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Rating others' entries when you've entered yourself
Thread poster: philgoddard
philgoddard
philgoddard
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Dec 3, 2020

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but I can't find any previous posts.

I recently entered some ProZ translation contests for the first time, and was surprised to discover that I'm allowed to rate other people's entries.

That means I have two options:

1. Sit back, do nothing, and hope for the best
2. Pick holes in others' submissions, just as they're probably doing to me

The rules say that if you make nothing but negative comments,
... See more
I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but I can't find any previous posts.

I recently entered some ProZ translation contests for the first time, and was surprised to discover that I'm allowed to rate other people's entries.

That means I have two options:

1. Sit back, do nothing, and hope for the best
2. Pick holes in others' submissions, just as they're probably doing to me

The rules say that if you make nothing but negative comments, or if they are otherwise abnormal, your entry may be excluded. But surely I should just be barred from commenting on others' contributions, period. Can you imagine if the contestants in (say) the Eurovision Song Contest were allowed to mark one another?
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Tom in London
Christel Zipfel
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Tom in London
Tom in London
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Useful Dec 3, 2020

Thanks Phil - that's useful to know. I will not be taking part in any of these contests, for the reason you mention.

philgoddard
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Christel Zipfel
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This is absolutely unbelievable Dec 3, 2020

philgoddard wrote:

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but I can't find any previous posts.

I recently entered some ProZ translation contests for the first time, and was surprised to discover that I'm allowed to rate other people's entries.

That means I have two options:

1. Sit back, do nothing, and hope for the best
2. Pick holes in others' submissions, just as they're probably doing to me
...

Can you imagine if the contestants in (say) the Eurovision Song Contest were allowed to mark one another?



I read this years ago (when this issue had been discussed) and thought sincerely it had been fixed since then. Adding this to the debacle that finding a winner needed sometimes years is not very encouraging and a contest still held in such circumstances should be declared invalid.


Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
philgoddard
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Tom in London
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texjax DDS PhD
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Same old same old... Dec 3, 2020

Take a look at this old thread from 2014

https://tinyurl.com/y38nybax


philgoddard
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Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
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@Phil Dec 3, 2020

That’s one of the reasons I no longer take part, the other one being the fact that an infamous contest took over three years to come to an end, if my memory serves me right…

Felipe Lacerda
philgoddard
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Felipe Lacerda
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Yup. Dec 3, 2020

I do think that the contests, as well as the KudoZ to a certain degree, are fundamentally flawed.

Teresa Borges wrote:

That’s one of the reasons I no longer take part, the other one being the fact that an infamous contest took over three years to come to an end, if my memory serves me right…


Tell us more - I'm curious. What happenned?


philgoddard
Barbara Carrara
P.L.F. Persio
 
philgoddard
philgoddard
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TOPIC STARTER
Texjax Dec 3, 2020

Thanks for the link to the 2014 post.

Here's what Jared Tabor, a member of site staff, said then:

"I've watched this, and I do not see evidence that participants' ability to rate or vote on entries skews the results.

"In general the interaction I have seen has been constructive, and entry-makers may bring an interesting perspective to the process-- they've all struggled with the same turns of phrase, chosen or discarded certain term choices, etc. I've seen
... See more
Thanks for the link to the 2014 post.

Here's what Jared Tabor, a member of site staff, said then:

"I've watched this, and I do not see evidence that participants' ability to rate or vote on entries skews the results.

"In general the interaction I have seen has been constructive, and entry-makers may bring an interesting perspective to the process-- they've all struggled with the same turns of phrase, chosen or discarded certain term choices, etc. I've seen participants congratulate each other on choices they hadn't thought of, as well as pointing out when mistakes are made, or when they don't agree with a choice (in the way others who rate the entries do). I think dislike tags may tend to be more common than like tags in general, but this is not an attribute particular to entry-makers' ratings. And I don't see any consistent relationship between the number of like or dislike ratings on an entry that wins versus an entry that doesn't win-- raters and voters are using their own judgment when it comes to rating and voting."

I can see his point, but I don't agree with this approach. I'm effectively being forced to comment on other entries in self-defense, even though I don't particularly want to.
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Barbara Carrara
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Sadek_A
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What does one get from that contest anyway? Dec 4, 2020

A similar approach I've seen practiced somewhere else.

A translation platform company, when trying to win a new client, puts out a number of identical tests for a number of their translators to grab, one test gets grabbed by an in-good-faith translator while the company's platform is allowing the rest of the translators to (1)view (2)review (3)rate that translation of the test.

Only shortly afterwards will those other translators grab their tests, of course after the fi
... See more
A similar approach I've seen practiced somewhere else.

A translation platform company, when trying to win a new client, puts out a number of identical tests for a number of their translators to grab, one test gets grabbed by an in-good-faith translator while the company's platform is allowing the rest of the translators to (1)view (2)review (3)rate that translation of the test.

Only shortly afterwards will those other translators grab their tests, of course after the first test-taker sanded all the rough terminology, acronyms, puns, etc.

Usually, the first test-taker wouldn't win the client, despite the sincere effort.

