| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5] > | (Yet another) suggestion to deal with lack of context Thread poster: Nesrin
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| Guiding principles | Sep 25, 2010 |
Charlie Bavington wrote: Users can also block an asker who posts questions they consider "not good enough" and then no notifications will be received when questions from that asker are posted. Does this not mean that askers are deprived of some help? If you want all channels to be always on at all times (as it were) to maximise the help available to askers, why are we allowed to ignore some? Doesn't make logical sense, compared with your reasoning above, does it  Because, in summary, you seem to be saying you are against a new feature because you want askers to have as many answers as possible at all times, and if we are not happy with that decision, we can feel free to use a feature previously implemented on the site which prevents askers from having as many answers as possible at all times.
Hi Charlie,
Allowing people to receive or to provide help is not the same as forcing others to provide help or even to get notified about the request for help.
The following actions would have in common the fact that they would limit the freedom of users to participate in the site
* preventing an user from asking for help
* preventing other users from providing help
* forcing other users to receive notifications about the question
If you look at ProZ.com's guiding principles you will find:
6. The person with the need sets the parameters. Whether it be KudoZ, the forums or the jobs system, the person who has the need is given options for setting parameters and directing the flow of an exchange. For example, KudoZ askers are given the option of making a question for-points or not, of directing the question to people who meet certain criteria, etc. The feeling is that this approach, which may be the one most likely to ensure that needs are met, is appropriate for our collaborative community and service industry.
7. The site has been made highly customizable to permit focused participation. The site is structured in such a way as to allow you to get what you need quickly. You can customize settings in jobs, KudoZ, etc., that result in your seeing only the information that concerns you. This means you can participate as much or as little as you like
So, while principle #6 means that the asker is the one to decide about the parameters and content of the question, principle #7 means that other members are the ones to decide about their own participation in the question.
Regards,
Enrique
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Enrique wrote:
* preventing other users from providing help
I'm not bothered about blocking people from asking for help and I don't follow the relevance of the notifications point, but the above point seems worth considering (and mercifully moves on from the logical inconsistency of your previous argument ).
And indeed, I seem to recall once in the dim and d., very short Q was asked in my pair & field, which had the masses howling to be flung a contextual bone to gnaw on, but in fact, it could only have meant one thing, so I answered and it was done & dusted in a trice. Under the system as originally suggested, that might not have happened. Still, let's not sling the baby out with the bathwater. Perhaps we could refine the process.
And let us also not forget that one argument in favour of this button is to improve the quality, not the quantity. Put frankly, altho we might not want to "prevent users from providing help", to describe some of what we see as "help" (particularly in the context-light questions) is being extremely generous... Again, stopping some people from answering some questions is an act of kindness in a harsh world.
So, perhaps we could consider an variant where, for instance, if our Context button has been pressed three times, the Q is only available for answers from people working in the field, or with points in the field, or something along those lines?
(Yup, I have indeed spent this evening demolishing every vertical structure in my abode constructed from baked rectangular blocks of clay using my forehead alone, and hence I turn here once more....)
| | | | Colin Ryan (X) 
Local time: 17:54
Italian to English
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| Reply to Enrique's points | Sep 26, 2010 |
This is simply not true.
The fees paid by the site members are, by far, ProZ.com's main source if income.
Traffic is not irrelevant, of course, but it is not the primary concern here.
Besides blocking the "Answer" button of some KudoZ questions would have a negligible impact on the site's overall traffic, so this is not related at all with the decision not to block KudoZ help.
OK, I accept this. Sorry for ... See more
This is simply not true.
The fees paid by the site members are, by far, ProZ.com's main source if income.
Traffic is not irrelevant, of course, but it is not the primary concern here.
Besides blocking the "Answer" button of some KudoZ questions would have a negligible impact on the site's overall traffic, so this is not related at all with the decision not to block KudoZ help.
OK, I accept this. Sorry for implying otherwise.
