| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Concern about inappropriate Kudoz participation Thread poster: expressisverbis
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Carlos Alvarez 
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:43
Member (2005)
French to English
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expressisverbis wrote:
this site risks becoming a low-quality resource
There are plenty on this forum who think that ship sailed a long time ago.
I completely agree with the sentiment behind your thread. It's such a shame because it doesn't have to be that way, and if there were real competition, it wouldn't be. But the barriers to entry, such as the network effect, are such that a dominant player can become complacent. Today the site is loading quite quickly, but recently it has been extremely slow. So slow that any potential customer using the directory to find a translator would have given up. The one consolation is that companies do eventually end up paying for their complacency. Subscriptions get cancelled, the site goes belly-up and there's a gap in the market for a new entrant. But I don't see that happening any time soon.
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Today, the India's AI abuser sugested a literal translation complete out of context in an EN to ES Kudoz question.
When I disagreed telling it was an AI translation nonsense, the AI abuser had the nerves to reply: Can you please just stop hallucinating in my ever contribution that it is AI or else, I will have to report you?
Allowing AI use in Kudoz, makes abusers like this user from India to propose mistranslations that might being added to glossaries.
This means, Proz glossaries might have mistranslations. That's a big problem, IMHO.
This is the kudoz open question > https://www.proz.com/kudoz/english-to-spanish/cinema-film-tv-drama/7212790-seal-up.html
| | | | expressisverbis
Portugal
Local time: 01:43
Member (2015)
English to Portuguese
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TOPIC STARTER
Slobodan Kozarčić wrote:
She recently started participating in Serbian (Bosnian, Croatian) KudoZ forum with mostly stupid answers. When I told her in Serbian Cyrillic script not to do that, she gave me a sassy answer as a MALE. But this is a clear cheating. Why does ProZ allow this?
Maria Laura Curzi wrote:
AI abuser sugested a literal translation complete out of context in an EN to ES Kudoz question.
When I disagreed telling it was an AI translation nonsense, the AI abuser had the nerves to reply: Can you please just stop hallucinating in my ever contribution that it is AI or else, I will have to report you?
It might be worth collecting multiple instances of this behaviour (that it's not what Proz encourages or promotes) and reporting it as a pattern of unprofessional conduct.
Proz should encourage respectful discussion and accuracy, and not allow someone to game the system and then threaten others for pointing out bad translations.
| | | | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: empty post |
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Daryo
United Kingdom
Local time: 01:43
Serbian to English
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| One thing I can't figure out | Mar 13 |
[quote]expressisverbis wrote:
Slobodan Kozarčić wrote:
She recently started participating in Serbian (Bosnian, Croatian) KudoZ forum with mostly stupid answers. When I told her in Serbian Cyrillic script not to do that, she gave me a sassy answer as a MALE. But this is a clear cheating. Why does ProZ allow this?
Maria Laura Curzi wrote:
AI abuser sugested a literal translation complete out of context in an EN to ES Kudoz question.
When I disagreed telling it was an AI translation nonsense, the AI abuser had the nerves to reply: Can you please just stop hallucinating in my ever contribution that it is AI or else, I will have to report you?
One thing I can't figure out.
How could anyone consider acceptable (/ the right thing to do) to simply repost verbatim & unchecked some AI output and present it as their 'own contribution' in translating into a language they proved they don't understand (in one case by not knowing that the same verb has a different conjugation when a woman or a man is talking)?
Is that some new evolution of the concept of 'professional integrity' and I missed the memo?
And on top of that be so sure that it's acceptable behaviour on Proz to threaten others to 'report them' for having the audacity to state the obvious?
Maria Laura Curzi wrote:
Philip Lees wrote:
Maria Laura Curzi wrote:
How come there's no rule in Kudoz about using AI to provide answers?
Because ProZ staff support the use of AI to generate KudoZ answers.
It's only a year since, after a fairly massive campaign on these forums, lasting more than six months, ChatGPT was finally stopped from answering KudoZ questions itself. Over that period, ChatGPT was a registered user of the ProZ site, with a fake profile, and it offered answers to more than 200 KudoZ enquiries.
