| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | False profiles to earn KudoZ points Thread poster: Maya Jurt
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| Allegation of cheating, a serious business, but no real cause for concern. | Oct 15, 2001 |
I agree that going to such lengths to prove one\'s point is perhaps a fruitless exercise. It is obvious from the outset that what was alleged was possible. If it is happening, then so what? The window which Proz offers professional translators is fantastic. Windows are transparent. Not only is Proz an excellent tool for learning (from observing the work of others), if you do your job well, your own approach will be noticed and clients will call! Unprofessional behaviour tends to run against the ... See more I agree that going to such lengths to prove one\'s point is perhaps a fruitless exercise. It is obvious from the outset that what was alleged was possible. If it is happening, then so what? The window which Proz offers professional translators is fantastic. Windows are transparent. Not only is Proz an excellent tool for learning (from observing the work of others), if you do your job well, your own approach will be noticed and clients will call! Unprofessional behaviour tends to run against the perpetrator sooner or later...
An extra note to say that I for one, consult the profile page of fellow members. If you\'re really interested, I generally consult them when a number of excellent answers are posted up. I also make a mental note of the sorts of question which are asked by a particular member, another indicator of the type of work done and the way a person may work. These are excellent sources of contacts for potential collaboration on specific projects at a later date. There are a number of people with whom I would be only too happy to collaborate, and others with whom I would no doubt never consider working, but I prefer to remain silent about that. Thankfully, the former outnumber the latter.
[ This Message was edited by: on 2001-10-15 09:26 ] ▲ Collapse
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I\'m no web whizzkid but would like to know whether the following is technically possible :
- putting a \"trip switch\" in the system which will refuse any answer to a question from a person whose e-mail address is identical to that of the asker?
I know this will not prevent those who have more than one address from playing this game, nor will it do anything to prevent buddies having fun collaborating on rapid Q/A sessions. But it might eliminate some m... See more I\'m no web whizzkid but would like to know whether the following is technically possible :
- putting a \"trip switch\" in the system which will refuse any answer to a question from a person whose e-mail address is identical to that of the asker?
I know this will not prevent those who have more than one address from playing this game, nor will it do anything to prevent buddies having fun collaborating on rapid Q/A sessions. But it might eliminate some misuse.
[ This Message was edited by: on 2001-10-15 05:27 ] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Maya Jurt 
Switzerland
Local time: 18:59
French to German
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TOPIC STARTER | I apologize, fully and with no reserve, to an innocent Julia | Oct 15, 2001 |
Dear all,
Henry and I have talked, at last, and I think we have come to an understanding. We both agree that abuse should not be taken slightly, that suggestions to improve this site are sorely lacking.
Only Nikki made a suggestion, a good one, and I thank her for it.
I thank all who contributed to this discussion, even the ones who thought the time ripe to attack me. I am not taking this personally, and nobody should, even if Julia has some grounds to feel attacke... See more Dear all,
Henry and I have talked, at last, and I think we have come to an understanding. We both agree that abuse should not be taken slightly, that suggestions to improve this site are sorely lacking.
Only Nikki made a suggestion, a good one, and I thank her for it.
I thank all who contributed to this discussion, even the ones who thought the time ripe to attack me. I am not taking this personally, and nobody should, even if Julia has some grounds to feel attacked, rightly or wrongly.
Here we get to the point: Henry tells me he has no grounds to suspect Julia of any wrongdoing. He must know and I accept his judgment. I therefore apologize, fully and with no reserve, to an innocent Julia, who has, unfortunately, the same speech or rather writing pattern as the askers of the questions. I am not mentioning this to excuse myself: my deepest felt apologies go to an innocent Julia.
The problem still remains: How can proZ prevent abuse and become a model professional site?
I have some ideas but I think there are hardly welcome now. It is up to the members to help Henry make this site an international success. Would you please rack your brains and come up with some ideas?
I would, after all, be able to \"fry some other fish\" with you.