Again, the main objective of KudoZ is to provide help to the asker, and preventing users to provide such help until the question is deemed "good enough" by a part of the community would not be in line with such objective.
The problem I have with this is that the "part of the community" to which I belong has high professional standards. If people want expert replies, they come to Kudoz. If they want silly, unreferenced replies, they should put up a question on Yahoo! Answers.
Participation in KudoZ is free. Members are free to simply skip questions that they consider "not good enough".
Yes, we know. The problem is that these "not good enough" questions end up in the KOG, and the overall standard goes down.
On a personal level, I do not feel comfortable with the idea of forcefully blocking the flow of help to users in order to "educate" them.
With all due respect, Enrique, you should keep your personal involvement out of the debate. We pay for Proz and Kudoz, and if the majority of us want the site to be a certain way, then the site simply has to respect our wishes, or some enterprising individual will set up a competing site. There are many other sites that help with terminology queries. Just lately I've been using Wordreference a lot. The answerers really care about correctness and there are no time-wasters. This is probably because there are no points to be gained - Hey! Now there's an idea! Abolish the points in Kudoz, and most of our problems will simply vanish. I have only 150 Kudoz points, but I'll willingly surrender them. What does everyone think about that?
[Edited as per Enrique's request]
[Edited at 2010-09-26 12:01 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Guiding principles - yes, precisely | Sep 27, 2010 |
Enrique wrote:
On a personal level, I do not feel comfortable with the idea of forcefully blocking the flow of help to users in order to "educate" them.
I agree with Ryan's comment about setting personal preferences aside.
After all, there is Guiding Principle #9, saying:
9. Member discretion is given precedence over administrator discretion.
And if we are already at the topic of the Guiding Principles:
Enrique mentioned #6 and #7 about the right to direct the flow of exchange sitting with the person with the need.
It is all very nice, however, there is another Guiding Principle, #12, that says:
12. Choice is paramount, but compromise is crucial.Each site user is given the maximum degree of control over his/her workplace experience. However, recognizing that we share a workplace in which one person's actions may affect another, site users cooperate and compromise as necessary.
I feel that the part about "we share a workplace in which one person's actions may affect another" fits very well the KudoZ area, and it would be in line with this principle to expect the asker to cooperate and/or compromise when it is about context (a crucial part of a KudoZ question).
Cooperation in this case means: providing the context when asking the question
Compromise means: by not providing the context at the outset, giving up the right to direct the flow of exchange - meaning the question could be sent back for editing, if more context is requested by the potential answerers.
After all, the current KudoZ system already has features that require cooperation or compromise, taking away the right of the asker to direct the flow of the exchange.
I am talking about the minimum 24-hour wait that is FORCED on askers when they want to close a question. They either cooperate (wait 24 hours), or compromise (give up their right for grading the question and assigning the points by opting for community grading).
I do not want to bring this feature into the discussion, I just mentioned it as an example where that seemingly sacred right of "directing the flow of exchange" has already been taken away. I remember there were lively debates about that change, too, before it was introduced, but it is accepted practice now, I have not heard any complaints lately.
Enrique, would you please at least consider a pilot project regarding this issue?
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stijnhommes
Netherlands
Local time: 17:54
Dutch to English
+ ...
I've spent a lot of time on the help desk and reference desk of the English Wikipeda and if there's one thing I've learned there, it's that people rarely read instructions. The best thing is to keep them to a minimum. A warning note above or underneath the text box would be ideal, as long as the text is limited.
Unfortunately, a lot of people think they're entitled to an answer, no matter how crappy the question was formulated. You will never get everyone to follow guidelines and ru... See more I've spent a lot of time on the help desk and reference desk of the English Wikipeda and if there's one thing I've learned there, it's that people rarely read instructions. The best thing is to keep them to a minimum. A warning note above or underneath the text box would be ideal, as long as the text is limited.
