| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Allergic to confidence level 5 Thread poster: Kim Metzger
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| If there's a well-grounded reason | Sep 2, 2008 |
Kim Metzger wrote:
Question: do you think neutral comments on a person's confidence level should be prohibited? If the comment does not contain any objective reason why the confidence level is exaggerated, I think comments on the confidence level are not appropriate. I wouldn't appreciate someone commenting "I am allergic to CL 5" without giving any reason why the answerer should have chosen a lower CL. If no-one is supposed to use that CL, why bother offering that option?
I can imagine a lot of situations where someone would use CL 5. I am specialized in financial translations and only recently, I was working on an insurance policy, which contained a list of insured car parts. As I don't know anything about cars, I had to look up a lot of terms. But if I had asked for the translation of some of those terms in the KudoZ section, I'm sure several translators would have been able to give me the translation without even looking up the terms, as I'm sure the terms were common terminology for translators specialized in that field. And if a translator is 100% sure that his translation is the term used in the industry, I really don't see why (s)he shouldn't use CL 5. As an asker, I would prefer (s)he use CL 5, because a combination of a CL 5 for an answer and a specialization in that particular field in the answerer's profile, gives me a good basis to decide whether to accept that particular answer or not. If I saw a CL 4, I would interpret that as: "The translator is not entirely sure, so maybe he's not an expert in the field after all."
If I see a financial question, and I'm 100% sure about the answer, because I'm sure that that term is what is used in the financial sector, I give a CL 5.
On the other hand, if someone abuses CL 5, just to get KudoZ points, it should be possible to prevent that person from using this CL, or based on the peer comments, moderators should be allowed to adjust the answerer's CL. But that is another source for flaming and insults and endless discussions, I'm afraid...
My two cents
Joeri
| | | | | Agree with Vanda | Sep 2, 2008 |
Hi all,
Vanda Nissen wrote:
Well, sometimes it does because answers with a higher level of confidence tend to appear in front of the ones with a lower level of confidence. I personally think that this rule should be reconsidered. Last week I answered the legal question, and because I found the answer in a very reputable dictionary and checked it on the net afterwards, I chose the 4 th level (ususally I choose 3th), and 10 min later another person, using exactly the same terms just twisting them around, entered the answer but using the 5th level of confidence so his answer appears in front of mine now, and the asker has not made his decision yet, so it would not actually surprise me if the one with the higher CL is going to be preferred.
This is exactly what I was going to write. While I think that there definitely are situations when a CL 5 is appropriate, I tend to use 3 or 4 for my KudoZ answers because you normally cannot be 100% sure that your suggestion is the best answer to any given question.
However, I think the problem is that most answerers are trying to get as many KudoZ points as possible. As long as an answer with CL 5 and no agree will be listed above an identical (or even better) answer with CL 3 and one agree in the summary of answers and therefore will be more likely to be picked by the asker, answerers will continue to select CL 5 for their answers.
I'm not suggesting to do away with CL alltogether because it can be very helpful if it is used the way it should be. It might be a good idea though not to use it for ranking answers in the summary of answers.
Just my 2 cents.
Claudia
| | | | | The allergy to CL5 gives a backlash. | Sep 2, 2008 |
Sometimes I feel when I post questions that the reliability of the answer is inversely related to the CL. But there are a lot of people in the Scandinavian SCs who, like the Germans, don't believe in boasting too much, so the grade is often 4, and typically there are only a couple of answers anyway.
If someone has bothered to post an answer, but given it a rating of 2, then I check it out - very carefully.
I occasionally post answers myself with CL ratings of 2. I see t... See more Sometimes I feel when I post questions that the reliability of the answer is inversely related to the CL. But there are a lot of people in the Scandinavian SCs who, like the Germans, don't believe in boasting too much, so the grade is often 4, and typically there are only a couple of answers anyway.
If someone has bothered to post an answer, but given it a rating of 2, then I check it out - very carefully.
I occasionally post answers myself with CL ratings of 2. I see the question and an anwer flies into my head, but I may be too busy to check it. I fire it off anyway, adding a suitable caveat that I may be way off, but explaining why I suggested it. Sometimes I am way off, and that's life...