And, that was being done for PAID work!

I guess the same is an indicator of life in general, where mostly the zigzag (to put it politely, instead of crooked) performer gets to progress.

So, they might be teaching us a lesson, or that zigzag performer might be just the material they're looking for (and this is said as a general rule in life, not just about the contest)!
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Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
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@Felipe Dec 4, 2020

It was the “Celebrations” translation contest in 2014. It took 4 years to know the winners in some language pairs. I entered the translation contest several times with good results and though I didn’t win this one my entry went quite well compared to the greater part of the others. But then the attacks on style, the deluge of dislikes and the scarcity of likes are the clear proof that unfortunately some of my fellow translators are far from fair (as an example, the same sentence translated... See more
It was the “Celebrations” translation contest in 2014. It took 4 years to know the winners in some language pairs. I entered the translation contest several times with good results and though I didn’t win this one my entry went quite well compared to the greater part of the others. But then the attacks on style, the deluge of dislikes and the scarcity of likes are the clear proof that unfortunately some of my fellow translators are far from fair (as an example, the same sentence translated exactly the same by several colleagues was rated in a different way by the same person). For me, it was the last time! Searching Proz you will find some threads about the subject, for example:

https://www.proz.com/forum/prozcom_translation_contests/277633-translation_contest_"celebrations"_congratulations_to_the_first_round_of_winners.html
https://www.proz.com/forum/prozcom_contests_discussion_of_competition_in_specific_pairs/325585-prozcom_translation_contest_"celebrations"_winner.html
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Felipe Lacerda
philgoddard
 
Felipe Lacerda
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Wow Dec 4, 2020

Teresa Borges wrote:

It was the “Celebrations” translation contest in 2014. It took 4 years to know the winners in some language pairs. I entered the translation contest several times with good results and though I didn’t win this one my entry went quite well compared to the greater part of the others. But then the attacks on style, the deluge of dislikes and the scarcity of likes are the clear proof that unfortunately some of my fellow translators are far from fair (as an example, the same sentence translated exactly the same by several colleagues was rated in a different way by the same person). For me, it was the last time! Searching Proz you will find some threads about the subject, for example:

https://www.proz.com/forum/prozcom_translation_contests/277633-translation_contest_"celebrations"_congratulations_to_the_first_round_of_winners.html
https://www.proz.com/forum/prozcom_contests_discussion_of_competition_in_specific_pairs/325585-prozcom_translation_contest_"celebrations"_winner.html


Damn. Four years is ridiculous for a contest - especially for a text with, how many, 400 words?

Not sure about other languages, but, in PT-BR, the hardest thing to find is honest feedback. Sometimes I work as a third-party arbitrator and you can smell the reviewer's unfairness and arrogance from the computer screen. Even when the project is great (let's say, two style edits in a document with 5,000 words), most reviewers only write "Work is OK".

I think some linguists are too concerned that they won't get more work if they admit that their peers are doing a good job.


philgoddard
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Samuel Murray
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@Phil Dec 4, 2020

philgoddard wrote:
I can see his point, but I don't agree with this approach. I'm effectively being forced to comment on other entries in self-defense, even though I don't particularly want to.


I don't see it this way.

I'm not sure to what extend the comments affect the final voting. When I vote for an entry, I base my vote on my impression of the translation itself and not on the number of comments or the content of the comments. I don't even agree with all the comments. I don't know if others base their vote mainly or solely on the balance of positive and negative comments on entries.

But I don't see why it would be necessary or why you should feel pressured into it to comment on other entries. I don't understand why it would be considered "self-defense" to do so.

In addition, I think translators who have struggled through the text while translating it, and not just regarding the text as a passive reader, are in a very good position to comment on the translations of others (even more so than people who did not send in entries).


philgoddard
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Christopher Schröder
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Am I the only one... Dec 4, 2020

Am I the only one who finds the title of this thread funny?

expressisverbis
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Sadek_A
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..... Dec 4, 2020

Chris S wrote:
Am I the only one who finds the title of this thread funny?

Not the whole title, just some of the words, "others' entries" outbested (not topped) by "entered yourself"; the rest are fine.


 
Mervyn Henderson (X)
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No, you're not Dec 4, 2020

I'm afraid I rush into momentary immaturity like you do, mentally back in my third-form classroom. It should be moved immediately to the Completely frivolous thread.

[Edited at 2020-12-04 19:08 GMT]


Christel Zipfel
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Robert Rietvelt
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This is madness Dec 4, 2020

philgoddard wrote:

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but I can't find any previous posts.

I recently entered some ProZ translation contests for the first time, and was surprised to discover that I'm allowed to rate other people's entries.

That means I have two options:

1. Sit back, do nothing, and hope for the best
2. Pick holes in others' submissions, just as they're probably doing to me

The rules say that if you make nothing but negative comments, or if they are otherwise abnormal, your entry may be excluded. But surely I should just be barred from commenting on others' contributions, period. Can you imagine if the contestants in (say) the Eurovision Song Contest were allowed to mark one another?



The rating should be done by an "independent" jury, not by your fellow contestants for the obvious reasons.


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