Interested parties can find the conclusion to this story here:
https://www.proz.com/forum/prozcom_suggestions/363811-please_remove_chatgpt_option_from_kudoz_staff_removed-page14.html
It's clear from that discussion that ProZ staff see no reason why AI should not be allowed to participate in KudoZ, and they didn't give in without a fight.
The ChatGPT profile, which is completely bogus, and which ChatGPT itself has repudiated, is still active on this site.
https://www.proz.com/profile/670924
Does that answer your question?
OMG, I didn't know this. I started to use the forum/Kudoz on last year's fourth quarter, after passing my College final exam.
I'm reading the whole thread now, it's deeply disheartening. I though Proz was a place to encourage translation knowledge, but it seems I perhaps though wrong.
I see Kudoz not only as a way to helping colleagues with terminology queries, but also as a learning fountain too. Even if no answers are provided, many discussions are so eye-opening about language/contexts nuances.
But, if anyone without any linguistic knowledge is allowed to participate because can copy-paste any inaccurate AI text, how long until the learning fountain gets dry?
I'm afraid that if nothing is done it could be even worst.
Ending up with a 'dried-up fountain' would be bad enough, but there is a real danger of s.t. even worst: ending up with a 'poisoned well' full of undrinkable water - a useless pile of 'hallucinated facts' (fed into the AI by armies of the cheapest possible 'AI contributors' [see 'peanuts/monkeys...'])
I'm not talking only about Kudoz.
'Machine Translation' output has been polluting the Web for years before someone finally woke up and tried to do something about it. All that MT damage would look like no more than some silly kid's prank compared to the chaos unchecked AI could create - to the point that you could never be sure whether what you're reading/hearing/watching on your screen is at all some human’s doing nor if it was ever checked by a human knowledgeable in the subject matter!
| | | | | One person or a group | Mar 13 |
Another thing that it's unclear to this user is the profile.
This user profile shares the name with an LSP, and it has a yellow star that means it's an employee profile of the LSP, but it's unclear if there's one person using it or a group of persons, since the business page says it has 100–500 employees, but only one employee profile here.
Proz rules don't say anything about how many persons can use a profile linked to a business, although it says it is acceptable to have one profile for yourself as a freelancer and another profile affiliated to your registered business page if you desperately need to separate freelancer and employer's activity.
Kudoz rules don't say anything about business/LSP participation through employee profiles. Though, the nouns “peer” and “person” are mentioned.
So, for me, it's unclear if this user profile linked with an LSP is within Kudoz rules.
| | | | expressisverbis
Portugal
Local time: 01:43
Member (2015)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | I asked the staff for clarification | Mar 13 |
Maria Laura Curzi wrote:
Another thing that it's unclear to this user is the profile.
This user profile shares the name with an LSP, and it has a yellow star that means it's an employee profile of the LSP, but it's unclear if there's one person using it or a group of persons, since the business page says it has 100–500 employees, but only one employee profile here.
Proz rules don't say anything about how many persons can use a profile linked to a business, although it says it is acceptable to have one profile for yourself as a freelancer and another profile affiliated to your registered business page if you desperately need to separate freelancer and employer's activity.
Kudoz rules don't say anything about business/LSP participation through employee profiles. Though, the nouns “peer” and “person” are mentioned.
So, for me, it's unclear if this user profile linked with an LSP is within Kudoz rules.
In my support ticket I asked the staff directly about this issue.
Let’s see what they say. Of course, others are free to reach out to them as well. More voices can help bring clarification faster.
[Edited at 2025-03-13 21:00 GMT]
| | | | ibz
Local time: 02:43
English to German
+ ...
| The all-knowing translator from India with x language combinations | Mar 14 |
Maria Laura Curzi wrote:
Today, the India's AI abuser sugested a literal translation complete out of context in an EN to ES Kudoz question.
When I disagreed telling it was an AI translation nonsense, the AI abuser had the nerves to reply: Can you please just stop hallucinating in my ever contribution that it is AI or else, I will have to report you?
Allowing AI use in Kudoz, makes abusers like this user from India to propose mistranslations that might being added to glossaries.
This means, Proz glossaries might have mistranslations. That's a big problem, IMHO.
This is the kudoz open question > https://www.proz.com/kudoz/english-to-spanish/cinema-film-tv-drama/7212790-seal-up.html
She is known for her hair-raising (abusive) reactions when you question her answers.
