Improvement of the translator directory search results

Regi2006 wrote:

Well, would you tell that to those translators in Finnish - German language pair? Invest time and earn the points? Really, as simple as that? The KudoZ in this language pair has not been active since December 2015!

Regi2006 wrote:
Because if I am new to ProZ, then all the members would simply dismiss me, saying invest time, earn points.

Regi2006 wrote:
WWA instead of KudoZ points?

With all due respect, Samuel, ... If you keep shooting down my ideas, then we might both lost focus. ... you make me spend more time to think about all this minute technical details.

Tina Vonhof wrote:
People contact me because of my specializations, my experience, and because I'm certified. I get as many inquiries from direct clients as from agencies and I don't think it has anything to do with my Kudoz points.

As I explained before, I can never get to the top of the list because of the time zone I'm in.

Mohd Hamzah wrote:
After having long read of these thread, I strongly support what Regi has suggested.

Regi2006 wrote:
b. Simple Search (by selecting only the language pairs)
But, when potential clients are not specifically looking for translator with KudoZ knowledge in a particular field, then, a simple search should benefit all the translators, old or new, based on whatever criteria other than KudoZ...

Enrique Cavalitto wrote:
Please note that the current directory will let sort translators by their "all time" KudoZ, or by the points they got in the "last 12 month". ... The option is displayed when the search criteria include a field of expertise.

Roman Karabaev wrote:
An attempt to bargain with ProZ management detected. Probably a blackmail attempt as well: "do what I want or I'll stop attracting new paying members".

There's actually only one reason for you to propose WWA-based system: your personal WWA score.

Yes, you can. But it won't lead you anywhere. Everyone has ever handled a large project, what's so special about it? These agencies won't send you the translated text, so you won't get any information above what's written in the WWA section.

Samuel Murray wrote:



I'm not sure if WWAs should be converted into a "score" and then used for directory positioning. Anyone can participate in KudoZ, but you can only get WWAs if you have a particular type of client. WWA does not work like the Blue Board whereby points out of 5 is awarded, so that an average over time can be calculated.

I realise, of course, that WWAs do not suffer from the problem of KudoZ that older members will have an advantage. If you have been in the industry for 20 years but only joined ProZ.com last year, and you have the type of client who can give WWAs, then you can potentiall get lots of WWAs very quickly.

KudoZ is a simple way for translators who want to to show that they have experience in a particular field, and I favour using KudoZ mainly or nearly exclusively for directory positioning. My main gripes with the current system is (a) you get no points for whether or not you're right, but only for whether your answer was "most helpful" and (b) newer members will always be at a very large disadvantage because i) if old members continue to contribute at a steady pace, you'll never catch them, and ii) if old members stop participating, it'll still often take years and years to catch up to them.

So that's why I previously suggested "use only the past 3 months' KudoZ points" which is very similar to your first proposal, but I no longer support that idea. My current proposal is the annual devalue system mentioned previously, and I think it's most fair to all parties concerned and also practical to implement from a programming point of view.

I also think that correct answers in general should somehow be rewarded. I'm just not sure how to do that. In an ideal world one could take the agree/disagree scores into account, because those scores reflect whether other translators think that you have skill, but unfortunately there is a history of disagree wars in certain language combinations on ProZ.com, which would make it very easy for a group of translators in one camp to simply kill a translator from another camp's chances of getting to the top.

Profile completeness is also something that I think should be taken into account. Translators who take the time to keep their information up to date, should be rewarded in the directory positioning.

I don't think that KudoZ participation or forum participation itself should be taken into account. Nor do I think that if our forum system gets a feature whereby people can "like" posts or whereby a specific post can be marked as "the solution" should be taken into account, because very few questions on the forum (specifically the technical or business questions) relate to matters that really matter to clients.



Well, if the point of this discussion is not to point out potential problems with the suggestion(s) made, or to point out whether or not one agrees or disagrees with points made by another, then what is the point? (-:

I don't think I was being overly technical. You said that you don't think it's a problem if a directory positioning system enables only a fraction of translators to influence their positioning while leaving the rest of new members in the lurch, and I said that I disagreed with it (strongly, in fact, otherwise I would not have responded to it), and I said why I disagreed with it. You don't have to reply.

