Confessions of a Kudoz points grabber/Ein KudoZ-Held stellt sich seinen Kritikern

This is fun – Mats Wiman, total points at www.proz.com 16,013, writes Confessions of a ‘Kudoz point grabber’.

bq. If one is at all curious and if one wants to learn it is almost impossible to withstand the challenge put on one’s table by a person in need. It is impossible because there is always that chain of thoughts:
“Of course the answer must be….! On reflection, one could also say…., or is it possible to use….?
Let’s check it! Hm, that’s funny! Let’s check what YYY says. Hm, that’s interesting! Let’s see what Google says! Hm, maybe XXX is right after all. I think I’ll call my friend at SKF. That’s it. I knew it was something special. etc. etc.”

I must admit to being a KudoZ addict myself, although what goes into the glossary is not always good. But answering the questions is more addictive than doing a crossword puzzle.

9 thoughts on “Confessions of a Kudoz points grabber/Ein KudoZ-Held stellt sich seinen Kritikern

  1. I admit it – I’m an adict too. :-)
    BTW, thanks for adding your ‘mustard’ to a question I posed a couple of days ago. ;-)

  2. I am not much of an addict when it comes to KudoZ, though I like to answer questions now and then. For me it is a question of time, but I do try to help whenever I can. And I do ask questions from time to time myself.

    It has been quite refreshing to read Mats’ opinion on this whole issue.

    Unfortunately KudoZ tends to get very complicated and people suddenly lose all their common sense, and that is why Mats does not get very much kudos for his views.

  3. Ah, now I recognize you, DGF! Perhaps I should reinstate your comment on sausages. I just did not feel like having an argument about sausages with a German – they take British sausages as a personal affront.
    Sonja: it’s very useful, also, for instance, for seeing what words should be in dictionaries.
    Of course, I *never* get heated in KudoZ disputes myself…

  4. Yes, it’s me… Derek. I really enjoy your blog, some of the entries are just great (especially your treatment of legal terms). There’s no need to reinstate the comment though – it wasn’t all that groundshaking. And I wasn’t aware of the apparent “Würstchengefälle”. ;-)

  5. Thank you, thank you. To answer your question about cold sausages: maybe not a US thing, but done in Britain and Germany too as far as I know, sometimes. Since you aren’t really within the sausage jurisdiction of the controversy, I will drop the subject.

  6. I wish I were lucky enough to have time to answer so many questions….do these high-KudoZ folks never have any work to do? Having glanced at a few of the posts, I think you are right Margaret … the standard of some answers does really leave a lot to be desired. I must admit, I do not have a great deal of praise for the site. A few of my regular customers (otherwise quite sane companies) have started posting jobs on PROZ and farming out to the lowest bidder …. it will bounce back on them eventually …. I certainly do not offer translation services at 42 cents per line … what standard of translation do they get for such a price? Do they care I wonder…..?

    Paul

  7. Yes, well that’s certainly one way of looking at it. I don’t know the rest of the site, the job offers and so on. There are a number of those sites, but as far as I know only ProZ has this weird system of paying people with points if their answers are selected, and that must explain why they’ve collected such a big glossary, some of which is really useful, but it also means you get people who really are just out for the points, although I suppose why not?
    One thing that irritates me is how some people individually thank everybody who agrees with them (I expect you get points for agreeing or disagreeing too). I suppose that’s just my reaction, though.

  8. I realise it’s a quite a good site for those just starting out Margaret. The “linguist of the day” (or whatever it’s called) feature, is, in my view, a little irritating, as is the terminology the website uses (powwows etc.). But I guess I should stop at that… don’t want you thinking I’m against the site…. :-)
    Paul

  9. One curious thing is the way people who are Platinum members (there’s no gold or silver, is there?) get their little ad and slogan. The slogans are things reminiscent of attraktiv und preiswert, most of the time. Yesterday I saw a really good one, of a DE>EN translator living in Italy: ‘Reassuringly expensive’. Admittedly, I’ve now discovered that that is a quote from a British beer advert, which somewhat reduces my admiration. The cat avatar is nice, though.

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