms?


Please have a look at the corresponding FAQ

Non-PRO questions are those that are asked by people who are not professional translators, and that can be answered by any bilingual person without the aid of a dictionary.


Stéphanie Soudais wrote:

In EN-FR answers are often the same than the English questions, or very easy to find in any bilingual dictionary.

Recent example: "stagflation". In French we say..."stagflation".


The fact that the English version of a term is used in the French translations is in itself a valuable information.

Regards,
Enrique


 
Mirra_
Mirra_
Italy
Local time: 01:07
English to Italian
+ ...
sorry but I really don't get the meaning of this GBK Apr 27, 2009

Bjørnar Magnussen wrote:
This is still a problem even four months after the issue
was raised. Many of the questions posed are of a so low
difficulty that anyone with a dictionary can provide the
correct answer.


writeaway wrote:
Imo, all questions that can be answered by opening a
dictionary are automatically non-pro. After all, what pro
translator would bother colleagues with such
questions/terms?


and they are *completely* right but, moreover, for what concerns the most of the last questions in section eng->ita they can be *very easily* answered even *without* any dictionary.

And also this is completely true

Stéphanie Soudais wrote:
The chosen answerer suggested "stagflation" and gave no definition, no example sentence, only a link to wikipedia. So the question did not match the "good answer criteria" but was included in the GBK. I wonder where the point is. People are asked to make an effort to provide definitions and references, but if not, they can still easily win points...



On the other side, the "standard" KudoZ questions sometimes propose very difficult and challenging terms that sometimes are poorly answered. These terms (often very useful and important) would benefit of the GBK "structured" answered form to be better translated.
Many of these terms trigger violent (but yet appealing and interesting) disputes that would be better framed and solved in the GBK answering form (if respected, of course. See Soudais contribute).

So, please allow me to ask:
- on what basis are the GBK questions chosen?
- why does nobody check that the GBK rules and requirements are respected?
- why the GBK team do not consider asking native speaking referents to filter the unesful questions in favour of more useful ones?
- why the GBK team does not spend some time in reviewing the KudoZ questions to find out more interesting and *really* useful terms?

otherwise I do not see any utility in this new (potentially powerful) tool kindly offered by ProZ...


Personally speaking, I refrain to answer questions, as the last given ones (of course I can present the examples if required), that are *so* easy and simple to risk to seem ridicolous...


please save the GBK project, it was a good one!


best regards
Paola


 
juvera
juvera  Identity Verified
Local time: 00:07
English to Hungarian
+ ...
Questions Apr 28, 2009

First of all, I agree with most of the comments visible on this particular page.
Furthermore, I would like to know more about the setup and feasibility of the GBK effort, including some figures.

1. Why are we taking for granted that a glossary FROM English is the most useful thing for all of us?

2. How many questions are posted as an average - say - per week, per language?
3. Are these the same questions already, or not yet?
3. Are these questions
... See more
First of all, I agree with most of the comments visible on this particular page.
Furthermore, I would like to know more about the setup and feasibility of the GBK effort, including some figures.

1. Why are we taking for granted that a glossary FROM English is the most useful thing for all of us?

2. How many questions are posted as an average - say - per week, per language?
3. Are these the same questions already, or not yet?
3. Are these questions posted in all the active languages in KudoZ?
4. How many languages are active in the GBK?
5. Are there some fortunate ones left out? >:(
6. Is that going to change?

7. What is the envisaged average yearly yield for the glossary (per language)?
8. What proportion of the questions posted in a given English - XX language combination going to be taken up by GBK questions?
9. What influence the answer of the above two questions will have on the management of the GBK?

10. What is your estimate, how long is it going to take to build a useful glossary for a particular language combination (I mean a glossary containing words not to be found easily in the average 3-5 dictionaries most translator would have at hand for everyday use)?
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Enrique Cavalitto
Enrique Cavalitto  Identity Verified
Argentina
Local time: 21:07
Member (2006)
English to Spanish
TOPIC STARTER
Some answers Apr 28, 2009

GBK questions are pulled in language pairs having English as native languages but they are related in such a way that if the English to Romanian and the English to Japanese entries are made in the glossary, you can search all the combinations among the three languages.

The program currently covers 32 language pairs, where the last 5 were added two days ago. There are plans to gradually keep adding other language pairs.

