The Kudoz semi-gangs

Tom in London wrote:

Does it help to vote for the question to be re-classified as non-Pro?

Doaa ALnajjar wrote:


I tried to avoid the conspiracy theory way of thinking, but not any more. THERE ARE semi-gangs in the Kudoz communities.

1- Some, not few, old members regularly answering Kudoz have their own supporters who agree to him/her what ever they say, right or wrong. Those "heads of the gang" are either admins in another translators' community website, or great "agreement-giver" to every and each Kudoz a member in the small gang answer. Who ever gets the answer first, the others are just agreeing without a question.

Just try to approach a Kudoz they answered first and you will be attacked, even if your answer is the right one. They will do everything, disagree to decrease your points, give sarcastic little notes, ..you name it. Try to answer back to them and your moderator will raise a head and hide your reply: "personal rather than linguistic," so I do not even have the chance to reply back at their ruddiness? So they know how to play the game and they give the can-not-be-hidden answer? Really?

2- Is Kudoz about who gives the faster answer or who gives the right answer? Why members literally fight to give the fastest answers?
So they just post what ever answer, and then provide the reference and other alternatives to block the way in the face of other answers.
Proz should block notes to answers after the initial answer is submitted, so members can think twice about their answer before they submit it.

...

Am I alone in this planet?

Doaa ALnajjar wrote:

You need 3 votes to re-classify a question to non-pro

Samuel Murray wrote:



Well, you certainly have an impressive record:

June 2010 = 200 KudoZ points (total)
June 2011 = 2500 points
June 2012 = 4500 points
June 2013 = 7000 points

To have achieved this, in the past year you must have had an average of 2.4 questions per day receive the full 4 points each, or an average of 3.2 questions per day receive 3 points each.

Samuel Murray wrote:
Hmm, will he reveal his secrets... (-:

Ty Kendall wrote:

...so what? You can argue that the increased visibility contributes towards business, but to be honest I can't say that being very high in the rankings or exceedingly active on KudoZ has ever directly or indirectly benefited me. No client has ever come to me saying "I was bowled over by your KudoZ participation" and any client who uses the directory and simply chooses the first one they see is not a very informed client, which brings me on to my next point....

The best way to approach KudoZ is with a more laid-back approach. It's really not worth getting high blood pressure for.

writeaway wrote:


You are not alone and the problem of (semi-)gangs on Kudoz is very real indeed. I thought it was just in one of my language pairs (a very large one), where a gang has completely taken over.

1- Imo this phenomenon is the result of so many truly good professional translators either leaving Proz or simply no longer bothering to answer Kudoz questions at current non-professional levels.

2- Their absence created a vacuum that has been filled by fairly aggressive, somewhat narcissistic and big-ego individuals who live for Kudoz pointz and glory.

3- They have serious problems accepting criticism of any sort and even a lightly disparaging remark/hint made about their behaviour is immediately reported and the remark is deleted.

4- But their unfair or vindictive disagrees, misleading information/comments or irrelevant questions asked in order to intimidate and/or create doubt escape all rule categories so reporting them is pointless as no action will be taken.

5- On the pair in question, the gang is well-established with gang groupies rushing in to back the gang leader(s) and to help diss and discredit non-gang answers.

6- The disagree is their weapon of choice. This is used indiscriminately on correct and partially correct/incorrect answers. The idea is to make the Asker doubt.

7- The gang answers may be 100% wrong but that doesn't matter. They back one another through thick and thin. What matters are the pointZ and glory.

8- What is truly disgusting to observe is the way the gang tries to discredit others (not just their answers) and uses the discussion box to intimidate clearly lost and/or unsure Askers into believing that a gang-member answer is the only right one.

I am pleased that this phenomenon has finally been exposed.

Tom in London wrote:

But (in my language pair) I am surprised by the increasing number of obviously easy questions, which any translator ought to be able to deal with, and which always seem to come from the same people.

Phil Hand wrote:


That's true, but what Kudoz has brought me is contact with good translators. The people who select my answers, and the ones who give me answers worth selecting, are people to whom I might refer work, and who sometimes refer work to me. There can be a community here, and Kudoz is one place where you can really see who is interested in contributing to it.

Doaa ALnajjar wrote:
1- Some, not few, old members regularly answering Kudoz have their own supporters who agree to him/her what ever they say, right or wrong. Those "heads of the gang" are either admins in another translators' community website, or great "agreement-giver" to every and each Kudoz a member in the small gang answer. Who ever gets the answer first, the others are just agreeing without a question.

Just try to approach a Kudoz they answered first and you will be attacked, even if your answer is the right one. They will do everything, disagree to decrease your points, give sarcastic little notes, ..you name it. Try to answer back to them and your moderator will raise a head and hide your reply: "personal rather than linguistic," so I do not even have the chance to reply back at their ruddiness? So they know how to play the game and they give the can-not-be-hidden answer? Really?

2- Is Kudoz about who gives the faster answer or who gives the right answer? Why members literally fight to give the fastest answers?
So they just post what ever answer, and then provide the reference and other alternatives to block the way in the face of other answers. Proz should block notes to answers after the initial answer is submitted, so members can think twice about their answer before they submit it.

3- The "complimentary agreement" is the one a particular member gives to a Kudoz lonely answer, meanwhile that particular member does NOT give ANY agreements for a discussion Kudoz (with multiple answers) and if he does, he agrees to ALL answers. Such members are afraid of getting disagreed when they answer Kudozes themselves, so they prefer to stay at the safe side.

4- Why Proz allows for 1, 2, 3, and 4 points grading? Does my time searching the right answer that the translator agrees with equals 2 points? This is a tool they are giving to translators to lower the points of each others AND that makes Kudoz a total loss of time. It is either I agree, you diverse 4 points, or sorry I do not agree, 0 points, period.

5- If Proz is not controlling Kudoz in the right way, why are they making it the criteria to rank the members in their directory? Needless to say, that the majority of the REAL jobs come from the directory direct invitations, at least this is what they taught us in the webinar where I was encouraged to join Proz.

I am not an easy loser, and I will stay and fight till reaching the first place in my languages ranking.

Phil Hand wrote:

That's true, but what Kudoz has brought me is contact with good translators. The people who select my answers, and the ones who give me answers worth selecting, are people to whom I might refer work, and who sometimes refer work to me. There can be a community here, and Kudoz is one place where you can really see who is interested in contributing to it.

B D Finch wrote:

I do agree that if (as is quite likely), the abuse that you complain about really happens, then the way it is dealt with by the moderators leaves much to be desired. However, I think that approaching KudoZ as a contest for winning as many points as possible to claw your way to the top of the list is quite pernicious. There certainly is a game element to it, but the principle objective should be to help other translators by providing a resource. This is not just for the benefit of the Asker, but also for both those of us who answer, as we should derive benefit from the discussion and even from being shown to be wrong, if that results in learning.


It is really good, when stuck on a term, to be able to ask for help from other translators. I find that I often search KudoZ as well as other sources, such as glossaries and dictionaries, when unsure of a term because of the useful discussion and references. Sometimes, one of the answers not chosen is actually the most useful, either overall or in a particular context.

People who are merely scrabbling for points are generally scoring own goals, especially when they give such erudite explanations as "*" or ".".