| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11] > | Proz-bashing on FB and elsewhere Thread poster: neilmac
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| I'm quite surprised... | Apr 28, 2015 |
people are still getting upset about this stuff... where have you been the last few years? As Lisa said, we stopped caring ages ago... 
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Kim Metzger wrote: Could you please address this question? Kim Metzger wrote:
Years ago I submitted a post discussing whether we should revisit the site rule "Speculating on others' opinions is not allowed. Commenting on others' opinions without authorization ('Jenny seems to think...'), is not allowed."
My concern was that this rule can be interpreted by members of staff in many different ways and I wondered whether it can be enforced consistently as written.
This post was rejected, and I was advised to submit a support ticket.
So my question is: can we now discuss this rule in the forums and suggest improvements?
Rules can be discussed and improvements can be suggested in general.
Discussions on actual instances of moderation should be channeled through Support.
Regards,
Enrique
| | | | Jeff Whittaker 
United States
Local time: 06:55
Member (2002)
Spanish to English
+ ...
| | Pros and Cons | Apr 28, 2015 |
Jeff Whittaker wrote:
If ProZ made the arbitrary decision to ban all jobs under .08 a word (like another portal), remove all agency profiles that reportedly pay under that amount, remove all translators that charge less than x.xx, etc., etc. wouldn't that just result in someone else opening another website to fill that void and make the situation even worse since presumably this new website would have little to no moderation or oversight regarding rates or terms and be a haven for bottom feeders, criminals and scam artists?
The way I see it, ProZ, due to its popularity, would make it difficult for such efforts to succeed, and thus serves as a buffer preventing things from going even more wildly out of hand.
One issue that I do consider weird is that fact that unregistered (and non-paying) users can access the KudoZ database like a free professional dictionary.
[Edited at 2015-04-27 15:09 GMT]
I agree that wouldn't be helping much unless the new portal calls itself the translation dump or something similar.
Instead, I would like to see all rate postings by posters gone. Again, you can say people might go to a different platform or that it won't matter much because the posters can still insist on rock bottom rates and only respond to very cheap quotes. But I believe that's better than the status quo. It forces translators to suggest the price and that's where continued education on a portal like this could help even more.
In the end, I will trust that my own business will succeed and survive the tidal wave of cheap and ignorant outsourcers and translators. Certainly not because of "jobs" on here. But I am not going to be silent about the wrongs in this industry. And remind me again, what does ProZ.com or Certified Pro stand for? It seems you can offer rock bottom prices and accept them and still call yourself a "Pro."
[Edited at 2015-04-28 19:41 GMT]
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Tim Drayton
Cyprus
Local time: 13:55
Turkish to English
+ ...
| An experiment | Apr 29, 2015 |
In the interests of testing the level of transparency of the German tax authorities in their dealings with the public (and specifically the allegation that they will not reveal what the VAT threshold is when specifically asked), since I speak German, I decided to put this to the test and phoned a tax office in Germany selected at random (it happened to be the central area of Frankfurt) and inquired about the VAT threshold. I can report that my call was taken by a very polite man who not only inf... See more In the interests of testing the level of transparency of the German tax authorities in their dealings with the public (and specifically the allegation that they will not reveal what the VAT threshold is when specifically asked), since I speak German, I decided to put this to the test and phoned a tax office in Germany selected at random (it happened to be the central area of Frankfurt) and inquired about the VAT threshold. I can report that my call was taken by a very polite man who not only informed me that the threshold currently stands at EUR 17,500 annually, but insisted in going into the matter in great detail, for example explaining that this works on a proportional basis if you start trading in the middle of a year, and it seems you can even exceed the threshold in one year and still be deemed to be an enterprise that does not have to register for VAT provided turnover in the following year is below the threshold. I was very satisfied with the way my inquiry was handled and felt that I had been given the information I was looking for.