And she endorses ProZ.com's Professional Guidelines - which also says something about this feature (no guarantee of quality at all).
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IrinaN
United States
Local time: 20:43
English to Russian
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Maria Laura Curzi wrote:
Proz glossaries might have mistranslations.
They are crawling with mistakes, especially individual glossaries.
My apologies and big thanks to real, professional and knowledgeable contributors. I appreciate your help, had to look a few things up back in time.
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 02:43
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
IrinaN wrote:
They are crawling with mistakes, especially individual glossaries.
Absolutely. I knew Kudoz many years before my Proz membership because it showed up in my Google search results and the suggestions in many cases simply can't be trusted. I basically only use it as a suggestion, that I further investigate to get some real confirmation. And "experts" that claim to have the answer solely because "I have worked for several years in..." are completely ignored, unless I can find something that backs up their claim.
| | | | expressisverbis
Portugal
Local time: 01:43
Member (2015)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | A dangerous precedent | Mar 14 |
If the glossaries are already filled with mistakes, the last thing we need is more inaccuracies, and from someone who isn’t a native speaker (at least in my language pairs), doesn’t fully master my native language, and supposedly represents a company that should be acting here as an intermediary, not a direct contributor.
If one supposed agency is allowed to do this, what stops other agencies from doing the same thing?
Soon, we could have agencies like this one flooding Kudoz wit... See more If the glossaries are already filled with mistakes, the last thing we need is more inaccuracies, and from someone who isn’t a native speaker (at least in my language pairs), doesn’t fully master my native language, and supposedly represents a company that should be acting here as an intermediary, not a direct contributor.
If one supposed agency is allowed to do this, what stops other agencies from doing the same thing?
Soon, we could have agencies like this one flooding Kudoz with low-quality, AI-generated, or uninformed answers just to gain visibility.
That would turn the forum into a marketing tool for agencies rather than a professional space for expert translators to collaborate and ensure quality.
It’s a dangerous precedent. Not only is it dangerous for someone to answer terminology questions without knowledge and experience of a language, it's even more dangerous to do so on behalf of an agency.
In my opinion, this behaviour creates an unfair advantage: it undermines both individual translators and other agencies that play by the rules.
I am still waiting for a clarification from the staff regarding this matter.
[Edited at 2025-03-14 10:44 GMT]
[Edited at 2025-03-14 10:45 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Flooding Kudoz with AI mistranslations | Mar 14 |
expressisverbis wrote:
If the glossaries are already filled with mistakes, the last thing we need is more inaccuracies, and from someone who isn’t a native speaker (at least in my language pairs), doesn’t fully master my native language, and supposedly represents a company that should be acting here as an intermediary, not a direct contributor.
If one supposed agency is allowed to do this, what stops other agencies from doing the same thing?
Soon, we could have agencies like this one flooding Kudoz with low-quality, AI-generated, or uninformed answers just to gain visibility.
That would turn the forum into a marketing tool for agencies rather than a professional space for expert translators to collaborate and ensure quality.
It’s a dangerous precedent. Not only is it dangerous for someone to answer terminology questions without knowledge and experience of a language, it's even more dangerous to do so on behalf of an agency.
In my opinion, this behaviour creates an unfair advantage: it undermines both individual translators and other agencies that play by the rules.
I am still waiting for a clarification from the staff regarding this matter.
[Edited at 2025-03-14 10:44 GMT]
[Edited at 2025-03-14 10:45 GMT]
I think that's exactly what this user is doing; it's flooding Kudoz with mistranslations, just to reach the top ranks and gain visibility. Using Kudoz ranks as a cheaper advertisement.
The employee profile has listed 90 working languages; it seems we are in the presence of a Guinness Worldwide Record holder! However, Spanish and Portuguese are not listed.
The only thing related to these two languages in that profile is a huge list of resources, that has Spanish and Portuguese dictionaries/glossaries included.
So, how is it possible that this user can participate in Kudoz languages without being native or proficient?
As this user isn't native nor proficient in Spanish and Portuguese, there's a high probability that the replies might be fabricated by AI without any human editing. And all these AI inaccurate replies are ending in Kudoz glossaries.
Let's say goodbye to Proz offering professional terminology resources.
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