| 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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Dan Lucas 
United Kingdom
Local time: 17:33
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Enrique Cavalitto wrote: "I am sorry to hear about your problems but, quite frankly, it beggars belief that somebody doing business in Germany, especially one who is presumably fluent and literate in German, is incapable of finding out a crucial piece of information such as the VAT threshhold. It took me less than two minutes of googling to find the following: {URL}" I find this comment to be inappropriate and I would also have asked for a rewording before making it visible. I don't think this is just about a linguistic nuance.
To what part of it would you have objected?
I think "presumably" in that context is entirely valid - it expresses an assumption. Or does the other person not, after all, speak German?
Tim was stating what he considered to be a fact, that fact being that googling should bring a useful result. Certainly "VAT threshold" in Google UK brings up relevant information in the first hit. Is it your contention that finding information on the VAT threshold in Germany is actually very difficult?
Or do you object to Tim expressing sympathy for the poster ("I am sorry to hear") and their difficulties?
Maybe VAT just isn't important in Germany in the way it is in the UK. Is it the word "crucial" that you want reworded?
Please, I'm all ears. I'd love to be persuaded out of my belief that such intrusive moderation penalises posts that the vast majority of people would find acceptable.
Regards
Dan
| | | | | "it beggars belief"? | Apr 26, 2015 |
Perhaps it was the words "it beggars belief", rather than the word "presumably", which were actually deemed "unacceptable", since those words are (probably intentionally) somewhat disparaging?
Not that one shouldn't be allowed to be disparaging - when a situation demands ...
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 18:33
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Dan Lucas wrote: Enrique Cavalitto wrote: "I am sorry to hear about your problems but, quite frankly, it beggars belief that somebody doing business in Germany, especially one who is presumably fluent and literate in German, is incapable of finding out a crucial piece of information such as the VAT threshhold. It took me less than two minutes of googling to find the following: {URL}" I find this comment to be inappropriate and I would also have asked for a rewording before making it visible. I don't think this is just about a linguistic nuance. To what part of it would you have objected?
Dan, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say it, but I'm surprised and baffled by your interpretation of what was written. To me it is very obvious that the quoted reply is insinuating very strongly that the original poster is either lazy or stupid, despite the fact that it is supplemented by a useful URL.
Please, I'm all ears. I'd love to be persuaded out of my belief that such intrusive moderation penalises posts that the vast majority of people would find acceptable.
I personally do not object to moderators attempting to remove what appears to be deliberate insults (particularly if they are couched in pseudo-polite wording). What Tim was really saying (and it is fairly obvious to me that he is saying it) is:
I am sorry to hear about your problems. You are obviously lying when you say that you do business in Germany and/or that you are fluent and literate in German, because if you were those things, you would have been able to find the answer to your question using Google. Or, perhaps you are not lying about these things, but you are incredibly stupid, or just downright lazy, because I was able to find the relevant information within two minutes.
[Edited at 2015-04-26 09:05 GMT]
| | | | Jacques DP
Switzerland
Local time: 18:33
English to French
| Perfect time to answer this one | Apr 26, 2015 |
Samuel Murray wrote: Jacques DP wrote: Samuel Murray wrote:
The probibition to speak publically about moderator decisions is another problematic rule that serves no purpose other than to protect moderators' feelings... This is a necessary measure to avoid threads to be polluted by meta-talk. That would be true if this prohibition applied only to posting comments about moderation in threads that are not devoted to discussing the actions of moderators. But on ProZ.com you can't even post a message or start a thread about this in a dedicated sub-section of the forums, where it wouldn't pollute the other threads.
First, what you are saying is a non sequitur. You are assuming both prohibitions must have the same explanation. But in reality the situation I described is the normal one, because you know very well that when someone is affected by a moderation decision, they typically want to reply and complain on the spot, in the thread, taking other participants as witnesses. So what I said applies to this normal situation. The idea of creating special subsections to discuss acts of moderation is something else, and there are other, rather obvious reasons of not supporting this, as you are about to see.