I thought that this was information that could be useful to translators. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:55
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Tim Drayton wrote:
In the interests of testing the level of transparency of the German tax authorities in their dealings with the public (and specifically the allegation that they will not reveal what the VAT threshold is when specifically asked), since I speak German, I decided to put this to the test and phoned a tax office in Germany selected at random (it happened to be the central area of Frankfurt) and inquired about the VAT threshold. I can report that my call was taken by a very polite man who not only informed me that the threshold currently stands at EUR 17,500 annually, but insisted in going into the matter in great detail, for example explaining that this works on a proportional basis if you start trading in the middle of a year, and it seems you can even exceed the threshold in one year and still be deemed to be an enterprise that does not have to register for VAT provided turnover in the following year is below the threshold. I was very satisfied with the way my inquiry was handled and felt that I had been given the information I was looking for.
I thought that this was information that could be useful to translators.
Ha ha- that's what you get for asking a German tax official for a simple piece of information
| | | | Ty Kendall
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:55
Hebrew to English
Tim Drayton wrote:
In the interests of testing the level of transparency of the German tax authorities in their dealings with the public (and specifically the allegation that they will not reveal what the VAT threshold is when specifically asked), since I speak German, I decided to put this to the test and phoned a tax office in Germany selected at random (it happened to be the central area of Frankfurt) and inquired about the VAT threshold. I can report that my call was taken by a very polite man who not only informed me that the threshold currently stands at EUR 17,500 annually, but insisted in going into the matter in great detail, for example explaining that this works on a proportional basis if you start trading in the middle of a year, and it seems you can even exceed the threshold in one year and still be deemed to be an enterprise that does not have to register for VAT provided turnover in the following year is below the threshold. I was very satisfied with the way my inquiry was handled and felt that I had been given the information I was looking for.
I thought that this was information that could be useful to translators.
Where's that "like" button 
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:55
Portuguese to English
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| Serial askers | Apr 29, 2015 |
The reason I would criticise ("bash", if you like) Proz, or any other site for that matter, is that it does nothing to reign in people who frequently ask questions assuming that it's okay to have their colleagues spending their valuable time doing the research rather than doing it themselves. Some of them even have the nerve to say "I haven't got time to look into this now". This applies to forums or terminology questions. Every site has their serial askers and since moderation does not allow us... See more The reason I would criticise ("bash", if you like) Proz, or any other site for that matter, is that it does nothing to reign in people who frequently ask questions assuming that it's okay to have their colleagues spending their valuable time doing the research rather than doing it themselves. Some of them even have the nerve to say "I haven't got time to look into this now". This applies to forums or terminology questions. Every site has their serial askers and since moderation does not allow us to point this out, staff shouldn't be surprised that users eventually get fed-up. Unfortunately the only response we ever hear is "If you don't like it then leave", which does little to engender the community spirit they claim they want to build.
Edited for typo.
[Edited at 2015-04-29 11:05 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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| "You don't have to answer" | Apr 29, 2015 |
Lisa Simpson, MCIL MITI wrote:
The reason I would criticise ("bash", if you like) Proz, or any other site for that matter, is that it does nothing to reign in people who frequently ask questions....
True. The criticism levelled at Proz about kudoz can also apply elsewhere. Although the scale on here is way beyond anything else I've seen.
Some of them even have the nerve to say "I haven't got time to look into this now". This applies to forums or terminology questions. Every site has their serial askers
One of the yahoo groups I'm on has someone who prefaces almost every question with "I'm too tired to think about this properly" or a variation thereon. It's either a lie or she's consistently working on material she's not qualified to handle; either way, it's bad.
Unfortunately the only response we ever hear is "If you don't like it then leave", which does little to engender the community spirit they claim they want to build.
Yup, or the response as above. But who wants to be in a community (even just an ersatz online "community") where half the members are just there to leech off the rest?