Unfortunately, a lot of people think they're entitled to an answer, no matter how crappy the question was formulated. You will never get everyone to follow guidelines and rules, but this way you improve your chances. ▲ Collapse
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Waiting 24 hours to grade a question does not block the flow of help, while blocking the "answer" button would prevent other users from providing help to the asker.
Regards,
Enrique
| | | | Colin Ryan (X)
Local time: 17:54
Italian to English
+ ...
| Well, we want our flow of help to be worth something. | Sep 27, 2010 |
Enrique wrote:
Waiting 24 hours to grade a question does not block the flow of help, while blocking the "answer" button would prevent other users from providing help to the asker.
The flow of help you're describing isn't a flow of help, Enrique. It's a flow of help mixed with a flow of bullshit, quite frankly. That's what we're trying to fix here.
| | | | | Flow of what... | Sep 28, 2010 |
Enrique wrote:
Waiting 24 hours to grade a question does not block the flow of help, while blocking the "answer" button would prevent other users from providing help to the asker.
Regards,
Enrique
I did not talk about blocking the flow of help, I was talking about "directing the flow of exchange". The KudoZ "transaction" does not end with the answerers providing answers. It continues with the asker closing and grading the question, awarding points and ending with creating a glossary entry. These are all part of the "flow of exchange".
It is also true, that the KudoZ "transaction" does not start with the answerers providing answers either. It starts with the asker posting the question. Context is essential to the smooth flow of the transaction, so if the asker does not provide it, the flow is already disturbed at the outset. What may flow after that is probably not much of help, more like what Ryan mentioned.
By the way, I was not talking about blocking the answer button, I was thinking about hiding the entire question and notifying the asker to provide more context in order to make the question visible. Yes, it would prevent other users from .... what exactly?
From wild guessing, from arguing with each other, from wasting time?
That is a good thing, isn't it?
The interruption in the "flow of help" is only temporary and the "flow" could be quickly restored, as soon as the asker provides context. If it is an urgent question, I bet the asker is sitting at his/her computer, therefore, it would not take long to provide the required context - question made visible, meaningful help can start "flowing".
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.)
Katalin
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Katalin Horvath McClure wrote: Enrique wrote:
Waiting 24 hours to grade a question does not block the flow of help, while blocking the "answer" button would prevent other users from providing help to the asker.
Regards,
Enrique
I did not talk about blocking the flow of help, I was talking about "directing the flow of exchange". The KudoZ "transaction" does not end with the answerers providing answers. It continues with the asker closing and grading the question, awarding points and ending with creating a glossary entry. These are all part of the "flow of exchange". It is also true, that the KudoZ "transaction" does not start with the answerers providing answers either. It starts with the asker posting the question. Context is essential to the smooth flow of the transaction, so if the asker does not provide it, the flow is already disturbed at the outset. What may flow after that is probably not much of help, more like what Ryan mentioned. By the way, I was not talking about blocking the answer button, I was thinking about hiding the entire question and notifying the asker to provide more context in order to make the question visible. Yes, it would prevent other users from .... what exactly? From wild guessing, from arguing with each other, from wasting time? That is a good thing, isn't it? The interruption in the "flow of help" is only temporary and the "flow" could be quickly restored, as soon as the asker provides context. If it is an urgent question, I bet the asker is sitting at his/her computer, therefore, it would not take long to provide the required context - question made visible, meaningful help can start "flowing". 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.) Katalin
I would say yes, if I didn't know that some people might abuse this option.
First of all what would you call "enough context"? Because what is enough for someone, may not be enough for others.
Second, who will decide which answers to hide and which ones to show? The same way as the vote for PRO and Non-PRO questions? 3 votes will be enough?
We all know that some people don't play with good faith in kudoZ and if 3 people don't understand the question - either because they are not playing with good faith or they are simply not capable of understanding the question - this option can be easily abused ("If I don't know the question, I don't allow others to answer it either")...
As a translator I would probably vote for yes, but knowing some people on kudoZ, I'm saying no.