Second, this very thread shows two interesting things in this respect. First, it shows that staff is tolerating the exact thing you say they always prohibit, since you and others are presently discussing acts of moderation with staff in some other place than the original thread.
But then it also shows why this is a problem. People here have incredible motivation and time to write long messages and arguments to support their views and "show" (so they think) that ProZ is misguided in what they do. As you yourself just showed by replying to Dan, messages will often fail to acknowledge the obvious. I could in fact say the same thing for your message to which I am presently responding. The argument you provided was sophistical as I showed above. But you would not recognize that what you originally said was wrong. And you will probably never do so.
So, having staff monitor and answer messages in such discussion is a large effort. Just reading the messages (some incredibly long) is a large effort (I certainly didn't read everything in this thread, but staff is forced to do so in order to answer). From the point of view of management, this is simply a misallocation of staff time to unproductive tasks. Employees are paid to do that. It needs to support ProZ' goals. Otherwise it is wrong.
In brief, not only would it be counter-productive for ProZ to actively support threads (by creating special sub-forums) devoted to attacks on their way of doing things, but it would also waste considerable staff time.
If management were prone to take such bad decisions, ProZ would have disappeared long ago. Since ProZ still exists, it means they don't take such bad decisions. That's in my view the final (evolutionary) explanation of the "prohibition", even deeper than the particular reasons ProZ themselves might give you.
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| @ Samuel: Interpreting what others mean? | Apr 26, 2015 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
I personally do not object to moderators attempting to remove what appears to be deliberate insults (particularly if they are couched in pseudo-polite wording). What Tim was really saying (and it is fairly obvious to me that he is saying it) is:
I am sorry to hear about your problems. You are obviously lying when you say that you do business in Germany and/or that you are fluent and literate in German, because if you were those things, you would have been able to find the answer to your question using Google. Or, perhaps you are not lying about these things, but you are incredibly stupid, because I was able to find the relevant information within two minutes.
Imo a more correct and certainly more polite and fair wording should be, "In my own personal opinion, I think what he was saying is": You are putting your own personal interpretation/slant on the words of someone else. How can you be so certain about what someone else was thinking? Reading into someone's words or second guessing their "true" meaning and deciding what the person's actual intention was is a unfair and hardly conducive to a friendly atmosphere. Why not ask the person directly what he or she meant? People need to stop taking offence at the drop of a hat. It seems that some people's feathers are too easily ruffled.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 18:33
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
writeaway wrote: Samuel Murray wrote:
What Tim was really saying (and it is fairly obvious to me that he is saying it) is:... IMO a more correct and certainly more polite and fair wording should be, "In my own personal opinion, I think what he was saying is".
You're right, and that actually proves my point that one can't interpret what is written in a forum too literally. I had incorrectly not edited my post sufficiently to make it as polite as it can be, and this lead you to interpret my words literally (and not see the emotion behind the words), i.e. to think that I am "putting [my] own personal interpretation/slant on the words of someone else". If I had indeed written "In my opinion, what he was saying is" then you would not have replied, right? Yet what I would have meant would have been exactly the same.
I have no doubt that Tim didn't mean any of those things that I ascribed to his statement (i.e. that he was truly trying to be objectively helpful), but the fact is that his words do imply those things very strongly. A moderator picked that up and asked him to rephrase his statement to still reflect what he actually meant while omitting the [accidental] insinuation. In the same way that you picked up the phrase in my post which you thought to point out to me might be interpreted differently from what I probably intended.
Many of us insult each other lightly every now and then, but that is part of discussion. It is only when a statement is laden with several insult indicators that a line is crossed, and in my opinion the quoted statement does just that. Moderators should not be oversensitive when detecting insults.
[Edited at 2015-04-26 09:55 GMT]
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 18:33
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Jacques DP wrote:
You are assuming both prohibitions must have the same explanation.