And yes, this is all really, really small potatoes in the overall scheme of things, but still a disappointing state of affairs, within its own terribly insignificant context.
| | | | | Hear, hear! At last this seems to be getting somewhere | Apr 29, 2015 |
Lisa Simpson, MCIL MITI wrote:
The reason I would criticise ("bash", if you like) Proz, or any other site for that matter, is that it does nothing to reign in people who frequently ask questions assuming that it's okay to have their colleagues spending their valuable time doing the research rather than doing it themselves. Some of them even have the nerve to say "I have got time to look into this now". This applies to forums or terminology questions. Every site has their serial askers and since moderation does not allow us to point this out, staff shouldn't be surprised that users eventually get fed-up. Unfortunately the only response we ever hear is "If you don't like it then leave", which does little to engender the community spirit they claim they want to build.
It is a universal human trait to demand consistency.
Nobody trusts a dog that will play and cuddle with you on one day, to bite and bark at you on the next day. Nobody trusts a friend who invites you for dinner on one night, and who will backstab you at work on the next morning.
One thing that may be triggering this Proz-bashing is a similar dichotomy.
a) Some people complain about Proz moderators being overly rigid with rules on forums; and
b) Some people complain about Proz moderators being overly tolerant on blatant Kudoz abuse.
(I'm not concerned with either being right or wrong; only with how they perceive it.)
From the consistency standpoint, this leads people to distrust Proz management. This leads to all kinds of assumptions to be made by outsiders, such as Proz promoting Trados, protecting scheming yet powerful translation agencies against bad LWAs, and so on.
Though I see that Proz struggles to remain neutral, when people make decisions based on their personal construct of policies stated in black and white, that neutrality gets impaired.
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I suppose there aren't any changes on the horizon at ProZ.com
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 16:25
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Actually, it may be in the offing | Apr 30, 2015 |
Bernhard Sulzer wrote:
I suppose there aren't any changes on the horizon at ProZ.com
As of now, proz.com's current version seems to be a finished product - that is, it is serving all the objectives of its owners quite well, and therefore, there is no incentive to proz.com for changing the format of proz.com - if it ain't broken, don't fix it.
But the current proz.com format is fast becoming outdated due to the rapid changes in technology. When proz.com was designed more than two decades ago, it was mainly designed for viewing on large computer screens. Now most of the internet surfing as well as other activities are done on smaller screens, ie., on smart phones. proz.com doesn't currently display well on these small screens and it is almost impossible to do a lot of routine proz.com activites such as filling up the numerous forms for job posting, replying to jobs, even making a comment on a kudoz question on a smart phone.
A redoing of the entire proz.com site may become necessary because of this and that could mean a major coding effort. That would be the time to implement many of the changes that have been in demand for a long time but which the owners of proz.com have been dragging their feet in implementing, as they don't want to meddle with a working product.
Also, I think Google has now made it mandatory for all websites to be smartphone-friendly or risk being downgraded in their search engine ratings. Now that would really hit a site like proz.com where it hurts, and prompt it to make the necessary adjustments in a hurry.
So may be, we from the users side, should put together a comprehensive list of the changes that we would like to see so that proz.com has a checklist to refer to when it gets down to redesigning the site. If we miss this opportunity, it would be a long while before another one crops up.
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:55
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| You'll wonder where.... | Apr 30, 2015 |
Balasubramaniam L. wrote:
a checklist to refer to when it gets down to redesigning the site.
Two things I would like:
1. A new colour scheme for the GUI that isn't creamy-yellow and light brown
2. Drag-and-drop functionality for images.
But given the immense complexity of the Proz website, I would recommend that any changes be implemented one by one, very gradually, so that users get used to them gradually.
Now - remind me - what was the topic ?
[Edited at 2015-04-30 07:17 GMT]
| | | | | And add funny icons... | Apr 30, 2015 |
... to KudoZ, like pink horses and little monsters, to keep the younger fellow translators stay away from Facebook 
[Bearbeitet am 2015-04-30 09:05 GMT]
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:55
Member (2008)
Italian to English
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