| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6] > | 7th ProZ.com Translation Contest: announcement of winners! Thread poster: RominaZ
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I never paid any attention to these contexts, but after having read some of the Italian translations (from many languages), I have to say that most of them are utter pap. The **edited** are clearly done by non mother tongues, but in the De>It - apparently - the freshly cut grass on a tennis court is 8 cm high! Well, what can I say? Like Kudoz, where the fellow translators' ignorance is clearly displayed to the rest of the world, now it's the turn of the so called 'literary creatives'! Unfortunat... See more I never paid any attention to these contexts, but after having read some of the Italian translations (from many languages), I have to say that most of them are utter pap. The **edited** are clearly done by non mother tongues, but in the De>It - apparently - the freshly cut grass on a tennis court is 8 cm high! Well, what can I say? Like Kudoz, where the fellow translators' ignorance is clearly displayed to the rest of the world, now it's the turn of the so called 'literary creatives'! Unfortunately, this is another farcical initiative, with no quality control and very badly organised.
[Edited at 2008-07-07 13:36] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | I agree with Giovanni | Jul 6, 2008 |
I had a quick look to other pairs (namely DE/FR/EN>IT) and confirm what Giovanni said.
Paola
| | | | Susan Welsh 
United States
Local time: 22:20
Russian to English
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| My suggestions on contests | Jul 6, 2008 |
Poor Romina, to have to sort through all this controversy!
I think the following would solve many problems (some of this has been mentioned already in the discussion):
There should be no "points," given or taken away, for tagged comments on a translation. A comment doesn't tell you whether the translation is correct or not; it only tells you what one person thinks, who may or not be qualified to judge.
There is too much of an obsession with "points" on this websit... See more Poor Romina, to have to sort through all this controversy!
I think the following would solve many problems (some of this has been mentioned already in the discussion):
There should be no "points," given or taken away, for tagged comments on a translation. A comment doesn't tell you whether the translation is correct or not; it only tells you what one person thinks, who may or not be qualified to judge.
There is too much of an obsession with "points" on this website.
The voting should be "one man, one vote" (including women, naturally ), without any points or subtraction of points for like/dislike comments. The function of the like/dislike comments should be to give feedback to the translator and to other prospective voters. For that reason, it is essential that the REASON for the tag be visible to all. If I understand the rules correctly, the briefly explained reason is only visible to the person who tagged the item, to remind them when they go to vote. That is of no use to anybody else.
There is not enough space currently to explain your reason, just for a URL. Some have asked in this discussion for documentation of a 'dislike" tag. That's usually not appropriate. If somebody leaves out a comma, I am not going to search on the Internet to "prove" that there should be a comma there. As a fluent speaker of English (in this case), it is enough for me to say that there should be a comma. But the translator needs to know that that is the reason I have tagged his item, apart from just the rubric "punctuation."
My proposal would eliminate the apparent problem of people cheating by going in and putting "dislike" next to everything other participants have written. (What childish behavior!)
Apart from these suggestions, I think everyone should calm down a bit. It's just a contest. There are more important things going on in the world than our little contest.
Susan
[Edited at 2008-07-06 11:37] ▲ Collapse
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patyjs
Mexico
Local time: 20:20
Spanish to English
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| Points given/deducted for tags? | Jul 6, 2008 |
Susan said: There should be no "points," given or taken away, for tagged comments on a translation. A comment doesn't tell you whether the translation is correct or not; it only tells you what one person thinks, who may or not be qualified to judge.
Does/did this really happen? I hope not. I was under the impression this was simply a comment system ... See more Susan said: There should be no "points," given or taken away, for tagged comments on a translation. A comment doesn't tell you whether the translation is correct or not; it only tells you what one person thinks, who may or not be qualified to judge.
Does/did this really happen? I hope not. I was under the impression this was simply a comment system and the actual voting occured with the points awarded from 1 to 5.
Anyway, that aside, I was really hopeful this voting system would give us much more opportunity to give and receive feedback during both rounds. After all, everything Romina and gang did was at our request. I'm disappointed with the way it turned out, though. The feedback I was hoping for is the kind we are seeing now that the winners have been announced. Interesting, informative discussions, in some cases, about why such and such a term was chosen, etc. The tag system turned out to be no more than a proof-reading exercise for many voters.
I was the first in the Sp-Eng pair to use the tags. I commented on every single entry and tried to find something I liked in each one, even when there were many obvious errors. In those cases I selected only two or three from the translation which I felt might be useful for the translator to know about and let my 1-5 score do the rest.
During the qualification round I was amazed and saddened at the number of dislike tags being put on entries, especially those from non-native speakers, in comparison to likes. Just a couple of days before the end of the qualification round I made a note of the number of likes/dislikes in the first 5 entries (as shown on my screen). 5 likes and 35 dislikes! One of these entries had 16 dislikes! I feel very sorry for the translators who tried their hand at literal translation, arguably the most difficult kind, and got this kind of feedback. (The tag box never allowed me to scroll again after this little exercise so I was unable to see all the tags during the final round.)