You're right, I'm assuming that both prohibitions (namely (a) against speaking about moderator decisions in the same thread that the decision occurred and (b) against speaking about moderator decisions in a forum dedicated to the discussion of Proz.com related matters) have the same explanation (namely to protect moderators' feelings). The reason why I assume this is because I can (could?) think of no other explanation.
Following your post, however, I must acknowledge that the prohibition does have a useful side-effect, namely to save moderators from having to write lengthy replies to such comments. But this assumes that (in the case of a dedicated forum) it would be expected of moderators to engage in a long conversation about such comments.
I agree with you that requiring moderators to respond to such comments would place an incredible additional load on moderators' time. But that is why I would not expect moderators to be required to provide comprehensive explanations and replies and rebuttals to objections and counter arguments at all (if they were, it would turn such a sub-forum into a mud-slinging contest and nothing more).
In my opinion, the main issue is simply disclosure, and giving users the opportunity to discuss it publically. If a ruling by a moderator is publically objected to, in a dedicated sub-forum, the moderator could easily reply in just one minute, using a standard form that gives all the relevant information (URLs, who posted, etc) automatically, plus paste the offending paragraph, and mention which rule was violated, and what action was requested of the offender, and add just one sentence about why the moderator thinks so. Other members can then reply with whether they believe the moderator's ruling was good or not, but the moderator need not reply further.
But in reality the situation I described is the normal one, because you know very well that when someone is affected by a moderation decision, they typically want to reply and complain on the spot, in the thread, taking other participants as witnesses.
You assumed that the situation you described [when you replied to my post] was the same situation that I had in mind, and then I clarified my position. Still, I agree with you that what you call the "normal situation" (and indeed it is the normal situation) would be counter-productive and that it would pollute or even derail otherwise fruitful discussions, and should not be permitted... in a non-threaded forum design such as the one ProZ.com is using.
First, it shows that staff is tolerating the exact thing you say they always prohibit, since you and others are presently discussing acts of moderation with staff in some other place than the original thread.
That is true, but we both know that our posts can be removed any minute now, because of that very fact. We both hope that the moderators will regard our conversation as having sufficient merit as to overrule the application of that other rule in this particular case.
But then it also shows why this is a problem. People here have incredible motivation and time to write long messages and arguments to support their views and "show" (so they think) that ProZ is misguided in what they do.
That is a very good point, and one that I would hope would be recognised (and dealt with in advance) if ProZ.com should ever decide to either create a dedicated sub-forum for moderator complaints or to allow such discussions in the currently available forums about ProZ.com.
I could in fact say the same thing for your message to which I am presently responding. The argument you provided was sophistical as I showed above. But you would not recognize that what you originally said was wrong. And you will probably never do so.
You're right with that last sentence: I'm struggling to see how these specific replies of mine could be sophistical. Still, I acknowledge the point you're making. Forum discussions employ a wide range of [sometimes incompatible] argumentative and conversational styles, and it can be quite the effort to have a truly fruitful discussion if one assumed that one was expected to respond to everything.
[It would be] counter-productive for ProZ to actively support threads ... devoted to attacks on their way of doing things [and] it would also waste considerable staff time.
I'm not sure what you mean by "it would be counter-productive" because I don't see any arguments in your post to support that, but I agree with your point about wasting considerable staff time, if indeed staff were expected to actively participate in such discussion and to reply to most of the arguments raised in it.
I don't see the ability to disclose (on request) one's decisions as being supportive of attacks on one's way of doing this. Users who want to attack will always attack, regardless of the forum.
If management were prone to take such bad decisions, ProZ would have disappeared long ago. Since ProZ still exists, it means they don't take such bad decisions.
Come now, ProZ.com's continued existence does not prove good management decisions. ProZ.com continues to exist because the customer based (that's us) has reached critical mass, because it has practically no competitors, and because its flaws are sufficiently minor.
But I agree that disallowing the public display of discontent is a potentially efficient and often largely successful means of maintaining a system.