Greeting to all from the Indian Summer ambience of beautiful Geneva
Maya
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| | | | pschmitt
Local time: 17:59
German to English
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| four proposals related to improving kudoz professionalism | Oct 15, 2001 |
I have to admit that, when I initially browsed through some Forum submissions in reference to KudoZ points, I found it all rather petty. Like some kids in a schoolyard bickering over marks and the burning question as to who’s the teacher’s favourite pupil. I just found it irritating, and consequently couldn’t be bothered with it.
Since Maya rose the point of KudoZ fraud, however, my attitude has changed. For the first time I had a look at the questions/answers of some ... See more I have to admit that, when I initially browsed through some Forum submissions in reference to KudoZ points, I found it all rather petty. Like some kids in a schoolyard bickering over marks and the burning question as to who’s the teacher’s favourite pupil. I just found it irritating, and consequently couldn’t be bothered with it.
Since Maya rose the point of KudoZ fraud, however, my attitude has changed. For the first time I had a look at the questions/answers of some other language combinations than my own, and I couldn’t believe my eyes: There are people posting pages and pages of questions. I have to say, I don’t mind someone posting ten thousand questions at once, since it’s up to everybody else whether they want to answer those questions or not. And being lazy isn’t exactly being a cheat, although I can understand why some people think so.
But taking on several identities in order to answer your own questions and awarding yourself the KudoZ points is pretty outrageous!
What\'s equally bizarre is that Maya seems to be made the culprit in all this. I might not have agreed with her methods in my previous letter, but I do agree with the message. So don\'t kill the messenger - others are responsible for the bad news!
To dismiss KudoZ fraud by arguing there are only a few black sheep deceiving for only a few poxy KudoZ points would probably be the opposite extreme to getting completely hysterical about it. Fact is, nobody knows the real scale. It might be somewhere in the middle, and this is bad enough.
I think it is dangerous to underestimate the problem: It is a matter of the credibility and integrity of this whole site. It has the potential to distort every single one of us.
I believe that, rather than to start a witch-hunt, there should be some changes leading to some kind of Identity Verification in order to tackle this problem. Now, I am not an expert, but here are some suggestions anyway. See what you think. Here goes:
1. No questions from non-members, but registration remains free
Result: Sad as it might be, this would probably eliminate all questions from kids and one-time users.
However, members asking questions under an assumed name would not be able to cheat as easily as they can at the moment.
2. Everybody has to register. The following indications are compulsory, but not made public:
Name, First name
Address
Phone number
e-mail
Affiliations
Result: People asking questions under an assumed name could be tracked via their phone number or affiliations. This might not be perfect but in any case better than tapping in the dark: In case of doubt, phone numbers and/or affiliations could be followed up.
3. Right to ask questions: Only members with more than 50 KudoZ points are in a position to ask questions.
Result: Some potential cheats might never bother to overcome the threshold of 50 points.
4. Warning: Every now and again, ProZ should send an e-mail out to all members, reminding them that suspect activities are monitored by ProZ staff (after all, it might be followed up according to point 2).
Result: People would think twice.
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This might not be the be-all and end-all, but it seems feasible in order to protect the integrity of this site, as well as all those genuine ones, who contribute to it.
Take care,
Peter ▲ Collapse
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| Suggestions - one of them is conceivable | Oct 15, 2001 |
Thanks for the proposal, but I must say that implementation of only one of your suggestions is even conceivable. So in the interest of saving others time in discussing, my replies are below...
You said:
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\"To dismiss KudoZ fraud by arguing there are only a few black sheep deceiving for only a few poxy KudoZ points would probably be the opposite extreme to getting completely hysterical about it. Fact is, nobody knows the real sc... See more Thanks for the proposal, but I must say that implementation of only one of your suggestions is even conceivable. So in the interest of saving others time in discussing, my replies are below...