Also another concern: many times it happened that askers gave fake (fictional) contexts and this led to many debates at the end. Some askers put terms into fictional contexts, because they don't want to give sensitive data. I'm not talking about substituting sensitive data with XX or XY, but they give contexts what they find on the internet, like on Wikipedia or they give fake data... I remember a pharmaceutical KudoZ for example, when the asker changed the name of the drug components, and the whole KudoZ went wrong. The key to the question was that drug component. Nobody knew it was a fictional drug component and only at the end it turned out that the whole KudoZ was wrong: this turned out in the discussion asking many many questions and pointing out the problem. Or some askers give fictional context, because they don't know what context means, they don't understand how important the real sentence is.
So making "the context is obligatory" may not lead to the improving of KudoZ, what we are expecting for.
I think talking to the asker as a human we can help more than pushing a hide or show button.
[Edited at 2010-09-28 09:29 GMT]
| | | | | There must be a way... | Sep 28, 2010 |
Creativity wrote:
First of all what would you call "enough context"? Because what is enough for someone, may not be enough for others.
Second, who will decide which answers to hide and which ones to show? The same way as the vote for PRO and Non-PRO questions? 3 votes will be enough?
We all know that some people don't play with good faith in kudoZ and if 3 people don't understand the question - either because they are not playing with good faith or they are simply not capable of understanding the question - this option can be easily abused ("If I don't know, I don't allow others to answer either")...
.....
I think talking to the asker as a human we can help more than pushing a hide or show button.
I described a similar thing 2 days ago. And while I agree with most of what Katalin said, I think it is gradually becoming clear that a simple system might not achieve the best results. It would need to be relatively sophisticated. I would imagine at this stage that an improved version would somehow involve those with expertise being able to make key decisions, and there are 2 options I can think of (there are bound to be others):
a) only those with expertise (points in that field, for example) are allowed to vote for more context
b) those with expertise are actually allowed to answer despite there being 3 votes for more context.
The options here would probably then determine what the effect of 3 votes actually is - hiding the question (if a) above), or just disabling the button (if b) above).
| | | | | Points and expertise | Sep 28, 2010 |
Charlie Bavington wrote:
a) only those with expertise (points in that field, for example) are allowed to vote for more context
b) those with expertise are actually allowed to answer despite there being 3 votes for more context.
The options here would probably then determine what the effect of 3 votes actually is - hiding the question (if a) above), or just disabling the button (if b) above).
Hi Charlie,
Points and expertise can be misleading.
There are many fields which are almost "empty".
For example even if there are questions concerning "genetics", it will probably land to biology or medical fields. Or many times it happens that people give expertise fields on their profile, and although they really work in that field, but not as a translator (which is not a problem, only if a person's knowledge in the source/target language is really low) or people who are beginners in translation...
Are they competent enough? Who is competent to allow to vote?
So first the problem lays in the following: screening based on translation capabilities.
But again: who decides who has good translation capabilities and who has not? Points don't necessarily mean good translation capabilities.
Second: as I said previously I know some people who would manipulate this voting feature. So what I say is: more rules, more options for the manipulators. This means beside deciding "who can vote?", there is also another concern: who is playing with good faith when pushing the hide/show button?
Best regards,
Katalin
(Creativity)
[Edited at 2010-09-28 15:20 GMT]
| | | | | It's not meant to be perfect... | Sep 28, 2010 |
... just better than it is now. That's all.
Creativity wrote:
Points and expertise can be misleading.
(...)
Are they competent enough? Who is competent to allow to vote?
So first the problem lays in the following: screening based on translation capabilities.
But again: who decides who has good translation capabilities and who has not? Points don't necessarily mean good translation capabilities.
True.
The question is, do you despair at our inability to find a perfect solution, throw your hands up wailing to heavens, crying "no, this is a thing that cannot come to pass", or do you toss around a few ideas and come up with some imperfect, but workable, solution which improves the situation overall, if only by a few notches?