[Edited at 2015-04-26 10:54 GMT]
| | | | | Small logic failure, perhaps? | Apr 26, 2015 |
Jacques DP wrote:
If management were prone to take such bad decisions, ProZ would have disappeared long ago. Since ProZ still exists, it means they don't take such bad decisions.
Bad decisions do not inevitably lead to disappearance. They could, for example, simply lead to a worse existence, but an existence nonetheless (depending on the scale, naturally). Besides, personally, my beef is not that the decisions were bad (surely a subjective assessment) in and of themselves, merely not the ones I was expecting the site, as I originally perceived its purpose, to be taking. The site has taken different decisions and hence it exists in a different form.
And as for your earlier comment: To remain strong such a plateform needs to be balanced. It needs to offer value to everyone. it is self-evidently failing to do that, hence the activities elsewhere that led to this thread, and this thread itself. No surprise; conventional wisdom has it that it is impossible to be all things to all men, and that you cannot please all of the people all of the time. Proz drifted away from serving only the freelance translator community, and so some of that community is now disillusioned, disenchanted, and annoyed at the perceived wasted effort of years ago. Do you recall the epic thread of the summer of 2006 and the spin-offs, and the "three things I'd change" thread in the autumn? And then the outcome of that?
Ultimately, then, I'd rather the site didn't have members who felt it would be acceptable to come and ask the VAT rate in Germany in the first place. I marvel at those who post questions such as "what do I need to put on an invoice?" or "when do I send an invoice?". These are not questions "proz" should be asking, especially as that information is freely available on myriad other websites. I do not criticise ignorance of course; I criticise lack of search skills (which translators need) in this particular case.
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Jessica Noyes
United States
Local time: 12:33
Member
Spanish to English
+ ...
[Edited at 2015-04-26 12:48 GMT]
| | | | | Discussion of administrative action | Apr 26, 2015 |
Jacques DP wrote: Samuel Murray wrote: Jacques DP wrote: Samuel Murray wrote:
The probibition to speak publically about moderator decisions is another problematic rule that serves no purpose other than to protect moderators' feelings... This is a necessary measure to avoid threads to be polluted by meta-talk. That would be true if this prohibition applied only to posting comments about moderation in threads that are not devoted to discussing the actions of moderators. But on ProZ.com you can't even post a message or start a thread about this in a dedicated sub-section of the forums, where it wouldn't pollute the other threads. Second, this very thread shows two interesting things in this respect. First, it shows that staff is tolerating the exact thing you say they always prohibit, since you and others are presently discussing acts of moderation with staff in some other place than the original thread.
Hi Jacques,
Discussing the ProZ.com moderation procedures, tools and practices is OK, as all feedback is welcome, and in many cases they lead to improvements.
On the other hand, forum discussions on specific instances of moderation are not allowed, based (as most of ProZ.com rules) on almost 15 years of experience.
Please let me quote here general rule 8:
Discussion of administrative actions taken by moderators or site staff should be carried out solely via the site's online support system. Administrative actions include rules enforcement actions in the forums and KudoZ, warnings or restrictions on posting or other rights, editorial adjustments to topic subject lines, the locking of certain forum threads, selection of topics to be featured on the home page, etc.
Also this FAQ may be helpful:
Why should discussion of administrative actions be carried out through the support system and not in forums?
Moderating site forums is not an easy task. Sometimes, moderators may face a situation in a thread that they feel is not correct and that requires immediate action. Also, it may happen that, when deciding on the most appropriate actions to take in such threads, no other fellow moderator is around to check, leading the moderator to take honest and well-meant actions that they consider most appropriate.
These actions, however, may prove to be incorrect when evaluated later, without the pressure, and this is why contacting site staff to request the re-evaluation of administrative actions taken by moderators is encouraged. Experience has demonstrated that discussing moderators' actions in the forums basically produces more ill feelings without solving the issues at hand.