==



But, Tina, you are number 7 on the first page of NL-EN translators. Of course KudoZ played a huge role in your position in the directory, and therefore in the odds that a client would visit your profile page to see your "specializations, experience, and ... certified".



Perhaps we should quantify "the top". I get the impression that for Verdi, "the top" means the top 3 positions. For me, "the top" means a high position on the first page. While I agree with Verdi that the top 3 translators are more likely to get visited than anyone else, I also think that any translator on the first page has a much higher chance of being visited than anyone on subsequent pages. If you're on page 1, and especially if you're above the fold, then you're "at the top" as far as I'm concerned.

==



Regi/Verdi suggested three things (namely: use only KudoZ points from the past month for directory positioning OR do not show KudoZ totals in the directory results but keep on using all-time total KudoZ points for positioning OR use WWA for positioning instead of KudoZ). Which is the one that you support?

==



It's nice that you're trying to compromise, but it's very difficult to discuss the merits of an idea if the original poster keeps coming up with more and more ideas.

Also, this particular compromise goes against the original principle that it's unfair to new members that all of old members' KudoZ points are taken into account. Why would now be unfair only if clients do not specify a subject field?

==

Added:



Thanks, I never knew that that option existed (despite having used the directory to search within fields of expertise many times in the past). I wonder how many clients see it, though.


[Edited at 2016-08-23 06:58 GMT]

Samuel Murray wrote:
It's nice that you're trying to compromise, but it's very difficult to discuss the merits of an idea if the original poster keeps coming up with more and more ideas.

Also, this particular compromise goes against the original principle that it's unfair to new members that all of old members' KudoZ points are taken into account. Why would now be unfair only if clients do not specify a subject field?

Samuel Murray wrote:
KudoZ is a simple way for translators who want to to show that they have experience in a particular field, and I favour using KudoZ mainly or nearly exclusively for directory positioning. My main gripes with the current system is (a) you get no points for whether or not you're right, but only for whether your answer was "most helpful" and (b) newer members will always be at a very large disadvantage because i) if old members continue to contribute at a steady pace, you'll never catch them, and ii) if old members stop participating, it'll still often take years and years to catch up to them.

Maria S. Loose, LL.M. wrote:
I have been answering KudoZ questions for the past couple of years in order to prepare for a future period in which I will work as a freelance translator. ... I have invested quite a bit of time to accumulate this capital, which I want to use in the future. It would be extremely unfair to change the rules with retroactive effect.

Roman Karabaev wrote:
You just need to work hard. Those old members did earn their ranks.

Be so kind to do the same - earn it.

Roman Karabaev wrote:
One guy in my language pair has earned 8,300+ Kudoz points in 4 years and is now ranked 4-th.

Regi2006 wrote:
Haha ... What am I to ProZ? It's like a drop of water in the oceans. It means nothing to them at all.

Regi2006 wrote:
I'm calling for fair representation of all factors, for example, taking into account this ProZ professional guidelines, which does not only talk about terms or KudoZ.
http://www.proz.com/professional-guidelines/

Regi2006 wrote:
It's not my point. You were saying earlier that projects are not real. None has seen them. On the other hand, anyone can see your KudoZ questions. You further said with a number of unknown origin in one's profile, it does not tell anything about his or her ability to put the words together.

I mean I can contact your client, and ask:

Hey, you said in your testimony that Translator ABC is responsive and very professional. Are you sure? Because I want to give him a project, but I am not sure if he is capable of handling it, or whether he is really responsive as you said in your testimony.

Regi2006 wrote:
Hey, you said in your testimony that Translator ABC is responsive and very professional. Are you sure? Because I want to give him a project, but I am not sure if he is capable of handling it, or whether he is really responsive as you said in your testimony.

Samuel Murray wrote:
The only proposal that I can think of that would reward relative effort instead of seniority would be one in which some kind of KudoZ ratio is used for positioning, e.g. number of KudoZ points divided by number of KudoZ replies.

