Kudoz Leader - a new feature?
Thread poster: ahartje
ahartje
ahartje
Portugal
Local time: 01:28
Member (2006)
German to Portuguese
+ ...
Dec 23, 2020

After quite some time I looked into my Proz profile and was surprised to find a new turquoise button indicating my position as a Kudoz Leader in the German to Portuguese pair. So far so good.
As I do not care much about any ribbons, "P"´s or alike I forgot about it, but today I had to search for two colleagues translating from Dutch to German and Portuguese. Some of them showed the same button, even for several language pairs, in some cases far below the leading colleages.
So, I´d
... See more
After quite some time I looked into my Proz profile and was surprised to find a new turquoise button indicating my position as a Kudoz Leader in the German to Portuguese pair. So far so good.
As I do not care much about any ribbons, "P"´s or alike I forgot about it, but today I had to search for two colleagues translating from Dutch to German and Portuguese. Some of them showed the same button, even for several language pairs, in some cases far below the leading colleages.
So, I´d like to know, what is this about and why are some colleagues are "distinguished" by turquoise coulored buttons in several language pairs, even being not positioned on top of the ranking list? Is this another award for paying members, who do not have to answer questions, if Proz´s membership has been paid on time?
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Barbara Carrara
Barbara Carrara  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 02:28
Member (2008)
English to Italian
+ ...
Hardly a useful feature, IMO Dec 23, 2020

I've noticed the same new 'addition' to some of the ProZian profiles. Besides 'leader', I bumped into another one marked TwB, and I am sure there are more around (I cannot be bothered to search for other examples, if I'm honest).

No idea how this is a 'feature', nor why was this introduced by ProZ, given that the leaders are prominently featured on the homepage, as are the individual translators' contributions to TwB on their profile pages.

The ProZ mgmt/staff should co
... See more
I've noticed the same new 'addition' to some of the ProZian profiles. Besides 'leader', I bumped into another one marked TwB, and I am sure there are more around (I cannot be bothered to search for other examples, if I'm honest).

No idea how this is a 'feature', nor why was this introduced by ProZ, given that the leaders are prominently featured on the homepage, as are the individual translators' contributions to TwB on their profile pages.

The ProZ mgmt/staff should concentrate on what doesn't work on the site, instead of introducing these useless additions. However, despite the number of useful suggestions and requests to make adjustments across the site (I've suggested a few myself), those are continuously being ignored, in favour of frills such as this one.

At some point, in the past, an Ideas tab had been introduced, where one could offer their own suggestions for peer voting and, possibly, implementation by the mgmt. That's no longer there and nobody knows what happened with those suggestions that seemed to be on their way to being implemented.
And the now-no-longer-valid-Browniz-points issue is still pending after years, as the ProZ management still haven't found a solution on how to handle those.

As another example of suggestions that haven't been implemented, have a look at this forum thread about missing specializations from the list currently offered on ProZ
https://www.proz.com/forum/prozcom_profile_help/348266-why_is_veterinary_medicine_not_in_the_list_of_specialisms.html
In it, you'll find a reference to a previous one, which had been originally started by ProZ founder H. Dotterer.

Edited to add this other forum thread about Quick Polls (start reading at the very bottom of p. 1, for comments unrelated to the specific quick-poll question, but on point as to how useful is to have the same 'poll' running simultaneously in two different spots,
https://www.proz.com/forum/poll_discussion/348061-poll_work_wise_i_tend_to_try_to_plan_ahead.html

[Edited at 2020-12-23 13:39 GMT]
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Christel Zipfel
P.L.F. Persio
ahartje
Jessica Noyes
texjax DDS PhD
Yvonne Gallagher
 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
I'm one too Dec 23, 2020

And I'm not a paying member.

It does seem a bit pointless given that nobody visits non-paying profiles anyway, since you are automatically ranked about 3,562nd however many KudoZ answers you may have given.