Reporting via the support system what may be considered improper actions by moderators allows site staff to look at the issue and provide a "second opinion" that tries to be calm and objective.
Regards,
Enrique
| | | | | Ad-hominem and derogatory | Apr 26, 2015 |
Dan Lucas wrote: Enrique Cavalitto wrote: "I am sorry to hear about your problems but, quite frankly, it beggars belief that somebody doing business in Germany, especially one who is presumably fluent and literate in German, is incapable of finding out a crucial piece of information such as the VAT threshhold. It took me less than two minutes of googling to find the following: {URL}" I find this comment to be inappropriate and I would also have asked for a rewording before making it visible. I don't think this is just about a linguistic nuance. To what part of it would you have objected? I think "presumably" in that context is entirely valid - it expresses an assumption. Or does the other person not, after all, speak German? Tim was stating what he considered to be a fact, that fact being that googling should bring a useful result. Certainly "VAT threshold" in Google UK brings up relevant information in the first hit. Is it your contention that finding information on the VAT threshold in Germany is actually very difficult? Or do you object to Tim expressing sympathy for the poster ("I am sorry to hear") and their difficulties? Maybe VAT just isn't important in Germany in the way it is in the UK. Is it the word "crucial" that you want reworded? Please, I'm all ears. I'd love to be persuaded out of my belief that such intrusive moderation penalises posts that the vast majority of people would find acceptable. Regards Dan
Hi Dan,
The thread was about taxes, so this comment on the person who started the thread is ad-hominem criticism, and it is unrelated to the issue being discussed. Besides, I honestly believe that a reader (and in particular the recipient of the comment) may understand this statement as offensive, as it is questioning his German fluency, his computer abilities, or both.
A derogatory comment wrapped in the silk of language skills is still derogatory.
Regards,
Enrique
| | | | | Case in point | Apr 26, 2015 |
Last October I did a job for an agency that I later discovered had been banned from posting jobs at ProZ. I saw that the agency had a terrible record of late payments. One Blue Board LWA comment was: "Never work for these people!"
I decided I should submit my evaluation as well and posted something like "I would recommend not accepting a job from this agency unless they pay in advance." My comment was rejected for violating of one of the rules.
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Jacques DP
Switzerland
Local time: 18:33
English to French
Hi Enrique,
I'm not sure why you are writing these things to me. I don't need to be convinced about your policies in that matter. It was Samuel who objected to them. Keep up the good work.
| | | | | All comments are welcome | Apr 26, 2015 |
Jacques DP wrote:
Hi Enrique,
I'm not sure why you are writing these things to me. I don't need to be convinced about your policies in that matter. It was Samuel who objected to them. Keep up the good work.
Thanks Jacques, all comments are welcome. I found yours to be more appropriate for explaining the rule on discussion of administrative actions.
Happy end of weekend to you all,
Enrique
| | | | | When will things change? | Apr 26, 2015 |
It's great to see Enrique engage in this discussion.
But here's the problem.
a) Currently, there is a never-ending flow of cheap posters ("offerers") and cheap takers (accepters"). From my experience, even clients looking through the directory and then contacting me via email have mostly unrealistic expectations with regard to price, timeline, and type of work that is professional translation (or other language service). Some clients can be convinced about rea... See more It's great to see Enrique engage in this discussion.
But here's the problem.
a) Currently, there is a never-ending flow of cheap posters ("offerers") and cheap takers (accepters"). From my experience, even clients looking through the directory and then contacting me via email have mostly unrealistic expectations with regard to price, timeline, and type of work that is professional translation (or other language service). Some clients can be convinced about realistic terms, some can't.
Please don't tell me my profile looks "expensive." This happened to me as a Certified Pro and as a non-paying member.