Second: as I said previously I know some people who would manipulate this voting feature. So what I say is: more rules, more options for the manipulators. This means beside deciding "who can vote?", there is also another concern: who is playing with good faith when pushing the hide/show button?
The fact that a minority abuse a thing is most definitely not a reason not to have it. In your world, I guess we would have no cars, or beer, or glue.... or indeed the option to vote "non-pro" for "I love you" questions or the ability to change the subject field. There's a report button for suspected abuse. I don't propose to remove it
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| Helping the asker to understand the importance of context | Sep 28, 2010 |
Charlie Bavington wrote: ... just better than it is now. That's all. Creativity wrote:
Points and expertise can be misleading.
(...)
Are they competent enough? Who is competent to allow to vote?
So first the problem lays in the following: screening based on translation capabilities.
But again: who decides who has good translation capabilities and who has not? Points don't necessarily mean good translation capabilities. True. The question is, do you despair at our inability to find a perfect solution, throw your hands up wailing to heavens, crying "no, this is a thing that cannot come to pass", or do you toss around a few ideas and come up with some imperfect, but workable, solution which improves the situation overall, if only by a few notches? Second: as I said previously I know some people who would manipulate this voting feature. So what I say is: more rules, more options for the manipulators. This means beside deciding "who can vote?", there is also another concern: who is playing with good faith when pushing the hide/show button?
The fact that a minority abuse a thing is most definitely not a reason not to have it. In your world, I guess we would have no cars, or beer, or glue.... or indeed the option to vote "non-pro" for "I love you" questions or the ability to change the subject field. There's a report button for suspected abuse. I don't propose to remove it
Well, I don't think it's a minority abuse... In my world, people would answer questions with good faith. As I said as a translator I agree, but I also know how some answerers behave, and I also know that making something obligatory may cause a bigger problem. Recently I saw several kudoZ questions where after only the 3rd requests the asker finally gave the real context and only at the end it turned out it had nothing to do with the term. So I'm just saying that making something obligatory doesn't mean that the asker will receive the help, she/he needs. Many times only pointing out why the real context is needed convinced the asker to give the real contexts. If somebody is asking for help, he/she may not understand the whole sentence, so if translators see the question itself, they can give tips, why and what kind of context is needed.
If we just leave this for voting, the asker will not know what kind of information is needed to give correct answers and since it will be obligatory to give context at the end he/she may provide a fictional context.
Best regards,
Katalin
(Creativity)
| | | | | Good faith, bad faith etc. | Sep 28, 2010 |
Let me get something straight.
We are talking about improving the system, so that adequate help could be provided for those in need in the most efficient and effective way. Correct?
I believe this is the overall goal, that was the spirit that started this thread.
So let's step back for a second, and think it over.
I see no point in assuming people act IN bad faith when "playing" on KudoZ.
It is very fundamental to participating in ProZ to always assume good f... See more Let me get something straight.
We are talking about improving the system, so that adequate help could be provided for those in need in the most efficient and effective way. Correct?
I believe this is the overall goal, that was the spirit that started this thread.
So let's step back for a second, and think it over.
I see no point in assuming people act IN bad faith when "playing" on KudoZ.
It is very fundamental to participating in ProZ to always assume good faith.
The KudoZ system is a help system, askers do not use it to "play", they post questions because they need help.
Whatever system we have, whatever rules are set, some people will always abuse it. That should not deter us from trying to improve the situation. Abusers should be dealt with in a different way.
In my experience, when context is missing it is in most cases due to (as Creativity said):
somebody is asking for help, he/she may not understand the whole sentence
they don't know what context means, they don't understand how important the real sentence is.
and NOT because the person intentionally want to mess with the potential answerers.
That would not make any sense, so let's not waste our time discussing this aspect (at least not in this thread).
When you call 911 for an emergency, do you just yell "Help!" in the phone and hang up? What kind of help are you going to get when you don't give basic information, such as what the emergency is and where you are?
