Are there daily limits to ask about terms in Kudoz? Thread poster: Cristiano Lima
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Are there daily limits to ask about terms in Kudoz? I've done two questions today and I've heard that someone can ask only 3 questions per day. Since I'm translating a 200 pages book with a lot of really informal words, today I posted two questions. What do you say?
| | | | | La risposta la trovi qua | Sep 2, 2014 |
Per la risposta alla tua domanda guarda qua:
http://www.proz.com/faq/2812#2812
2.2 - Is there a limit on the number of questions that I can ask?
Yes. Your daily limit (measured over a sliding 24-hr period) depends on your membership level. If you are not registered with ProZ.com, you can ask one (1) question per day. If you are registered but not member, you can ask five ... See more Per la risposta alla tua domanda guarda qua:
http://www.proz.com/faq/2812#2812
2.2 - Is there a limit on the number of questions that I can ask?
Yes. Your daily limit (measured over a sliding 24-hr period) depends on your membership level. If you are not registered with ProZ.com, you can ask one (1) question per day. If you are registered but not member, you can ask five (5). If you are member, you can ask fifteen (15). There are also weekly limits of 20 questions for registered non-members and 60 questions for members. If you have ten (10) questions that have received valid answers and have been open for more than a week, you will not be allowed to ask further questions. Please grade and close these questions to continue asking. ▲ Collapse
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How can a professional possibly need to ask that many questions?
| | | | Woodstock (X) 
Germany
Local time: 23:43
German to English
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| I think you answered your own question. | Sep 2, 2014 |
Chris S wrote:
How can a professional possibly need to ask that many questions?
A true professional doesn't need to...
Edited to add:
I should add that it has happened to me once or twice that I inadvertently took on a text that was beyond my experience, but I paid for that mistake (not reading the text fully before accepting the job) by having to spend a lot of time on extra research, and it worked out ok in the end. It can happen to anyone, but we certainly have enough online multi-language resources now to cover just about any subject matter without having to turn to Kudoz. I only use it as an absolute last resort, and even then I have not always gotten a satisfactory answer because the term needed was so obscure.
[Edited at 2014-09-02 09:07 GMT]
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| The limits were deliberately set high | Sep 2, 2014 |
After much discussion among the Moderators at the time, the limits were deliberately set high. (I had the privilege of being in on them then.)
Some people - even professionals - collect all the problems in a job and ask questions at the end, in practice accumulating questions from several days or even weeks.
The idea is that sometimes answers are found later in the text or as more research is carried out, so there is no need to post them on KudoZ. However, there may sti... See more After much discussion among the Moderators at the time, the limits were deliberately set high. (I had the privilege of being in on them then.)
Some people - even professionals - collect all the problems in a job and ask questions at the end, in practice accumulating questions from several days or even weeks.
The idea is that sometimes answers are found later in the text or as more research is carried out, so there is no need to post them on KudoZ. However, there may still be an accumulation at the end of a long project, and the limit was set higher than anyone was likely to need.
So if you do actually hit the limit, consider it as a strong hint that something may be wrong!
[Edited at 2014-09-02 21:08 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 23:43
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
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| Did I get this one right... | Sep 2, 2014 |
Are you relying on KudoZ for translating a 200 page book?
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 22:43
Member (2008)
Italian to English
I wish they were only questions about the meaning of particular terms.
All too often the asker posts a phrase or sentence in which the individual words are perfectly comprehensible, but where the sentence construction or the style requires some writing skill. In my opinion that type of "question" should not be allowed.
| | | | Cristiano Lima
Brazil
Local time: 18:43
Russian to Portuguese
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TOPIC STARTER
I'm glad that this forum has the participation of wise persons like Tom from London and Christine Andersen, objective persons!
As I stated here, I posted two questions and wished to know if I was asking too much in a day. I think that this answers the question "Are you relying on a KudoZ for translating a 200 page book?". If someone considers that it's asking "many questions" or a "few questions", that's something relative. If you think that it's "too many questions" for a work of 2... See more I'm glad that this forum has the participation of wise persons like Tom from London and Christine Andersen, objective persons!
As I stated here, I posted two questions and wished to know if I was asking too much in a day. I think that this answers the question "Are you relying on a KudoZ for translating a 200 page book?". If someone considers that it's asking "many questions" or a "few questions", that's something relative. If you think that it's "too many questions" for a work of 200 pages, then congratulations, I assume that you are an ambulant dictionary, but I am not. Or perhaps your language pair has a lot of dictionaries around!
Well, my language pair is Russian-Portuguese, that is, there are only two great sites with a rich glossary and they don't bring up all the terms that I need. When I use KudoZ I don't even use it at my language pair, since I'm the only user that works with Russian-Portuguese pair, I use the Rus-Eng Kudoz and ask for a lot of terms, so I can translate them into Portuguese without losing the meaning.
On "true professional" issue, I'm working with a field that I know, but as I said before, no one knows all the words of a foreign language, specially when you never visited the country where it is spoken(my first travel to Russia is scheduled to December, after 15 years working for that day). I declined the job initially, since the deadline was too short, but my client insisted so much that I accepted it, and the offer proposed was not low. I don't consider my Russian-Portuguese pair as great as the quality of a Boris Schneiderman translation, but my clients enjoy it and consider it very good. That's all!