P.L.F. Persio
Barbara Carrara
Rachel Fell
Kuochoe Nikoi-Kotei
 
Robert Forstag
Robert Forstag  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 21:28
Spanish to English
+ ...
Bows and ribbons, stickies and stars Dec 23, 2020

I guess that the site sees such initiatives as ways in which it adds value for both paying members and non-paying users, even as it continues to serve as a portal for so many dubiously qualified translators – and as a conduit for a torrent of junk job offers and scams.

[Edited at 2020-12-23 14:00 GMT]


P.L.F. Persio
Christopher Schröder
Barbara Carrara
Beatriz Ramírez de Haro
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
writeaway
Rachel Fell
 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 02:28
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Yes, this is new Dec 23, 2020

ahartje wrote:
After quite some time I looked into my Proz profile and was surprised to find a new turquoise button indicating my position as a Kudoz Leader in the German to Portuguese pair. So far so good.


Haven't seen that before, must be new.

Today I had to search for two colleagues translating from Dutch to German and Portuguese. Some of them showed the same button, even for several language pairs, in some cases far below the leading colleages.


Maybe they *were* leaders in the past? Or perhaps "leader" simply means that you're on the leader board somewhere (not necessarily the #1 spot)?


 
Philip Lees
Philip Lees  Identity Verified
Greece
Local time: 03:28
Greek to English
Me too Dec 24, 2020

Yes, it's new. When I hover the mouse over the widget it says: "This person is a top KudoZ point holder in Greek to English". When I click on it, I get a page with tables showing the top KudoZ point scorers in my language pair for the last 3 months, last 12 months, and all time. I am indeed featured in those tables, somewhat to my surprise as I haven't answered much recently.

 
ahartje
ahartje
Portugal
Local time: 01:28
Member (2006)
German to Portuguese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Playing around and trying to get smarter Dec 24, 2020

Thank you all for your input. I agree with you, Barbara, that it seems to be a useless feature, where apparently everybody listed in the top 50 positions for more than 1 year is highlighted. Fortunately the non-paying members are included like Chris confirmed, even better. But: are these awards automatically granted? Or are there punishing elements? In my case, e.g., I am part of at least 4 ranking lists, but my profile shows just 1 language pair. What did I do wrong? I have had my issues with P... See more
Thank you all for your input. I agree with you, Barbara, that it seems to be a useless feature, where apparently everybody listed in the top 50 positions for more than 1 year is highlighted. Fortunately the non-paying members are included like Chris confirmed, even better. But: are these awards automatically granted? Or are there punishing elements? In my case, e.g., I am part of at least 4 ranking lists, but my profile shows just 1 language pair. What did I do wrong? I have had my issues with Proz in the past, is this the reason, why my profile has been adapted (by hand)? Or are there other details, which may exclude translators to get ribbons, stars or even turquoise buttons?Collapse


Barbara Carrara
 
ahartje
ahartje
Portugal
Local time: 01:28
Member (2006)
German to Portuguese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Some new info given by Proz Dec 29, 2020

Here is more info given by Lucia from Proz:

The "KudoZ leader" tag show in profiles for the first three language pairs reported

Does this make any sense?


Stanislaw Czech, MCIL CL
 
Anton Konashenok
Anton Konashenok  Identity Verified
Czech Republic
Local time: 02:28
French to English
+ ...
Way too late Dec 30, 2020

Several years ago this title could reflect KudoZ participant's professionalism and willingness to help, but by now the average level of both questions and answers has deteriorated to the level of defying the very purpose of KudoZ. Chris S aptly described the current state of affairs in another thread:

The blind leading the blind over a cliff. The blind questioning and overruling the sighted. The polyglots with a smattering of 73 languages but a mastery of none. The undoubted subject experts with all the target terms but only the vaguest comprehension of the source. The smiley brigade, the literalists and the dictionary quoters. The scattergun point-hunters, the aggressively infallible and the full-blown random nutters.


On the other hand, I can think of one indicator that could still do justice to genuine KudoZ helpers - the ratio of accepted answers to total answers by the given member.

[Edited at 2020-12-31 10:56 GMT]


P.L.F. Persio
Rachel Fell
writeaway
ahartje
 


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Kudoz Leader - a new feature?






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