Samuel Murray wrote:
Surely you should see that if both old and new members continue to participate in KudoZ at the same pace, then it would not be possible for new members to "earn it". They can only "earn" it if they put in a disproportionate amount of effort (much, much more than the old members did).

Samuel Murray wrote:
Incidentally, the translator you're talking about has answered a steady pace of 1500 questions per year for the past 4 years, and he has time to write long explanations and perform additional research on those queries, and he has not slowed down yet. It's now August and he's up to nearly 1200 questions answered already. If the members in positions 1, 2 and 3 were to stop with KudoZ altogether, and if he kept up his pace, he'd make position #3 four years from now, and position #2 in 5 years from now, and position #1 in 9 years from now. But he'll never make it, because translators 1, 2 and 3 are still playing the game.

If may annual devalue system was implemented, those four would probably still be at the top. Number 5 would probably drop off the first page, because he answered only 25 questions this year, and less than 100 last year. Translators 1 and 3 have maintained their pace of 4-5 answers per day, and translator 2 slowed down this year but was still in top form last year.

Roman Karabaev wrote:

That means that I'll have to answer only 1 question, get 100% accept ratio enjoy my top position. Cool.
Now you're going to say that there should be some quantitative threshold.
In any case such approach stimulates passive Kudoz behaviour once the required number of answers is set.

But the common sense is contrary - it's "the more you do, the higher you are".

CafeTran Training wrote:

Forum postings can be relevant to clients too, especially the answers to questions in the technical forums can be very relevant to clients too. ... A quick response from an experienced colleague in a technical forum can make the difference between deadline met and client lost.

Answering those questions after office hours, giving a quick response is an investment of time too. It should be rewarded too.

Samuel Murray wrote:



I was being ironic in my reply. Then we actually agree on this: using some kind of KudoZ ratio is unlikely to yield more advantages and fewer disadvantages than the current system.



I agree that the reward for effort can only be viewed as reward if there is truly effort.

==



Of course they are relevant to clients in some sense, but they do not tell a client that the answerer is a good translator -- only that he's good at explaining that particular technical or business issue.



I think we should get away from this idea that one's position in the directory is linked to a "reward". By contrast, I think the directory results should aim to put the best translators for the client's requirements at the top of the list, and not simply the "translators who have put in the most valiant effort to be helpful".

...Say, why do you quote the entire post if you're only replying to something small that is somewhere in the middle of the quote?

[Edited at 2016-08-23 11:32 GMT]

Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:

If the Kudoz glossaries are useful to new members and the public in general, it is thanks to those who sacrifice(d) very many hours of their lives to help others and build the glossaries. It is perfectly fair that users of Proz.com who have made a big contribution to the community enjoy a little privilege in the directory list.

Removing that little advantage in the list would compare to removing Nelson's Column from London because he has not won any battle over the last 100 years.

(Yes, I got carried away about comparing Lord Nelson with us old users of Proz.com... Our contribution to the world is much bigger!)

Roman Karabaev wrote:
Why should his points be devaluated somehow just because someone wants to be on top right here right now?
Most of the leaders have 15-20+ years of experience at the moment (in my language pair the top 3 translators have 40, 31 and 28 years of experience correspondingly), so by 2031 most of them will retire and will stop paying (and will be out of the ratings automatically) or delete their accounts at all. So a newbie won't have to earn 100,000+ Kudoz points to be ranked among top 10. Although, of course, he will have to work hard to get there.

Tomás Cano Binder, CT wrote:

If the Kudoz glossaries are useful to new members and the public in general, it is thanks to those who sacrifice(d) very many hours of their lives to help others and build the glossaries. It is perfectly fair that users of Proz.com who have made a big contribution to the community enjoy a little privilege in the directory list.

Removing that little advantage in the list would compare to removing Nelson's Column from London because he has not won any battle over the last 100 years.

(Yes, I got carried away about comparing Lord Nelson with us old users of Proz.com... Our contribution to the world is much bigger!)