Some people enjoy to play the "moral judges" every thread. I think that someone has to be objective. When someone asks "What time is it?" he expects another person to say what time is it, not to ask him "what he is going to do?" or "if he is delayed to a marriage" or "delayed to the summit of defenders of menaced parrots in Republic of Coconuts". Unless that person is a close mate of the asker.
[Edited at 2014-09-02 12:03 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Woodstock (X)
Germany
Local time: 23:43
German to English
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| You are absolutely right and justifiably | Sep 2, 2014 |
critical of my response, even though it was not specifically aimed at you but rather more generally (and indirectly) at other KudoZ participants who have asked literally hundreds of questions over the years and provided few or no answers at all in that time. I know of a couple in my language pairs, and have heard of others. Nevertheless, my apologies for posting a response to another comment rather than to your honest question. You had no obligation to explain yourself, but I'm glad that you did... See more critical of my response, even though it was not specifically aimed at you but rather more generally (and indirectly) at other KudoZ participants who have asked literally hundreds of questions over the years and provided few or no answers at all in that time. I know of a couple in my language pairs, and have heard of others. Nevertheless, my apologies for posting a response to another comment rather than to your honest question. You had no obligation to explain yourself, but I'm glad that you did so I could see that my post was not really to the point and - where it might apply to you - based on an erroneous comparison between my common languages and rare language pairs like yours. I did in fact wonder why you were asking Russian to English Kudoz questions. Point taken.
Good luck with your project and I hope you have a good trip in December. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 05:43
Chinese to English
| I quite like the sentence-style questions | Sep 3, 2014 |
Tom in London wrote:
All too often the asker posts a phrase or sentence in which the individual words are perfectly comprehensible, but where the sentence construction or the style requires some writing skill. In my opinion that type of "question" should not be allowed.
Those questions are a bit beyond the "terminology" remit of Kudoz, but I like them, and I don't see why they should be excluded. Conversations about writing and style are just as much a part of translation as conversations about comprehension of specific terms.
Cristiano Lima wrote:
Well, my language pair is Russian-Portuguese, that is, there are only two great sites with a rich glossary and they don't bring up all the terms that I need. When I use KudoZ I don't even use it at my language pair, since I'm the only user that works with Russian-Portuguese pair, I use the Rus-Eng Kudoz and ask for a lot of terms, so I can translate them into Portuguese without losing the meaning.
An excellent example of why we should be tolerant of questions we might think are too simplistic on Kudoz. Sometimes the asker is doing the much harder job of working in an unfamiliar language because of a lack of resources. Good luck, Cristiano.
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Cristiano Lima wrote:
I'm glad that this forum has the participation of wise persons like Tom from London and Christine Andersen, objective persons!
...
Some people enjoy to play the "moral judges" every thread.
[Edited at 2014-09-02 12:03 GMT]
My post was clearly not in response to your original post, Cristiano, but a reaction to learning that the limit is set as high as 15 questions a day, so there is no need to take offence.
I am not judging you, but I am quite happy to sit in judgement on ProZ here. This is a site purportedly for professional translators, but no professional translator would ever need to ask 15 questions a day. More reasonable would be 15 questions a year!
| | | | | Does it matter how many questions people ask? | Sep 3, 2014 |
Bear in mind that for some language pairs, like the original poster's, it may often be necessary to ask two KudoZ questions for each term - one in the source to an intermediate language such as English or Spanish, and one from that language to the target language. That means seven or eight terms a day for a paying member, not fifteen. Still, it was hoped, a limit no one would actually hit.
I gave up when I was marginally involved in a translation from Danish to Latvian via English..... See more Bear in mind that for some language pairs, like the original poster's, it may often be necessary to ask two KudoZ questions for each term - one in the source to an intermediate language such as English or Spanish, and one from that language to the target language. That means seven or eight terms a day for a paying member, not fifteen. Still, it was hoped, a limit no one would actually hit.
I gave up when I was marginally involved in a translation from Danish to Latvian via English... There were simply NO KudoZ questions in the Danish to Latvian pair... In that case, because of the highly specialised technical subject, KudoZ was not at all suitable, and other solutions were found. In practice engineers and interpreters looked at various physical components and spare parts and discussed what they were called in their languages, and compiled a word list that way!
Over the years, KudoZ and the Open Glossary have grown to be a very useful resource - I often consult the KOG immediately if I cannot find a term in an appropriate dictionary, because it is often there, along with a useful discussion.
I also add terms to my personal glossary if I find them before I actually get as far as posting a KudoZ question.
It IS easier to find terminology on the Internet now than it was when Kudoz started, some 12 - 13 years ago, but that does not mean KudoZ is superfluous.
In the more unusual language pairs especially, it is still a very valuable means of exchanging terminology and helping colleagues - and getting help and support in return.
So ask away - I see every question as a useful addition to the glossary, and I don't mind if some of the answers could have been found elsewhere, as long as they are correctly entered for later use.
Again, asking too many simple questions may reveal a translator's incompetence, but apart from that, I have no problems with people who ask a lot of questions. No one is forced to take any notice of them - simply set your dashboard to filter out ayone who annoys you!
[Edited at 2014-09-03 08:50 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Yes I take your point and I filter out quite a few chancers and refuse to reply to some people even when I know the answers.
IMO a translator in any language pair who asks 8 questions in a day has taken a job they shouldn't have, and I feel that accepting such low professional standards reflects badly on the site.
Which is not, admittedly, the end of the world, as I have never sought or accepted work through this site, so I will shut up now.
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Chris S wrote:
... and I feel that accepting such low professional standards reflects badly on the site.
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