I know from situations outside KudoZ, in my own work, that my gut feelings tend to fall into two categories. Sometimes they are spot on, and I've no idea why, but on checking properly, they work. Or else they are just so embarrassing...
I did recently set my CL as 5 for an asnwer to a not-for-points question. There turned out to be other answers, but I got some agrees too, and no way was anyone saying my answer was wrong. I normally set it at 3 or 4 depending on... guess!
Far more relevant than the level of confidence is the name of the answerer. There are some people I believe almost blindly (almost, because I have made some silly mistakes there too - like not checking that it REALLY fitted the context...). There are newbies who look convincing, provide good explanations, and can be trusted when they have settled into the system.
And there are those with a CL of 5 because it never enters their heads that they might have misunderstood somewhere...
I always read all the answers and at first ignore the levels of confidence, but in some cases they are useful when I know the answerer.
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| | | | Angela Dickson (X) 
United Kingdom
Local time: 14:13
French to English
+ ...
Daniela Furini wrote:
as far as I am concerned, when I make a question that gets quite a few answers, I read very carefully all of them and give as much consideration to those that are at the bottom of the list as to those that are at the top. thus I believe the problem of good answers being pushed to the bottom of the list because of a lower CL is not really a big deal.
I agree with Daniela. I haven't asked many questions, but I did ask a couple at the end of last week, and just went back to look at the confidence levels of the answers given - I didn't give them any weight when assessing the answer. In both cases there were answers that were completely off the mark that had CLs of 5. This didn't prevent me from distinguishing the sensible answers from the nonsense.
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| 100% confidence for 100% incorrect answers | Sep 2, 2008 |
Angela Dickson wrote:
Daniela Furini wrote:
as far as I am concerned, when I make a question that gets quite a few answers, I read very carefully all of them and give as much consideration to those that are at the bottom of the list as to those that are at the top. thus I believe the problem of good answers being pushed to the bottom of the list because of a lower CL is not really a big deal.
I agree with Daniela. I haven't asked many questions, but I did ask a couple at the end of last week, and just went back to look at the confidence levels of the answers given - I didn't give them any weight when assessing the answer. In both cases there were answers that were completely off the mark that had CLs of 5. This didn't prevent me from distinguishing the sensible answers from the nonsense.
I find that the most dire combination. The hard sell to cover up lack of knowledge of the field/language(s) or poor reading skills (ie they misread the question and then fire off an answer full blast). One former site member used to systematically use 5 CL for ALL answers. I ended up ignoring the 5 altogether because its systematic use makes it meaningless. Some people seem to view KudoZ purely as a marketing tool and forget the the actual idea behind it is to help askers. Kudoz has become a linguistic minefield as a result.
| | | | hazmatgerman (X)
Local time: 15:13
English to German
| mathematical modification | Sep 2, 2008 |
How about:
automatic modification of initial CL by applying to it the ratio of points accumulated to points possible theoretically for this partucular answerer. Statistically this should give a pretty reliable yardstick. For example: someone has 4000 KudoZ gained with 1000 answers, i.e. a perfect score (In case anybody is curios: I only manage 0.33). Any CL entered by that person would remain unchanged. Someone with 1000 Kudoz for 1000 would see their CL multiplied by .025, giving 1.25 for... See more How about:
automatic modification of initial CL by applying to it the ratio of points accumulated to points possible theoretically for this partucular answerer. Statistically this should give a pretty reliable yardstick. For example: someone has 4000 KudoZ gained with 1000 answers, i.e. a perfect score (In case anybody is curios: I only manage 0.33). Any CL entered by that person would remain unchanged. Someone with 1000 Kudoz for 1000 would see their CL multiplied by .025, giving 1.25 for a initial CL of 5.
I know this sounds rather mechanical and cold, but it has some realism in it if I'm not mistaken.
Any comments much appreciated.
Plus: complete agreement - linguistically, for sure - with Kim Metzger.
M.A.T. ▲ Collapse
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