The final round voting was not changed. I've never liked this system especially when the results are shown as points received. I don't see why a 1-5 system can't be used for the final round, too, and I think it would give a truer picture of how voters view the entries. The winning order may not change in the top three but the points overall certainly would.
Lastly, Romina, I would like to know how my entry fared in the first round. It didn't get through to the final but I would still like to know in comparison to other entries. (I can't believe I'm not the only one who wants to know.)
thanks ▲ Collapse
| | | | | You are right | Jul 6, 2008 |
Paola Dentifrigi wrote:
I had a quick look to other pairs (namely DE/FR/EN>IT) and confirm what Giovanni said.
Paola
A part the pair in question which is a real shame, I had a quick look to the Fr>IT pair, no accuracy, missed accents etc.
I am sorry to see that unfortunately the contest is more and more worsening.
I am sorry for Romina, for proz. and for all of us.
Bye bye
Angio
[Edited at 2008-07-07 12:52]
| | | | | Needs to be said | Jul 6, 2008 |
Angio wrote:
I am sorry for Romina, for proz. and for all of us.
It needs to be unequivocally said that Proz.com invented the thing (applauds), Romina has been putting a lot of efforts into improving and just upholding it (standing ovation), and many of 'all of us' made contributions in way of professional translations of the contest texts, fair voting and frank forum posts. Thus, the baby should stay and the bath water could go.
It's the very idea that anonymous public voting from 'out there' can choose good from bad that is wrong. Any most sophisticated system, as we see now, can easily be abused (You say of 16 dislikes! Sancta simplicitas! There were several dozens of them in next to each variant in En-Ru pair). A savage will hit the nuts with a microscope. A moral savage will find a way to 'have himself voted for' with any system.
Only a panel will save the contest. Yes, it may be subjective, but will be based at least on some concepts of good and evil.
| | | | | Also that one | Jul 6, 2008 |
Paola Dentifrigi wrote:
Hallo,
I understand my posts were banned, as voting is underway.
So I had a look to the 6th contest: the winner's text has very poor quality, I'm afraid.
It looks like a contest for Uni students not pros. Sorry.
I reiterate what I wrote: this can turn Proz into a "language killer"
and as a paying member I guess I have the right to express my fears.
Regards,
Paola
Again, I agree with you Paola, also in the 6th contest, for the same language pair, that is RO>IT (and now we can mention it, because we are talking about a past contest, where voting is not under way), the winning entry was full of mistakes, BIG mistakes, but still...it got the winning badge...go figure...
Last time I didn't vote because I didn't know that I could do it (not being a platinum member, I thought that only platinum members could vote), but even then (after the winner was selected) I had brought the problem to the public attention, asking how a text that contained so many mistakes could have been the winning one. As none could give a reasonable answer, I decided to keep an eye on the current contest, for the same language pair, and sure enough I found out the little schemes going on behind the scenes. I contacted privately a moderator explaining the problem, but not receiving any answer, I decided to state my disappointment here, openly.
Things must change, or I see no reason to organize these contests. As Yuri states, a panel of judges would be good. Also judges can be subjective yes, but at least they will judge the entries from an external point of view, not moved by any personal interest.
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| We got one another's idea | Jul 6, 2008 |
Liliana Roman-Hamilton wrote:
As Yuri states, a panel of judges would be good. Also judges can be subjective yes, but at least they will judge the entries from an external point of view, not moved by any personal interest.
Right.
1) Not moved by any personal interest.
2) Having (or not wilfully contradicting) elementary notions and concepts of what is right and wrong, good and bad in translation and style.
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Sounds good enough, Yuri.
Will it be easy enough to put it into practice by the organizers?
I don't know....
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Anything that is too easy is not good.
Anything that is good is not too easy.
But feasible. I am confident.
| | | | Paul O'Brien
Argentina
Local time: 23:20
Member (2007)
Italian to English
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| Transparency all round | Jul 7, 2008 |
unadiluna wrote:
Sorry to sound negative, but I consider the winning translation in the En/It pair one of the worst ones from a syntax point of view. There are a couple of mistranslations as well. I would be happy to clarify my point in detail. I remember that in the qualifying round the same mistakes I noticed were highlighted by many others, therefore I can only feel puzzled about the contest mechanisms. A great part of the second paragraph is well written, but the mistakes are serious. I will believe in this contest again when and if an external panel will prevent translations with grammar or syntax mistakes from qualifying and winning.