You said:
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\"To dismiss KudoZ fraud by arguing there are only a few black sheep deceiving for only a few poxy KudoZ points would probably be the opposite extreme to getting completely hysterical about it. Fact is, nobody knows the real scale.\"
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Not so. We *do* know the real scale, because we can check IP addresses. The answer is that very, very few points are awarded fraudulently. Far less than 1%.
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\"...there should be some changes leading to some kind of Identity Verification in order to tackle this problem.\"
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Agreed.
Note, however, that none of your suggestions addresses identity verification at all. This is not an easy problem to solve. It will take years to do so, so don\'t expect this problem to go away soon.
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\"...here are some suggestions...
1. No questions from non-members, but registration remains free...\"
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Blocking non-members from asking KudoZ questions is no longer an option. Why? Because we have over 300 KudoZ affiliate sites, and we can not ask them to have their members register with ProZ.com.
What we do instead is prevent non-members from asking \"pro\" level questions. If you don\'t want to see questions from people who are not registered, go to your email settings and uncheck \"easy\" kudoz questions.
When you browse the site for new questions, only browse at the \"pro\" level. The only questions you will see from non-members are the ones that have been bumped up in difficulty by members.
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\"2. The following [contact information] is compulsory, but not made public: Name, Address, Phone, e-mail, Affiliations...\"
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This is something to consider. For the moment, though, we have a privacy policy that states the submission of this information is optional. And KudoZ fraud is not a substantial enough problem that this policy needs to be revised.
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\"3. Right to ask questions: Only members with more than 50 KudoZ points are in a position to ask questions.\"
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KudoZ will remain open to all those who need help, whether they have points or not. But segmenting questions according to the number of points the asker has earned is an interesting idea.
Certainly we can expect questions coming from people with more KudoZ points to be of a higher level. Perhaps another difficulty level could be created for questions asked by people who have lots of kudoz points. People who only wanted to be notified of the real tough questions could just subscribe to that level.
Bears further thought...
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4. Warning: Every now and again, ProZ should send an e-mail out to all members, reminding them that suspect activities are monitored by ProZ staff (after all, it might be followed up according to point 2).
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Again, identity fraud is not a substantial enough problem to warrant this. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Cheats don't prosper | Oct 22, 2001 |
Dear Maya,
Please don\'t get upset about that sort or teamwork!
This procedure drove me so mad that, approx. 10 months ago, I replied to the 20th question by direct e-mail, explaining that a \'Chairman of the Board\' was a \'Stuhlmann vom Brett\'!
Remembering this faux pas of mine still gives me a red head while those \'teams\' have dropped out. They are probably trying their hands at selling used cars.
ProZ is great and yo... See more Dear Maya,
Please don\'t get upset about that sort or teamwork!
This procedure drove me so mad that, approx. 10 months ago, I replied to the 20th question by direct e-mail, explaining that a \'Chairman of the Board\' was a \'Stuhlmann vom Brett\'!
Remembering this faux pas of mine still gives me a red head while those \'teams\' have dropped out. They are probably trying their hands at selling used cars.
ProZ is great and you are one of our best assets. Kind regards, Uschi ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Sometimes its easy to jump to conclusions | Nov 15, 2001 |
\"I feel a little less lonely now. The problem is: When you are seeing those things, you say: No, stop this, you are hallucinating, people won\'t do that. But they do and they continue. Then you start monitoring them - feeling worse than a sleuth - because he gets paid and you are only offended by this fraud - and you see evidence, but have no real proof. This morning,I just discovered another abuse for the German-English pair: a person asking over 40 questions in one hour, and one person answer... See more \"I feel a little less lonely now. The problem is: When you are seeing those things, you say: No, stop this, you are hallucinating, people won\'t do that. But they do and they continue. Then you start monitoring them - feeling worse than a sleuth - because he gets paid and you are only offended by this fraud - and you see evidence, but have no real proof. This morning,I just discovered another abuse for the German-English pair: a person asking over 40 questions in one hour, and one person answering them (20 times), mostly after one or two minutes. No chance for us to answer. I finally informed the asker and squashed all the questions not graded, not knowing if I did right. But 40 questions, same subject, seems to be an abuse of the system. The person gets paid, we do the work. \"
Hi Maya!