Outsourcers using Proz.com (job board, and mainly mass emails to Proz.com members) tend to offer more and more ridiculous rates, want their own CAT tools used (and arbitrary and unwarranted fuzzy discounts applied) that they have set up on a cloud somewhere looking to "keep" as much information from translations (TM) for themselves for "cheaper" follow-up jobs and expect you to sign (yes, give them a document with YOUR signature on it) very restrictive and unfair NDAs (BEFORE they have presented any project to you yet) etc.
What I am saying is that as a language professional, I am disappointed about where Proz.com is heading when it simply accepts this IMO silly job carousel.
Granted, it does it because it has a different view concerning certain issues. What I just mentioned above seems to be a non-issue for Proz.com, but'for me it's not, because I find it irreconcilable with professional standards (standards that professional translators have upheld since the beginning of this profession), standards that Proz.com touts their members to represent and which certainly ought to be reflected in a name like Proz.com.
Sometimes, a willingness to make ever-so-slight changes (but at the same time trying not to offend outsourcers) can be observed. But did anything happen?
http://www.proz.com/forum/prozcom_suggestions/160787-could_the_blue_board_facility_be_improved-page2.html
Jared Tabor wrote:
Would clearer information on how to use and read the Blue Board help? Mar 20, 2010
Hello all,
Reading through some of the posts here, especially Hildegard's post outlining how she uses the Blue Board to check an outsourcer, I wonder if making available clearer guidelines on how to read the Blue Board and considerations to keep in mind when making an LWA entry, from experienced translators, might not help. What do you think?
Jared
IMHO, some fundamental changes need to be applied to turn this portal around and make it what it says it is, meaning to raise the quality of work that is offered by outsourcers and sought by clients, and the rates that are being accepted (yes, accepted, not dictated) by outsourcers and translators alike here on Proz.com.
b) The majority of translators accepting cheap jobs posted on Proz.com as well as the posters don't seem to be bothered by the status quo.
People like us who try to make arguments for change/implementation of policies in the forums (sometimes over hundreds of pages - see verification of native language, Certified Pro members who act anything but professional, ...) see no major changes applied, mainly because there isn't even consensus among us. It becomes very frustrating when people start to comment who seem to be opposed to anything one says, without real good or meaningful arguments (well, yes that's how I see it). You know what those people are called. And I am not talking about the people who have posted here so far. The ones I mean usually come along later in the discussion, but that's not always the case.
c) There doesn't seem to be a constructive dialogue between Proz.com staff and translators like me because the perspectives are too different. I am convinced they are, because I don't agree with how the whole job/project exchange works here. I gave up on the job board a long time ago, and direct contact by clients through the directory can lead to some acceptable jobs, but as long as I was a paying member, even those trickled down to basically non-existent.
d) What I feel very strongly about is that anyone (outsourcer or translator) can be a "Certified Pro" whereby it's obviously okay to ask for USD .04/word for a German to English job and get a Proz.com member to do the job, often also a Certified Pro. I can't be part of such a group.
It comes right down to this (for me!): in its current form, Proz.com holds very little value for me. As a matter of fact, I think a lot of bad is happening in the industry because as I see it, if hundreds of thousands of jobs are being carried out at rock-bottom prices, it does have an effect on our industry and all of us.
Not all is bad here. I appreciate the forums and being able to speak out on many issues, but I ask myself increasingly: why should I? Well, it's because I feel I should, if I have the opportunity to tell you when I feel something isn't right. It's always better to speak out against something than to be silent. Sometimes things change. And the sheer size of business allocated through Proz.com plays a major role in our profession. I think we need to speak our mind and raise concerns we have.
I invite Proz.com to engage with us in a way that assures us that it has our interests in mind. I made a few suggestions earlier in this thread about what I feel should be changed. These changes aren't always easy to implement, but some are. But I would at least expect a dialogue on it. Because as I said before, all is not well here.
I would like to see change, but I fear that the industry is moving towards a black hole. Maybe there will be a rebirth on the other side. But hey, sometimes things get turned around before it's too late. The bashing would certainly stop.
B
[Edited at 2015-04-26 19:26 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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