Although I cannot comment on unadiluna's points regarding English-Italian competition entries, I must say I take the general thrust of her remarks, which she also makes elswhere, regarding qualification mechanisms. Of the entries to be found in the final of the Italian-English section, for example, there are two which, while being fully deserving of praise as regards the efforts put in by their non mothertongue authors, surely cannot have been deserving of a place in the final or, worse, of peer votes once there. My view is that a) only L2 native speakers should be eligible for entry in any given pair (a bit like our profession, when, as a general rule, we only translate into our own language); b) only mothertongue speakers can vote for the L2 in question (a grammar structure of mine was contested by a native speaker who obviously needs to get out more or by a non English speaker who would have done well to consult a colleague or a grammar book before intervening); c) voters should not be anonymous and, finally, d) voters should attach a small statement to back-up their choice.
[Edited at 2008-07-07 09:39]
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RominaZ
Argentina
English to Spanish
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TOPIC STARTER | Feedback on the contest | Jul 7, 2008 |
Dear All,
I appreciate your feedback and I'll analyze the suggestions in detail to see how the system can be further improved.
I'd like to remind you that final voting is still underway in some language pairs. Public comments on the entries in competition in those pairs are against the contest rules, please see http://www.proz.com/siterules/Contest%20Rules/4#4 .... See more Dear All,
I appreciate your feedback and I'll analyze the suggestions in detail to see how the system can be further improved.
I'd like to remind you that final voting is still underway in some language pairs. Public comments on the entries in competition in those pairs are against the contest rules, please see http://www.proz.com/siterules/Contest%20Rules/4#4 .
Thanks for your understanding.
Romina ▲ Collapse
| | | | | About the 7th quarterly contest... | Jul 7, 2008 |
Dear fellow contest addicts/players and contest participants in general,
I'd like to start by also thanking our contest "patron saint", our dear Romina, as well as the technical team she led/motivated, because of how fast they managed to get implemented some of the suggestions we had discussed after the previous contest.
Considering that the previous contest was only like 3 months ago, I personally was r... See more Dear fellow contest addicts/players and contest participants in general,
I'd like to start by also thanking our contest "patron saint", our dear Romina, as well as the technical team she led/motivated, because of how fast they managed to get implemented some of the suggestions we had discussed after the previous contest.
Considering that the previous contest was only like 3 months ago, I personally was really impressed by how fast some suggestions were implemented, unlike what sometimes happens with suggestions in other areas of Proz.com, so we should definitely not overlook this impressive resource dedication.
Though there's room for improvement, for me at least it was really impressive and useful in most cases to see all those red and blue tags (mostly red) adding color to all the translations. Sure, there were some bugZ in some of these new features, but we all know how technology always generates bugZ (remember WindowZ), so we probably need to be patient about getting rid of the bugZ and letting these features develop better.
I would also like to thank Romina and her team for the choice of the English text, because I did not know this author and it was a great read and a pleasure to attempt translating his text. I really liked his style and I found the translation text in particular quite touching, so I certainly would like to read some of his books.
About the results, I'd like to quote part of the words of a fellow prozian in a previous discussion about the contests
(see http://www.proz.com/forum/prozcom_translation_contests/102548-planned_change_to_qualification_round_voting-page2.html#847442 ):
[The] Level of results will be a showcase of what the community is, not more, not less >[/quote]
That is, as long as the voting system of the contests relies on the judgment (anonymous or public like in Kudoz) of the active deciding segment of the Proz.com community, the voting results can obviously only reflect how that active deciding segment of this community behaves about voting, and that obviously includes (like in Kudoz), as we have witnessed to date and as commented by some of you in this thread, some positive results and some negative results.
Results speak for themselves.
And to let results speak even louder,
I agree with Scott Alexander's suggestions
(at http://www.proz.com/forum/prozcom_translation_contests/109349-could_all_contest_entries_be_displayed_not_just_the_finalists.html )
about leaving ALL entries (finalists or not) visible of any contestant who chooses to have her/his name shown.
About the future annual contest and the possibility of having a panel of "experts" decide on the winners, don't forget that we will then have to be ready to accept: a) how Proz.com chooses this panel, and b) how this panel chooses the winners/finalists. I have the impression that there will be controversy as well in this case.
But hey, a little bit of (moderated) controversy is good for this (or any) website:
Controversy = marketing tool = more traffic/visitors = more business
Cheers,
Ivette ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Sign with blood | Jul 7, 2008 |
ICL wrote:
a) how Proz.com chooses this panel, and b) how this panel chooses the winners/finalists. I have the impression that there will be controversy as well in this case.
I have complete trust and piece of mind about those two items.
If anyone feels any other measures need to be taken, we can have people sign a 'no protesting' paper with their blood or have a tatoo in the forehead: 'I won't protest'.
Another initiative:
Let's found a 'Pro Romina' movement I guess she needs it after so much efforts to believe we are not criticizing her, we're with her.
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