I\'ve just come across this forum and your postings, and am quite distressed by them. The incident you refer to above on October 12 was by no means \"cheating\" or \"fraudulent\". The questions you refer to were all on the subject of marketing (an area in which I not only hold a degree but also have many years of professional experinence). The poster, Naranga, was obviously struggling with the translation and was a bit out his depth.
I was waiting for a job to come in from a client, so I spent a while on the Kudoz site, answering questions - I was really happy to be able to answer so many questions.
This have appeared to have been \"cheating\", but I can assure you that was most certainly above the board.
Please be careful when jumping to conclusions.
Regards,
Alison ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Different points for different levels | Jan 2, 2002 |
As Henry mentions above, only those that are registered can post PRO level questions. And the need to register is going to make it more difficult to cheat.
Henry also mentions higher level (super-pro?) questions from those at that have won a certain number of Kudoz points.
I think that both systems are a good idea and that they should be backed up by giving more Kudoz points to the higher level questions.
Often the pro questions a... See more As Henry mentions above, only those that are registered can post PRO level questions. And the need to register is going to make it more difficult to cheat.
Henry also mentions higher level (super-pro?) questions from those at that have won a certain number of Kudoz points.
I think that both systems are a good idea and that they should be backed up by giving more Kudoz points to the higher level questions.
Often the pro questions are many times more difficult to answer than the easy questions.
If an easy question is worth 4, then a pro question has got to be worth at least 8 or 10 points, if not 40.
Tim ▲ Collapse
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Jon Zuber (X)
Spanish to English
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Quote:
On 2001-10-13 14:09, Henry wrote:
.... The fact that we can do not yet verify identities does open the door for some abuse.
I have put some thought into this, and this is my plan. It involves creating a credential called \"verified identity\", and allowing three methods of earning this credential:
(1) Paying for Platinum (or Premium) membership with a credit card in your name.
... See more Quote:
On 2001-10-13 14:09, Henry wrote:
.... The fact that we can do not yet verify identities does open the door for some abuse.
I have put some thought into this, and this is my plan. It involves creating a credential called \"verified identity\", and allowing three methods of earning this credential:
(1) Paying for Platinum (or Premium) membership with a credit card in your name.
(2) Appearing at a ProZ.com event, or at an event attended by ProZ.com (such as the upcoming ATA convention), with picture ID,
or (3) Paying a small fee for identity verification by a specialized service
How about sort of combining (1) and (3) into a token one-time fee for Regular membership, whose privileges would include asking questions on the Pro level? ▲ Collapse
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Hello!
This may sound very silly but after having read all these questions and answers I can\'t help but wondering: two days ago a friend of mine wanted to become a member of ProZ and she signed up from my computer. If the staff knows who is who by receiving all these data from our computers, does that mean that I may be recognized by \"the staff\" as my friend, since during the signing up the required data were sent by my computer?
Thanks,
Nat... See more Hello!
This may sound very silly but after having read all these questions and answers I can\'t help but wondering: two days ago a friend of mine wanted to become a member of ProZ and she signed up from my computer. If the staff knows who is who by receiving all these data from our computers, does that mean that I may be recognized by \"the staff\" as my friend, since during the signing up the required data were sent by my computer?
Thanks,
Natassa ▲ Collapse
| | | | Ralf Lemster
Germany
Local time: 18:59
English to German
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| IP address vs. login details | Aug 27, 2002 |
Quote:
On 2002-08-26 17:56, natios wrote:
Hello!
This may sound very silly but after having read all these questions and answers I can\'t help but wondering: two days ago a friend of mine wanted to become a member of ProZ and she signed up from my computer. If the staff knows who is who by receiving all these data from our computers, does that mean that I may be recognized by \"the staff\" as my friend, since during the s
... See more Quote:
On 2002-08-26 17:56, natios wrote:
Hello!
