Proposal that people who post questions via the Kudoz system be obliged to provide context

Jared wrote:

Hello Phil,

This is not a matter of me changing my mind. If there are ways to improve the giving and getting of term help which are (for starters) in line with the guiding principles I have mentioned, I'm more than happy to explore them. A feature which defeats a guiding principle is a different matter. I think it will be more effective to focus on constructive ways of improving the situation. The "person with the need sets the parameters" principle, as all the rest of the guiding principles, are principles that I have to stand by, precisely in the interest of site members (this doesn't mean that everyone is 100% happy 100% of the time at the outcome, of course).


Jared

Helen Shiner wrote:

If it were my business, I think I would undertake a survey of clients at this juncture. Being able to respond privately will inevitably be preferred by many who, regardless of whether they agree or disagree with this discussion, do not wish to contribute via the forum. It is a very key issue.

Sarah Elizabeth Cree, PhD wrote:

1. Sure, we can filter out all of the unprofessional askers in our pair(s). But given the proz.com point system, this is an effective way of shooting oneself in the foot: the fewer questions one answers, the lower one's status is. We can either raise our status by helping unprofessional translators (if we don't, someone else will) or lower it by opting to not help same.

In effect, the current system rewards those who support unprofessional behavior, and penalizes those who don't.

proz.com presents kudoz as one of its greatest, most valuable assets. Askers increase their visibility and status on the site through provision of good answers. It is contradictory that proz.com wants high quality answers (to confirm and justify the status and prestige of kudoz site-wide) and yet does not expect a similar level of quality for questions.

2. Regarding point six of proz.com's guiding principles, that "the person with the need sets the parameters". When an asker posts a question as "pro" and the community votes it down as "non-pro", this is hardly a case of "the person with the need setting the parameters".

What it is, rather, is a community of professionals demonstrating that they care about the integrity of proz.com, their profession, and their work.

I believe that this is precisely what is being sought in this call for change regarding the issue of context.

Jared wrote:

Hi Helen,



Beyond what is discussed in the forums, the surveying, feedback collection and "one-on-one" discussions with members on their use of the site, and their needs, is ongoing, as is staff's analysis of feedback and usage. I agree that the majority elect to not participate openly in this kind of forum discussion.

Jared

Helen Shiner wrote:

I appreciate that this is undertaken at times, however since I have been associated with Proz.com (some two and a half years), I have not been asked to give my opinions on the best way to operate it. I would welcome such a survey, particularly if the outcome were published.

philgoddard wrote:

So by "the person with the need", you mean the asker, right?

It's OK for them to abuse the system and clutter up KudoZ with junk questions because they have a need, but if we have a need for context, that doesn't count?

You also say "I think it will be more effective to focus on constructive ways of improving the situation". If my suggestion isn't a constructive way of improving the situation, what is?

Jared wrote:

Hi Phil,



In the case of KudoZ, yes.



Remember that the purpose of KudoZ is to provide term help. There are rules and certain controls which help minimize abuse of the system. Answerers who wish to request (further) context than that provided have a mechanism by which to do so.



I mentioned the idea of the article/set of guidelines on the importance of context, for which I have no takers so far. I have no doubt that there are other ways to help askers ask good questions, but I don't think hiding their questions for lack of context is one of them. As I mention above, one has the option of showing in the KudoZ question list the content of the explanation/context field. For those who dislike having to see context-less questions, perhaps a filter in the search criteria would help. This would cause those questions to not be visible to those who choose not to see them, while leaving the option to view them to those who wish to.

Jared

Charlie Bavington wrote:



http://www.proz.com/forum/prozcom:_translator_coop/57466-compilation_of_thread_lets_improve3_things_i_would_do_if_i_were_running_prozcom_action_plan.html

I seem to recall the summer of 2006 was quite the debating session. That thread contains links to other threads, and so on. It was a kind of state of the union thread. Note that you can no longer reply, so we can't bump it and ask about progress....

What is needed here is to recognize that a term help question posted with no context is "not suitable" for KudoZ, pretty much the same way as a question containing more than one term, or longer than 10 words. Those questions are deemed not suitable, and can be (and usually are) squashed (permanently) right away.
Interestingly, nobody is arguing about "blocking the flow of help" for those questions, even though there may be people willing to post answers to such questions.

Here, to resolve the context issue, we are not even talking about squashing, just disabling, hiding the question temporarily, until the asker fixed it. (Much like when a forum post is being de-vetted until the poster edits the content.)

Helen Shiner wrote:



What was the outcome of all of this?

Katalin Horvath McClure wrote:

In the previous thread about the same topic, I wrote this, and instead of writing something similar again, I decided to copy+paste it here:



http://www.proz.com/forum/kudoz/181112-yet_another_suggestion_to_deal_with_lack_of_context-page3.html#1591931