The emergency response team may try to trace the call, however, this is not always easy and reliable, especially if you called from a cellphone or a VoIP phone. Even if they can figure out the location somehow, all they can do is send out the "first response team" (where I live, it is the firefighters by default). Once they arrive to the scene, they assess the situation and call for an ambulance, police or whatever needed. If you think about it, there is a lot of time wasted and the person in need may have died already. At the same time, valuable resources have been wasted (the fire department used up a truck for this, while it was an ambulance with advance life support that was needed).
I think we can look at the KudoZ system as a similar help system for terminology emergencies. You can draw the parallels between posting a KudoZ question and calling 911. It is best for everyone (both the person in need and those providing the necessary help) if adequate information is given right away.
Children learn in elementary school how to call 911 (in the 3 countries where I am familiar with the education system they learn it in 1st or 2nd grade, as part of Social Studies). They are taught to specify the type of emergency, describe the location and give as much info as they can about the situation.
It is true that if you don't volunteer this info at the outset, the dispatcher will ask those questions one by one, but this slows down the entire process, so it is much more efficient and effective when the info is given at the outset.
There is one difference though, in KudoZ there are no lives at risk, while a 911 call may be related to such a situation. That's why the first response team is always sent out, even if they suspect the call is a prank, or if it takes time to get all the detailed info. The dispatcher may be still asking questions but she already alerted and sent out the first response team. She may send out additional help once she gets the info, so clearly there are many cases where redundancy is present.
However, in KudoZ, nobody is going to die if no response was provided until the basic information is at hand. It is much more efficient and effective to present a question for the potential answerers when it is "complete".
The system modifications that were proposed in various forms in this thread are aiming to help askers understand the crucial importance of posting complete questions, as a question posted without context is "incomplete". We can have guidelines, FAQs and who knows what (that people may or may not read before posting a question), but I feel it may be much more effective "education" if an incomplete question is temporarily blocked, and a message is sent to the asker with an explanation and request for more context. I don't think this would have to be done frequently for the same asker, I am pretty sure the askers would realize the importance of context and cooperate soon.
As to who would be able to initiate this process, and what steps would be involved - there were already several ideas about it, and it is an important discussion, after we can get an agreement about whether a question posted without context can be considered "incomplete". This (completeness/incompleteness) should be decided strictly from a translator's point of view ("as a translator", as Creativity put it) independent of assumptions about good faith, bad faith, bad apples and such.
Katalin
(I don't use any other names)
[Edited at 2010-09-28 14:07 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Creativity wrote:
Well, I don't think it's a minority abuse... Heavens - you think a majority of people abuse the system....? Cripes. You could be right....
In my world, people would answer questions with good faith. Despite some of my other comments, I genuinely believe most askers act in good faith most of the time. .
Recently I saw several kudoZ questions where after only the 3rd requests the asker finally gave the real context and only at the end it turned out it had nothing to do with the term. So I'm just saying that making something obligatory doesn't mean that the asker will receive the help, she/he needs. Many times only pointing out why the real context is needed convinced the asker to give the real contexts. If somebody is asking for help, he/she may not understand the whole sentence, so if translators see the question itself, they can give tips, why and what kind of context is needed.
If we just leave this for voting, the asker will not know what kind of information is needed to give correct answers and since it will be obligatory to give context at the end he/she may provide a fictional context.
It sounds towards the end there as though my option b) (users still see the Q, Answer button disabled unless "expert" - to be defined) would suit you. Everyone could still see and make comments exactly as they do (or don't) now.
For those askers for whom the comments are enough to prod them in the right direction, they would still get those comments and still be prodded.
For those askers who ignore such comments, eventually they would get fewer answers, until their behaviour changed and they start providing context, or just go elsewhere to ask their 4-word questions.
Overall, I believe that in general the quality of Qs and As would rise. That is the objective, surely? An overall quality increase. Including for the future, when people refer to these Qs in the KOG. This may involve a swings and roundabouts effect. Collateral damage. Such is life. It is for the greater good.
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