This may sound very silly but after having read all these questions and answers I can\'t help but wondering: two days ago a friend of mine wanted to become a member of ProZ and she signed up from my computer. If the staff knows who is who by receiving all these data from our computers, does that mean that I may be recognized by \"the staff\" as my friend, since during the signing up the required data were sent by my computer?
Thanks,
Natassa
Not as far as I know. You need to distinguish between the IP address you\'re using to access the Internet and the login details assigned by your friend. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | I hope so! :) | Aug 27, 2002 |
[/quote]
Not as far as I know. You need to distinguish between the IP address you\'re using to access the Internet and the login details assigned by your friend.
[/quote]
Thank you!
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MikeGarcia
Spain
Local time: 18:59
English to Spanish
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In memoriam | ¿ethnic discrimination? | Aug 30, 2002 |
So Mr.Patels seems to believe this is specially apparent in the english spanish community.I,for one,felt that the so called superiority of the anglo-saxon race or the aryan race (bad memories...) was something buried in the past ,,but it seems there are some persons who believe that this is not the case. Well,you see, I happen to be an argentine, son of an argentine father and a french-born mother daughter of an american father and a french mother coming from the Mercier family,a Strasbourg ori... See more So Mr.Patels seems to believe this is specially apparent in the english spanish community.I,for one,felt that the so called superiority of the anglo-saxon race or the aryan race (bad memories...) was something buried in the past ,,but it seems there are some persons who believe that this is not the case. Well,you see, I happen to be an argentine, son of an argentine father and a french-born mother daughter of an american father and a french mother coming from the Mercier family,a Strasbourg originated bourgeois family.Mi maternal grandfather had noble Austrian blood in his veins, and carried the title of Le Baron De Wardener.
So, you see, even in the \"métis coloured LA community\" (some ignorant people seem to think Latin America is all the same and that all countries are alike and that everybody is half dark or something, which by the way is no sin before God and humanity )you may find citizens of the world. So I resent Mr.Patels\' affirmation regarding that malpractice and fraud in the kudoz amswers is specially evident in the english-spanish pair just because we like to exchange little sympathetic and/or funny comments.And by the way,I am also active in the french/english and viceversa pair, and I see there, with due respect to differences in styles and use of words , the same comradeship and good mood that there is in the english/spanish pair,and Mr. Patels does not seem to notice this, or considers that he belongs to what Friedrich Nietzsche would name the \"superior race\".
Let\'s hope the vast amount of american citizens and european citizens who translate spanish>/ english don\'t fel themselves alluded by Mr. Patels, or a Third World War would be in the making.
As an end to this rather long comment, let me remember Schiller\'s famous words:\"Against stupidity the Gods themselves battle in vain\".
Thank you for taking the time to read this, if you have taken it.
Miguel Garcia Uriburu.
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| | | | Ralf Lemster
Germany
Local time: 18:59
English to German
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| Werner Patels is no longer here | Aug 31, 2002 |
Miguel, you may want to note that Werner G. Patels is no longer a member of this site.
| | | | María T. Vargas
Spain
Local time: 18:59
English to Spanish
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In memoriam | Happy to learn Mr. Patels is no longer a member | Aug 31, 2002 |
I support Miguel\'s statements 100 per cent, as an Argentine with Spanish, Italian, Arabic and Hungarian blood and a full blood Indian (quechuan) great-grandmother, who feels strongly against any and all kinds of discrimination.
So I\'m happy to learn Mr. Patels does not belong to proZ any longer, and we can go on exchanging niceties, friendly comments, etc., without arousing anybody\'s suspicions.
Best regards to all,
Pampi
| | | | | Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] > | To report site rules violations or get help, contact a site moderator: You can also contact site staff by submitting a support request » False profiles to earn KudoZ points | CafeTran Espresso | You've never met a CAT tool this clever!
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