The set of questions is the same for all pairs, but
... See more
GBK questions are pulled in language pairs having English as native languages but they are related in such a way that if the English to Romanian and the English to Japanese entries are made in the glossary, you can search all the combinations among the three languages.

The program currently covers 32 language pairs, where the last 5 were added two days ago. There are plans to gradually keep adding other language pairs.

The set of questions is the same for all pairs, but as they were added in groups along time, not all language pairs have currently the same questions.

About 3,100 questions have been pulled so far, and about 2,000 users have answered them.

About half a dozen questions are pulled per week in most language pairs.

At some point in the near future questions will be created by specialists in the different fields and the rate at which questions are pulled will be increased.

Regards,
Enrique
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juvera
juvera  Identity Verified
Local time: 00:07
English to Hungarian
+ ...
Thanks, Enrique, Apr 30, 2009

you were giving me answers for the existing state of the GBK.

What I can't see, where it is leading to.
Questions 7-10 are aiming to winkle out the concept, target and the practical aspect of achieving the goal, which has not been defined.

There is one other aspect: eligibility to answer questions.
The situation differs from language to language, but I noticed that occasionally there are questions where the so called expert answer is way off the line, but
... See more
you were giving me answers for the existing state of the GBK.

What I can't see, where it is leading to.
Questions 7-10 are aiming to winkle out the concept, target and the practical aspect of achieving the goal, which has not been defined.

There is one other aspect: eligibility to answer questions.
The situation differs from language to language, but I noticed that occasionally there are questions where the so called expert answer is way off the line, but those who would be able to put it right, unable to do so, because they did not register their expertise in a particular niche. Sometimes the result is that there is no answer, - which I prefer to a rubbish answer, although there may be a number of people who knows the answer perfectly well.

The proportion of questions fitting the profile of people is totally random, but some seem to be eligible to answer frequently, others only have a chance once in a blue moon. Therefore there is an artificial imbalance caused by the restriction, an unfair playing field.

The whole business of expertise is vague, and anybody can declare any particular field. The bottom line is, can they prove their knowledge? By artificial restriction the field is open to those, who may know very little, and closed to those who may actually know much more.

To illustrate it simply:
somebody, who occasionally translates various medical documents, gathering their knowledge slowly, may indeed become experts eventually, but they already declared in their profile, that they are experts.
Say, a question comes up about inhalers. They have never translated anything about asthma, but they are eligible to answer.
The person having asthma for the last twenty years, but not usually translate medical text, did not declare their expertise, therefore they are not eligible. But when a question on inhalers comes up, who would you trust to know better?
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Ali Bayraktar
Ali Bayraktar  Identity Verified
Türkiye
Member (2007)
English to Turkish
+ ...
IMHO Discussion Feature should be restricted May 4, 2009

I have noticed that those who do not meet the criteria still able to make discussion posts about the questions.

I think this creates possibility of manipulating the peer comment providers' decisions because the page automatically opens the discussion field when a user enters there.

Also you are not allowing a person even to write 255 characters (peer comment note field) but you are providing them 1250 characters (discussion entry and title) and what is more it is unlimi
... See more
I have noticed that those who do not meet the criteria still able to make discussion posts about the questions.

I think this creates possibility of manipulating the peer comment providers' decisions because the page automatically opens the discussion field when a user enters there.

Also you are not allowing a person even to write 255 characters (peer comment note field) but you are providing them 1250 characters (discussion entry and title) and what is more it is unlimited (that means a person may even post a book there) this is some kind of contradiction.

I think it will be much more better for the quality of the answers if to restrict this place for those who do not meet the question criteria.




[Edited at 2009-05-04 15:02 GMT]
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Adele Oliveri
Adele Oliveri  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 01:07
Member (2007)
English to Italian
+ ...
Reasonable, but... May 4, 2009

M. Ali Bayraktar wrote:

I think it will be much more good for the quality of the answers if to restrict this place for those who do not meet the question criteria.



This is reasonable in principle, however, given the extremely low difficulty of GBK questions so far, there seems to be no compelling reasons for excluding people who do not meet the criteria for answering, since many of them (if not most) are competent enough to say what they think. If anything, there ought to be some kind of moderation, but moderators appear to be a thing of the past (what a pity!).


Adele

[Edited at 2009-05-04 15:00 GMT]


 
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Glossary-building KudoZ (GBK): a new kind of KudoZ question






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